One of the biggest all-Indigenous high school basketball competitions in North America wrapped up in the Valley on Saturday, with two rivalries heating up on center court in the tourney finals at PHX Arena.
The Native American Basketball Invitational — better known as NABI — began with 24 teams in 2003. Now it’s grown to a record 204 teams — including 85 from Arizona and six from Canada — with 3,129 athletes representing more than 160 federally recognized tribes from Phoenix to Anchorage, Alaska.
They played 508 games in all — ending with Arizona’s Rezbombers program making history by having both boys and girls teams vying to become national champions in the pair of bracket finals.
The boys squad dropped 78-64 to Phoenix’s Young Gunz, while the defending girls champs defeated Oklahoma’s Legendary Elite 58-47 in a rematch from last year — winning their third NABI title in four years.
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Last month, the seven Upper and Lower Basin states failed to come up with new terms defining how the Colorado River is to be shared — after missing a federal deadline set by the Interior Department. -
In a weeklong series, KJZZ looks at Arizona’s connection to the Japanese internment policies that were instituted following Pearl Harbor, and how it ties into the broader story of racialized public policy. Gabriel Pietrorazio joined The Show for a closer look at the series. -
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