Eight boys' high school teams from around the state, including the reigning Division I champ, will take place in the Queen City Invitational Basketball Tournament starting on Wednesday.

The tournament, which is hosted at Manchester Memorial High School, runs from Wednesday through Friday with four games each day. The times for the games are 3 p.m., 4:30 p.m., 6 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

Merrimack is the defending Div. I champ, and in its first game of the tournament, it will take on Div. II runners-up Bedford on Wednesday at 4:30 p.m.

Exeter and Goffstown open the action at 3 p.m., Trinity plays Central at 6 p.m. and West takes on Memorial at 7:30 p.m.

It gets a little harder to follow after that.

The Trinity-Central game features two of the six remaining undefeated teams in Div. I this season. Memorial (3-0), also undefeated, would await the winner in the semifinals if it can get by last year's runners-up, Manchester West.

On Thursday, the losers of the 3 and 4:30 p.m. games from Wednesday play at 3 p.m.; the losers of Wednesday's 6 and 7:30 p.m. games play at 4:30; the winners of Wednesday's 3 and 4:30 p.m. games play at 6 p.m.; and the winners of Wednesday's 6 and 7:30 p.m. games square off at 7:30 p.m.

On Friday, the seventh- and eighth-place game will be at 3 p.m., the fifth- and sixth-place game will be at 4:30 p.m., the consolation game will be at 6 p.m. and the championship will be at 7:30 p.m.

The girls' tournament in the city, hosted by Central, starts on Thursday and also features eight teams. The four games on the first day feature West against Lebanon at 2:30 p.m., Memorial against Plymouth at 4 p.m., Trinity versus Hollis/Brookline at 5:30 p.m. and Central playing Coe-Brown of Northwood at 7 p.m.

Another popular boys' tournament is the Chick-fil-A Holiday Basketball Tournament at Nashua South High School.

The same eight teams that competed last year will be back again. They are Nashua North, Nashua South, Alvirne of Hudson, Souhegan of Amherst, Thornton Academy of Saco, Maine, Campbell of Litchfield, Milford and Hollis/Brookline. The action starts on Thursday with Alvirne playing Souhegan at 3 p.m., Thornton against Campbell at 4:30 p.m., South against Milford at 6 and North versus Hollis/Brookline at 7:30 p.m.

Also in the Gate City, there will be a 12-team girls' tournament at Nashua North High School. That tournament begins with six games on Wednesday.

All the teams in the girls' tournament are from the Granite State. They are Bishop Guertin, Campbell, Alvirne, Souhegan, Nashua North, Exeter, Merrimack, Windham, Bedford, Milford, Nashua South and Pelham.

In Concord, the Concord Area Holiday Tournament will take place at New Hampshire Technical Institute from Wednesday to Saturday.

It will play host to teams from eight local schools including Concord, Bow, Hopkinton, Kearsarge of North Sutton, Pembroke Academy, Merrimack Valley of Penacook, John Stark of Weare and Bishop Brady of Concord. There will be eight games a day with action starting at 10 a.m.

There is also the 17th Annual Zero Gravity Holiday Basketball Tournament for boys at Keene State College from Dec. 26-29. There are teams from all over New England competing including Hinsdale, Newport, Fall Mountain, Monadnock, Mascenic, ConVal, Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., Coe-Brown Northwood, Smithfield, R.I., Plymouth, Lebanon, Conant, Keene and Saunders of Yonkers, N.Y.

On Wednesday, games start at 6 p.m., on Thursday and Friday they start at 11:30 a.m. and on Saturday they begin at 10 a.m.