The basketball postseason continues for District 2 teams Tuesday with six games, combining three district third-place games to qualify for the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association state tournament with three subregional semifinals. Two of the subregional games were postponed from Monday.
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 district and subregional playoffs.
The games originally scheduled for Monday are listed here with the others, fixing a problem some readers may have seen late Sunday or early Monday when two lines of type were inadvertently omitted from the predictions. The full predictions are now included.
Robinson correctly predicted the winners in more than 90 percent of the games in the 2022 tournament and this year’s quarterfinals before slipping below that number during the semifinals. After handling the predictions throughout the early rounds, he will once again be joined by a panel of prognosticators for the championship games at Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza.
DISTRICT 2 PLAYOFF PREDICTIONS
By Tom Robinson
(Home teams in CAPS)
DISTRICT 2-4 CLASS 6A SUBREGIONAL BOYS SEMIFINAL
WILLIAMSPORT by 10 over Delaware Valley
DISTRICT 2-4 CLASS 6A SUBREGIONAL GIRLS SEMIFINAL
Wyoming Valley West by 1 over WILKES-BARRE AREA
DISTRICT 2-11 CLASS A SUBREGIONAL GIRLS SEMIFINAL
MOUNTAIN VIEW by 12 over Weatherly
DISTRICT 2 CLASS 4A BOYS THIRD-PLACE GAME
NANTICOKE by 5 over Tunkhannock
DISTRICT 2 CLASS 5A GIRLS THIRD-PLACE GAME
WALLENPAUPACK by 3 over Scranton
DISTRICT 2 CLASS 3A GIRLS THIRD-PLACE GAME
LAKE-LEHMAN by 36 over Mid Valley
WHAT TO EXPECT
The first time the Wyoming Valley West and Wilkes-Barre Area girls met this season, they were tied at the end of regulation and Wilkes-Barre Area won by just two points in overtime. The Wolfpack also won the rematch, this time by a single point.
No home-and-home series in District 2 was closer.
There’s no reason to expect that to change when they meet for the third time with a championship game berth at stake.
The championship chase is over, but the state tournament pursuit continues for six teams. Two of those three third-place games also should be close contests with Wallenpaupack needing to avenge an early-season loss in order to get past the Scranton girls and into the state tournament.
The other third-place game is a chance for overall Wyoming Valley Conference champion Lake-Lehman to get back on track after falling by two to Holy Redeemer in a semifinal that came right down to the buzzer.
Two teams – the Delaware Valley boys and Weatherly girls – making long trips outside of their home districts face difficult tasks in traveling to face the top seeds.
RECAP
There are different levels of wrong.
Friday for example, predicting the West Scranton boys to lose by 23 at Dallas and the Williamsport girls to lose by 19 at Hazleton Area is about as wrong as these predictions have ever been. West Scranton won in overtime and Williamsport won comfortably.
Saturday’s two misses were a bit different.
The first sentence of “What to Expect” for Saturday suggested the Scranton-Hazleton Area boys game could be the best of the day. The pick was Hazleton Area by a single point, a margin not resorted to often.
The game went overtime before Scranton emerged victorious, but the technically losing prediction hit the mark as this being the best game of the day.
The other incorrect prediction was far from a stunner with Holy Redeemer beating Lake-Lehman for the second time in five tries this season. Lake-Lehman had been labeled a five-point favorite.
Saturday’s boys picks: 6-1 (85.7 percent)
Saturday’s girls picks: 3-1 (75.0 percent)
Saturday’s total picks: 9-2 (81.8 percent)
Total boys picks: 23-3 (88.5 percent)
Total girls picks: 18-4 (81.8 percent)
Total total picks: 41-7 (85.4 percent)
