A Sept. 14 update to the IHSA’s “Return To Play” guidelines included information that may have left high school basketball fans wondering about the status of some of their favorite holiday tournaments.

Among decisions made at the IHSA Board of Directors’ September meeting was waiving a two-event-per-week limitation put upon winter, spring and summer sports when the modified seasons were first approved in late July.

This was one of the significant blockades facing holiday basketball tournaments, which more often than not include teams playing in more than two games over the course of just a few days.

However, local athletic directors who host multi-team events indicated there still are no plans for these matchups to return to the 2020-21 calendar.

Monticello’s Dan Sheehan (Monticello Holiday Hoopla), Bismarck-Henning/Rossville-Alvin’s Tom Johnson (Blue Devil Classic and BSN Classic) and St. Joseph-Ogden’s Justin Franzen (Toyota of Danville Classic, SJ-O Christie Clinic Shootout) each told The News-Gazette that their respective tournaments will remain sidelined at this time.

Still at issue is previous guidance that prohibits winter sports teams from holding a tournament featuring more than three teams.

Even if that was off the table, however, Sheehan said it’s hard for him to envision a Holiday Hoopla this school year.

“The amount of planning and prep work that goes into it (is immense),” Sheehan said. “And we don’t even know if we can begin basketball on Nov. 16, because as the guidance is right now in the (Illinois Department of Public Health) all-sports policy, basketball is a medium-risk sport and we have not been provided permission (to play games).”

Tournaments are a staple of winter prep athletics — in basketball and wrestling, specifically. So teams’ schedules in those sports, assuming they’re able to compete in any capacity under IDPH and IHSA rules, will look far different than they have in prior seasons.

“In wrestling, you could host a wrestling triangular or you could have two schools wrestle (and) the third team would have to be at an alternate site in the school,” Sheehan said. “We translated that to if you want to have a (basketball) shootout … we think that if you follow the guidance of 50 (gathering rule) you may be able to pull off a shootout.”

Colin Likas is the preps coordinator at The News-Gazette. He can be reached at clikas@news-gazette.com, or on Twitter at @clikasNG.