At least 16 teams will be on hand Saturday for the 3 on 3 Memorial Tournament 4 Curtis Robert Cotton at Rangeview High School.
Two days before the tournament, Rangeview boys basketball coach Shawn Palmer said 8 youth teams and 8 teams in the high school/young adult age group — all boys teams — had registered and a few more might join the field before play begins at 10 a.m. Saturday at Rangeview High School, 17599 E. Iliff Ave.
The tournament is in honor of the late Curtis Cotton Jr., a basketball star at Rangeview from 2000-04 who died on May 7, 2010, at the age of 23 from injuries suffered in a single-car accident on Interstate 225 near East Iliff Avenue.
Funds raised from the tournament are scheduled to be donated by the family to various organizations in the Aurora community, such as the City of Aurora sports program, that were important to Cotton Jr. as he was growing up.
An explosive 6-foot-3 guard, Cotton Jr. scored 1,036 points in his career at Rangeview, which still ranks fourth on the school’s all-time scoring list. He averaged 25.2 points per game for the Raiders as a senior in the 2003-04 season, in which he made the starting five of the Aurora Sentinel’s All-City Boys Basketball Team and also played in The Show All-Star Game at Pepsi Center as part of the top 20 players in the state.
Cotton Jr. went on to play two years at Western Nebraska and one at New Mexico Highlands. He had been accepted into Johnson & Wales University in Denver.
Several former Rangeview players will be on hand to compete in the tournament, which will consist of 20 minute games with running clocks. Winners are the first team to 21 points or whoever is ahead when time expires. All teams will play at least three games.
Championship games for both divisions will be at roughly 2 p.m. according to Palmer.
Reach Sports Editor Courtney Oakes at sports@aurorasentinel.com or 303-750-7555