33RD ANNUAL CANEY VALLEY TOURNAMENT STARTS A DAY EARLY DUE TO PREDICTED WINTER WEATHER
The 33rd annual Caney Valley Tournament begins a day early due to predicted winter weather. Games run Wednesday through Friday.
BECKY BURCH/Bartlesville Area Sports
By Mike Tupa
Jan. 21, 2026
BARTLESVILLE AREA SPORTS REPORT
One of the area’s greatest winter sports traditions tips off on Wednesday. Speaking of winter sports, this year's tournament has been pushed forward one day due to predicted winter weather.
The format has changed notably during the years for the Caney Valley Basketball Tournament. At its inception in the early 1990s, the tourney took place earlier in the season and lasted for an entire week.
It eventually moved to the third week of January and, a few years ago, changed to a Thursday-through-Saturday format. As mentioned above, this year's tourney is set for Wednesday through Friday.
But the tourney has retained the same spunky spirit of fierce competition, rivalry battles, program pride and top-notch teams.
This year’s tourney is all that — and then some.
Ten of the teams came into this week with winning records — and two others sat at .500. That means only four of the schools owned losing marks going into the week.
In addition, three of the teams are ranked in the Top 20 — Riverfield Country Day boys (No. 6, Class A), Dewey boys (No. 17, Class 3A) and Caney Valley girls (No. 17, Class 2A).
On the boys’ side, pre-tourney favorites could include Riverfield (16-0), Dewey (13-2), the Caney Valley Trojans (10-4) and the Caney Valley (Kan.) Bullpups (8-3). Liberty and Cleveland also are hovering around 10 wins.
For the girls, the top three pre-tourney championship contenders appear to be the Caney Valley Lady Trojans (12-2) and the Caney Valley (Kan.) Lady Pups (10-1) and Dewey (9-6). Riverfield and Barnsdall both come in with eight wins.
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