Here’s the preps holiday tournament readers chose as their favorite in southwest IL

The Belleville News-Democrat shifted gears a bit for this week’s poll.

With a break in games before the holiday tournaments, the BND asked readers to select their favorite holiday tournament.

Options included the Centralia Holiday Basketball Tournament, the Collinsville Prairie Farms Holiday Classic, the Freeburg-Columbia Holiday Tournament, the Mascoutah Invitational, the Mater Dei Christmas Tournament and the Pinckneyville Duster Thomas Hoops Classic. The poll ended at noon Thursday.

In the end, readers selected the Freeburg-Columbia Holiday Tournament as their favorite. That annual event which alternates yearly between Freeburg High School and Columbia High School secured 59% of the votes.

To be clear, this poll is not scientific. In fact, we invite you to vote as many times as you want. It’s all for fun, BND readers.

Next week will be a vote on the top performer from the holiday tournaments. The poll will appear on the BND’s website — www.bnd.com — at 5 a.m. Tuesday.

The BND then will resume the normal Player of the Week polls Jan. 11. Anyone can nominate a varsity boys or girls high school basketball player for a future poll by emailing gvartanian@bnd.com.

Previous poll winners: Taylor Smith of Belleville East High School; Cole Stuart of Freeburg High School; Dylan Murphy of Columbia High School; and Clareece Davis of Althoff Catholic High School.