Boys State Basketball in Rapid City gets talked about the whole season and hyped up until the six hour car ride starts. Packing the car full of people, filling up the tank with gas and fitting the suitcases in the trunk like Tetris. The schedule was perfect for students who wanted to leave on Thursday morning but the weather was not. Traveling day, for most people, was Wednesday after school due to the predicted snow storm coming in early Thursday morning. 

LHS students spent days, maybe even weeks, preparing their outfits for the themes of the games. Students prepared well with their outfits, knowing beforehand that the themes were going to be blue out for the first game, St. Patty’s Day for the second game and USA for the third game. One factor that no one was prepared for was how expensive the concessions were. For example, water was $3, a pretzel was $8 and if you wanted cheese it was an extra dollar. It did not end up mattering though, the pretzel was worth the $8. 

The LHS boys played at 6:00 p.m. on March 16, 7:45 p.m. on March 17 and 6:00 p.m. on March 18. Students never had to wake up early to make it to the games, they got to sleep in. On the other hand, when it came to actually going to the game, students were lined up outside the doors of The Monument, where the tournament was located, at least an hour before the game to get front row seats in the student section. The workers at The Monument would not let students in until an hour before the game unless there was a game before the LHS one. In that case the students could get in whenever they wanted, causing chaos for some. Many students would get there before the first game and sit through that whole game and then watch the one they came for just to get the front row experience. 

While waiting for the LHS game to start, students were watching the game before it. It became known that the LHS student section was rooting for Yankton and the JHS student section was rooting for Mitchell in the Yankton vs Mitchell game. The LHS student section decided to go for Yankton because Mitchell was the team that took them out of the tournament and JHS joined Mitchell because Yankton took them out of it. At one point there were LHS students in the front row of the Yankton student section.

Boys State Basketball was all that it was hyped up to be. Everybody was there, everybody was screaming and everybody wanted to win. Although it was not the outcome that LHS students hoped for, it was an experience that students will never forget.