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What better way to remember a local sporting legend than with a tournament in his honor?

The inaugural James C. "Jimmy" Campbell Memorial Tournament tips off today at host Maryville College.

Campbell roamed sidelines, side courts, and eventually the press boxes and scorer's tables as player, coach, mentor and WBCR radio personality for MC basketball and football. It was Campbell, who recommended Maryville men's coach Randy Lambert for the job and was there broadcasting the Scots Great South championship when Lambert won his 500th game.

The inaugural event features a high-caliber line up full of local connections. Former University of Tennessee cager Mac Petty, who played for the Vols in the 1967 Southeastern Conference championship season, directs Wabash College (0-1). Petty is 445-363 in 32 seasons at WC, including the 1982 Division III National Title. The Little Giants are coming off a 14-13 season that saw the squad from Crawfordsville, Ind. make a run to the North Coast Athletic Conference finals with a semifinal upset over No. 11 Wooster. Wabash takes on LaGrange today at 5 p.m. in the tourney opener and then takes on the Fighting Scots (2-0) Sunday at 4 p.m.

Webster University (0-1) is the other distant traveller -- coming in from St. Louis -- to the show and makes it a homecoming of sorts for former Maryville assistant Chris Bunch. The Gorlocks were a 14-win club last season that bowed out in the St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference semifinals.

The Scots survived a tough battle at No. 21 Centre Wednesday, where an 18-point second half cushion melted away to a 72-70 win at the foul line.

Senior post Greg Hernandez has come running out of the gate with a pair of double-double games as Maryville works to find its outside stroke in the early going. MC is just 8-of 38 (21 percent) behind the arc with outside surgeons Jordan Damron (0-of-6), Wes Lambert (3-of-10) and Ben Williamson (1-of-5) working hard to find an open shot.