This is one of the more challenging times of the year for basketball coaches. After all, no other sport has its season broken up by two major holidays, and Christmas week is one of the busiest times of the year.

Each local school handles the break a little differently. Keith, Selma, Dallas County and Southside took part in the Dallas County Tournament and then played in another tournament after Christmas. Ellwood Christian played in the Linden Classic and played Dallas County Friday night.

“We’ve been practicing every day,” said Ellwood coach Darrell Walker. “Over these two weeks, we only let our kids off for two days and those were days between Christmas and New Years.”

Walker said the team got both Christmas and New Year’s Day off, but was back in the gym the day after in both circumstances.

Across the board, that seemed to be the way most local coaches handled the break.

Selma girls’ basketball coach Anthony Harris said he’s always found it’s better to keep playing games. It’s hard to argue with his philosophy, considering Selma has had 13 straight 20 win seasons and at 15-1 currently sports the best record in the county, regardless of gender.

“If you let them off for Christmas, some of them are going to eat too much and they are going to come back out of shape,” Harris said. “And when we go back in, we are going to be playing. We have two games back to back on Jan. 6 and Jan. 7.”

There are other benefits to playing holiday tournaments too.

Competing in a tournament is as close to regional play as a team can get during the regular season. By playing in tournaments, Harris said his team gets to see teams from around the state and other teams and coaches get to see his players, making it more likely that they’ll be recruited.

“You’ve got to remember you aren’t the only one playing tournaments,” Harris said. “There are tournaments across the state being played.”

Dallas County basketball coach Willie Moore said he’s learned with experience how to make sure his team stays in shape, while also giving his players time off for the holidays.

“At the end of the day, you want to give them time to be kids and do some things with their peers,” Moore said. “You don’t want their break to be all about basketball. Now if you’d asked me that when I was 25, we were going to practice every day.”

After a couple of weeks where basketball took a backseat to the holidays, every local team will be back in action next week.

The local schools with the longest layoffs are Morgan Academy and Meadowview Christian, who haven’t played games since mid-December and will be playing after nearly a three week layoff.