The second round of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association state tournament is scheduled to be split evenly over Tuesday and Wednesday.
Neutral courts and a frequent use of doubleheaders replace a first round that was heavy on single games and home-court advantages.
NEPASportsNation.com editor Tom Robinson, who covers and writes about District 2 basketball for the website, is once again predicting the outcomes of games throughout the state tournament after also picking all the games in the District 2 tournament. He fell short of topping 90 percent accuracy in the district tournament for a third straight season, but correctly predicted winners in more than 90 percent of the state first-round games involving district teams.
Robinson’s predictions for games scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday are below.
PIAA PLAYOFF PREDICTIONS
By Tom Robinson
CLASS 5A SECOND-ROUND BOYS GAME
Abington Heights by 4 over Pocono Mountain West
CLASS 4A SECOND-ROUND BOYS GAMES
Scranton Prep by 3 over Bishop Shanahan
Pittsburgh North Catholic by 1 over Valley View
CLASS 3A SECOND-ROUND BOYS GAMES
Philadelphia West Catholic by 2 over Holy Redeemer
Devon Prep by 2 over Mid Valley
CLASS 2A SECOND-ROUND BOYS GAME
Holy Cross by 14 over Muncy
CLASS 5A SECOND-ROUND GIRLS GAMES
Bishop Shanahan by 6 over Pittston Area
West Chester Rustin by 5 over Abington Heights
CLASS 4A SECOND-ROUND GIRLS GAME
Scranton Prep by 8 over Nazareth Academy
CLASS 3A SECOND-ROUND GIRLS GAMES
Dunmore by 3 over Imhotep Charter
Columbia by 1 over Lake-Lehman
CLASS 2A FIRST-ROUND GIRLS GAME
Marian Catholic by 11 over Montrose
CLASS A FIRST-ROUND GIRLS GAME
MOUNTAIN VIEW by 1 over Christian School of York
WHAT TO EXPECT
In a change from past practice, we listed all of the first-round predictions together rather than separating them by day. As we said at the time, that switch was made because predicting when the games would actually be played was more difficult than predicting winners.
A similar weather situation has emerged for the second round. As it turned out, all of Friday’s games involving District 2 teams were postponed and all 21 teams played on Saturday. That part of the prediction game may not even be as difficult this time. At the time of this posting, there are six games scheduled for Tuesday and seven for Wednesday, but the expectation here anyway is that the six Tuesday games will get postponed and all the remaining District 2 teams will play Wednesday. The only way that will not be true is if those predicting weather have way more accuracy issues than we have here forecasting the outcome of basketball games. No sense in commenting further on that issue.
In the era of Philadelphia teams and six classifications, some trends have emerged in the state basketball tournament. District 2 has done very well in the first round with the best teams often making it look easy. As projected here, 13 of 21 district teams made it through. With more games against the better teams from Philadelphia and surrounding areas coming up, look for things to get serious in a hurry. The cumulative district record is likely to go from above 60 percent to just below or slightly above 50 percent in the next round with more close games as things get tense and intense.
Because the PIAA uses preformatted brackets, rather than trying to seed teams after they qualify, the best games on the road to Hershey often pop up in the second round or quarterfinals rather than the semifinals. That could be particularly true in Class 3A where the winners of the Holy Redeemer-Philadelphia West Catholic boys and Dunmore-Imhotep Charter girls games emerge as serious contenders. Some likely regard them that way already.
Don’t forget District 2’s other entries in Class 3A. We could be days away from the much-anticipated Dunmore/Lake-Lehman rematch that never occurred at Mohegan Sun Arena because of a district semifinal upset by the Holy Redeemer girls. Lake-Lehman beat Dunmore, at home, in overtime, in the regular season when North Carolina commit Ciera Toomey was limited to three minutes playing time for Dunmore in the earlier stages of her return from reconstructive knee surgery. Mid Valley gets a chance to prove itself as a Class 3A boys contender when it faces defending state champion Devon Prep, the team that took Holy Redeemer out in overtime in last year’s semifinals.
RECAP
The first round of the state tournament went largely as projected here, with the correct winner in the first 18 games completed before two decisive losses in the last three games. Not only was the percentage of winners high, but the projected margin was frequently accurate. We had the correct margin of victory with West Philadelphia defeating the West Scranton boys by four. Three other games – wins by the Scranton Prep boys, Valley View boys and Mount Carmel girls – were within one point of the margin predicted here. There were also two games where the prediction missed by two and two more each where it was off by three and four. In all, 10 games finished within 4 points of the predicted victory margin.
PIAA first-round boys picks: 9-1 (90.0 percent)
PIAA first-round girls picks: 10-1 (90.9 percent)
Total PIAA first-round picks: 19-2 (90.5 percent)
Total postseason boys picks: 38-7 (84.4 percent)
Total postseason girls picks: 37-6 (86.0 percent)
Total postseason picks: 75-13 (85.2 percent)
UPDATED PLAYOFF SCHEDULE: See where all the District 2 teams wound up after a series of schedule adjustments Tuesday: UPDATED: More revisions made to Wednesday’s PIAA schedule – NEPA Sports Nation.
