The No. 1 high school tournament in the nation is bringing another stacked field to Fort Myers. We can't tell you who's coming to this year's Culligan City of Palms Classic just yet - that'll have to wait until next month - but we can tell you that five of the top 10 teams on the MaxPreps Way-Too-Early Top 25 for 2018-19 will grace the Suncoast Credit Union Arena come December.
 
Bryan Antoine hits game winer - COP - See :40 mark for his buzzer beater 
2018 #SC30SelectCamp Experience - see :58 in
2018 _SC30SelectCamp Experience - see :58 for his buzzer beater
If you need someone to hit a shot with the clock ticking down, just give the ball to Bryan Antoine. The 6-foot-5 shooting guard who drilled a half-court shot to give the Ranney School (Tinton Falls, New Jersey) the win in the 2017 Culligan City of Palms Classic consolation bracket title game hit another game-winning buzzer beater earlier this month at Stephen Curry's elite high school basketball camp. Curry himself jumped in on the celebration after Antoine's latest feat.
There's a reason Mike Krzyzewski, John Calipari and Roy Williams have all been spotted in the stands at the Culligan City of Palms Classic. The top three players in the ESPN 100 college recruiting database for the class of 2019 appeared in the most recent City of Palms. The same is true for five of the top 10 on the ESPN list.
Director of Officiating Kevin Hetherington joins us again for more insight about the people in charge of the games. In July, he told us about identifying new officiating talent and what he looks for in up-and-coming referees. Now, he talks about the kind of talent he has to replace and how he prepares for the tournament each year. 


Q. Last time you talked about going to camps and recruiting new referees for the tournament. Where are some of the referees from last year going?


A.  I had two G League guys do the championship games last year. They're younger guys, but my guess is over the course of the next couple of years, I won't be able to have those guys anymore, because their schedule is going to be so full of high-paying games that I'm not going to be able to get them back to Fort Myers. We had a young, local guy here from Fort Myers, Brent Haskell. He's worked the tournament for me the last few years. Brent just got hired into the G League. He just refereed out in Las Vegas in the NBA Summer League. He's another one of those guys who's just kind of come up through the system. He's got a pretty good referee future ahead of him, but I may not be able to keep him, so I have to be able to replace people like him.

Q. Once the field is set, tournament Vice President Donnie Wilkie talks to you about the matchups. Why is it important for officials to know who's playing?

A.  I want to know, do I have two big men going at it? Because if I do, in most cases, we can allow those two big guys to play. If you have one good big man, and another team has inferior big men, you can't just let the team with the one big man just push everybody around, either. You're trying to understand the contrast in styles that you have and what makes a team go.  The more information we have ahead of time, which is where Donnie comes in, the better. People can misconstrue that and think we're showing some kind of favoritism, which is not the case. You just need to know the matchups.