Change has always been part of the game

And yet for the first 14 years of the 32-year-old tournament, games were never played on Thanksgiving.

It wasn't until 1992 that basketball fans traded mom's roasted turkey for Sullivan Arena's hot dogs on Thanksgiving Day. That's when UAA tossed out tradition and scheduled games on the holiday.

It wasn't the first change in the tournament, and it wasn't the last.

"There's been a lot of incarnations of the Shootout," said Rusty Osborne, the UAA men's basketball coach. "I remember Monday night championship games with Sundays off. It's not like it hasn't changed over the years."

This year's Shootout brings perhaps the biggest change ever -- instead of an eight-team men's tournament, there will be only six teams, including UAA.

Here's a look at how the tournament has matured and mutated over the years, complete with trivia questions for the Shootout-obsessed:

1978 -- The tournament debuts as an eight-team, three-day affair at Fort Richardson's Buckner Fieldhouse. It begins the Friday after Thanksgiving and ends Sunday. Trivia question: Why wasn't the Shootout held at West High, which at the time had the city's biggest gymnasium?

1979 -- The tournament is renamed the Great Alaska Shootout, a name inspired by CBS analyst Billy Packer, who used the phrase the previous year when talking about the tournament. Trivia question: What was the Shootout's original name?

1980 -- The Northern Lights Invitational -- a four-team women's tournament -- debuts at UAA's Sports Center. Trivia question: Who won the inaugural tournament?

1981 -- The Northern Lights Invitational becomes an eight-team tournament, making it equitable with the men's tournament.

1983 -- After five years at Buckner, the Shootout moves to the newly opened Sullivan Arena. Trivia question: Which team was the last to claim a championship at Buckner?

1987 -- The Shootout championship game is moved from Sunday to Monday to accommodate ESPN, which in 1985 began airing live games from the tournament. Trivia question: How did ESPN, two years earlier, help create what is considered a watershed moment for UAA basketball?

1992 -- After tipping off on the Friday after Thanksgiving for 14 straight years, the Shootout gobbles up Thanksgiving. Play begins on Wednesday and ends on Saturday, with games scheduled on the holiday for the first time. Trivia question: What prompted the change?

1993 -- As a money-saving move, UAA slices the Northern Lights Invitational in half and makes it a four-team, round-robin tournament with no official champion.

1995 -- The Northern Lights returns to an eight-team format and moves to December. Previous tournaments had bounced around between January, February and March.

1998 -- UAA pulls the plug on the Northern Lights Invitational for budgetary reasons. Trivia question: What team in this year's Shootout made the 1998 Shootout one of the most memorable ever?

1999 -- Everything changes. The women's tournament returns -- with four teams instead of eight -- as part of the Shootout, putting women's games at the Sullivan for the first time. The Northern Lights name is retired and the Shootout morphs into a week-long event that begins Tuesday and ends Saturday, with the women's championship on Wednesday afternoon and the men's championship on Saturday night.

2009 -- The men's field is reduced from eight teams to six, with nine games instead of 12.

Trivia answers:

1978 -- Because a holiday performance of "The Nutcracker" was playing at West High.

1979 -- The Sea Wolf Classic.

1980 -- Iowa.

1983 -- Louisville.

1987 -- At the 1985 Shootout, with Dick Vitale court-side and a national ESPN audience watching, UAA beat Missouri 59-56 -- the team's first victory over a true national power. Animated UAA coach Harry Larrabee charmed Vitale, who christened him "Dancin' Harry," and the Seawolves were no longer a complete unknown in college basketball.

1992 -- In order to get three games on national TV and pocket a $100,000 television rights fee, UAA changed the schedule so ESPN gets to air two semifinal games on Friday and the championship game on Saturday.

1998 -- Cincinnati upset the top-ranked Duke Blue Devils and hometown hero Trajan Langdon 77-75 -- scoring a dunk with one second left on the clock -- in a championship game that remains one of the best in tournament history.