The magic number For the basketball amateur looking for tournament play, 3 on 3 is all you get BY SAM PFEIFLE

It depends on the court. The beautiful view of the Eastern Prom usually attracts plenty of players. The raggedy asphalt of Brackett Street often features a lone gunman, maybe working on foul shots. Even in the morning, Deering Oaks is a distinct possibility, and Payson Park is a virtual lock in mid-afternoon.

Playing basketball, the full court game is the only game worth playing. It doesn’t even have to be five on five. For some of the smaller courts, four on four is a superior pursuit. There’s more room to roam in the half court, more chance of the home-run pass on every break. Heck, three on three is fine for the caged confines of Brackett Street.

Only when there simply aren’t enough people to get a full-court game going should anyone think of playing a half-court game. It’s slow and plodding unless everyone is in good shape and willing to continually cut and move for the ball. Likely, the game descends into a series of one-on-one encounters where one player drives and hopes to be fouled while his/her teammates hover outside the lane, pretending to box out, but not really trying that hard.

Hey, sometimes it’s the only option. I met a kid named Tim Sullivan one time because we were the only two people at the Brackett Street courts, we played one on one, and though I pulled out to an early lead he came back and won due to my inferior conditioning. Afterwards, I told him I’d been spending too much time typing at my computer. He asked why.

He soon became a Phoenix freelancer, then a staffer at the Biddeford Journal Tribune, and now a staffer with the Concord Monitor. Thanks to pickup basketball, he finally got to stop waiting tables.

That’s how I think of it, anyway.

But that’s a better result than most. Usually, cobbled together one on ones and two on twos and three on threes in the half court end in a lot of disgust at missed shots and one’s conditioning, and two hands in the back going for every rebound.

So why, oh why, is the standard amateur basketball tournament the half-court three on three? Probably because they’re easier to organize than full court games: less court space needed, more registration fees from more teams who need fewer players, fewer T-shirts to hand out when only the first eight teams to register get them. The tournaments dot the Maine landscape and the yearly calendar, usually hosted by a corporate do-gooder to benefit an admirable charity: the Skowhegan Savings Bank organizes a yearly event in November, the Maine Potato Blossom Festival has one in July, the Maine Credit Union League swishes out cancer in February, and there are two tournaments right on the horizon.

Concerts 4 Charity has organized the Charity Jam, at Howard’s Sports in Saco, for this coming Saturday, August 14, and Tom Nolette’s Maine Basketball Report has announced the MBR.org Community College 3 on 3 for September 11 (gals) and 18 (guys). Both are ambitious undertakings.

C4C picked up where local hip-hopper Ramone Jones of Ill Natural (who used to play ball at USM) handed off, this being the fourth year the Charity Jam has taken place, but the first year it’s been in Saco with C4C on point. Still, the plan’s the same: lots of teams playing basketball in front of lots of bands playing music. This year, Ill Natural is headlining in front of Poverty, Sly-Chi, Stream, Ransom, and bunch of other acts as diverse as Poverty’s rap and Ransom’s aggressive metal. Plus, they were hoping for 64 teams in the 18+ division and 32 in the teen division.

But, as of Monday, they have "14 teams signed up," says C4C’s Chris Lowry. He’s hopeful there’ll be a good walk-up, though: "Usually there’s about a dozen who show up the day of." Getting the three guys together on the spot probably won’t be a problem, but getting up the $180 might prove a challenge. But, hey, half of it’s going to charity.

"The winning adult team gets half of the proceeds," explains Lowry. "Each team has to play for a charity. On the day of the show, all the charities will be in a hat, and we’ll pick out one that gets the other half of the money." There’s also going to be a bouncy castle, plus appearances by Slugger and Oakie, for the kiddos.

Nolette’s tourney is a bit cheaper at $80, and all the money is already designated for Maine community college athletics programs, most specifically the Southern and Central Maine community colleges. He’s looking for entrants in youth divisions of sixth, seventh, eighth, tenth, and 12th grade, plus open ("very competitive"), under and over 30 adult divisions. Men and women, remember. If he can get even four teams in each division to come to play at the CMCC gym in Auburn, he’s going to be hosting at least 192 players. You can count me impressed if he can get 64 teams to cough up $80, but I won’t be a naysayer.

There are clearly people out there who feel differently than I do about the half-court three-on-three game. They like running the pick and roll over and over and over again. Shooting wild tired threes just to break the monotony. Driving the lane with the expressed purposed of throwing up trash. Those people are probably actually good at basketball.

Sam Pfeifle can be reached at spfeifle@phx.com. The Charity Jam happens at Howard’s Sports, in Saco, Aug. 14 (visit www.concerts4charity.org); the MBR.org Community College 3 on 3 happens at CMCC, in Auburn, Sept. 11 and 18 (visit www.mbr.org).