Three basketball teams from South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation came to Muskogee to shoot some hoops with teams from Florida, Arizona and parts between.

They came not just to win, but “For the Love of the Game.”

“It took us 18 and a half hours to get here,” said Yvonne DeCory, a coach for the reservation’s Basketball Divas girls’ team. “We have our youth development program and they all have dreams of playing professional basketball. They love the game.”

The Divas are among 35 teams from across the United States participating in the For the Love of the Game basketball tournament, which runs through Saturday at Bacone College and Muskogee High School.

The tournament is sponsored by For the Love of the Game, a Henryetta organization dedicated to helping Native Americans “build character through sports,” said Lucas Taylor, organization chairman.

He said the organization had held basketball tournaments in Henryetta, but wanted a larger venue. He said a friend invited him to Muskogee.

“The Muskogee Chamber of Commerce embraced us, and Bacone College embraced us,” Taylor said. “Muskogee has bigger facilities, more things for the kids to do.”

He said Bacone has opened its student housing for team members.

“We have 35 teams and average about eight, 10 players per team, so that’s about 300 kids,” he said. “With families and everyone else coming, you’re talking about 1,000 people or more.”

He took a deep breath in amazement.

Taylor said teams came from 10 other states outside Oklahoma: Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Florida, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa.

Teams, mostly made up of middle school and high school students, arrived Wednesday. They spent Wednesday afternoons in sessions where they learned about college recruiting, getting financial aid and scholarships.

“Bacone awarded six full-tuition scholarships to our participants,” he said.

Preliminary basketball action began Thursday and continues through today with a double-elimination tournament on Saturday, Taylor said.

Nick Puoetone, who coached a Kiowa team from the Anadarko area said his goal this weekend is “just to have fun, play hard and try to keep them out of trouble.”

“They love the game of basketball,” his wife, Marla Puoetone said.

For some, the game is a way out of poor conditions.

DeCory, an Oglala-Sioux, said the county where the Pine Ridge Reservation is, is one of the poorest in the United States.

“Our unemployment rate is 87 percent,” she said. “Basketball is a way out. Our girls won the South Dakota State Championship this year.”

She said the Oglala-Sioux sent three teams, the Basketball Divas girls team, the Finest seventh-grade team and the Super Heroes high school-age team.