The District 2 basketball tournament season opens Tuesday with action in five classifications.
There are seven total boys quarterfinal games in two classes – 5A and 3A. There are five girls quarterfinals split over three classes – 6A, 4A and 2A. The 6A game is actually a District 2-4 Class 6A Subregional.
NEPASportsNation.com editor Tom Robinson, who covers and writes about District 2 basketball for the website, once again will be predicting the outcomes of games throughout the district and subregional playoffs. In the previous four seasons, Robinson’s predictions appeared on NEPABasketball.com, which this season was merged into NEPASportsNation.com to bring coverage of all high school sports in District 2 to one site.
Last season, Robinson correctly predicted the winners of more than 90 percent of district and subregional playoff games (57-6). For the four seasons that the predictions appeared in NEPABasketball.com, Robinson had a 121-9 (93.1 percent) record predicting the winner of girls games and 228-30 (88.4 percent) predicting all District 2 games. Those records are broken down further below.
Robinson will handle the predictions throughout the early rounds and then, 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)
CLASS 5A BOYS QUARTERFINALS
North Pocono by 2 over CRESTWOOD
DALLAS by 21 over Wallenpaupack
PITTSTON AREA by 6 over West Scranton
CLASS 3A BOYS QUARTERFINALS
HOLY REDEEMER by 33 over Wyoming Seminary
RIVERSIDE by 9 over Carbondale
MID VALLEY by 7 over Dunmore
OLD FORGE by 12 over Lakeland
DISTRICT 2-4 CLASS 6A SUBREGIONAL QUARTERFINAL
WILLIAMSPORT by 9 over Delaware Valley
CLASS 4A GIRLS QUARTERFINALS
NANTICOKE by 2 over Tunkhannock
VALLEY VIEW by 13 over Berwick
CLASS 2A GIRLS QUARTERFINALS
Holy Cross by 6 over BLUE RIDGE
OLD FORGE by 23 over Forest City
The District 2 Power Ratings system used for playoff qualification and seeding seems unnecessarily cumbersome at times, but the bottom line is that it works. Since its implementation, silly cases of lower seeds beating higher seeds when any logical observer knew they were highly likely to occur have gone done dramatically.
Now, for the most part, better teams are seeded higher. Upsets will always happen in sports. Without that possibility, there would be no suspense. But, ranking teams properly and throwing in the home court for higher-seeded teams and the number of road teams (lower seeds) winning in the quarterfinal round is likely to again be quite small. There will be more close battles in the semifinal round before the tournaments move to the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza for their March 2-4 conclusion.
Last season, road teams won 2 of 11 games on Opening Night and 4 of 27 in the first round of the tournament.
We’re looking for two road winners (not upsets) on the first night again this season. Wins by Lackawanna League Division 3 girls teams are no longer as automatic as they once were against Division 4 and Blue Ridge has both a 2022 district tournament win over Old Forge and a season-opening win over Carbondale from Division 3 to its credit. However, late-season improvement by Holy Cross points to the Lady Crusaders getting through the first round. The days of seeding division champions over everyone else are over, but Lackawanna Division 2 boys champion North Pocono is better than its fifth seed shows, particularly in its late run to the championship. Look for the Trojans to get through a tough opening assignment at Crestwood.
As should be the case in the quarterfinals, the best matchups are in games between fifth and fourth seeds. Tunkhannock at Nanticoke in Class 4A girls, North Pocono at Crestwood in Class 5A boys and Holy Cross at Blue Ridge in Class 2A boys are the best of those five games. Fresh off the Wyoming Valley Conference Tournament boys championship, make Holy Redeemer the most likely team to put up a Mercy Rule win tonight.
Of the 12 games, 7 are rematches. The Nanticoke girls will be trying to avenge a 41-34, home loss to Tunkhannock in the fourth game of the season. Carbondale and Riverside split their two boys games. Mid Valley swept Dunmore in their home-and-home series, but the second meeting was a one-point game. Holy Redeemer and Old Forge boys also had sweeps over Wyoming Seminary and Lakeland in league play. The Pittston Area boys, against West Scranton, and Old Forge girls, against Forest City, already hold a regular-season win over the playoff opponent.
RECAP
2019-22 District 2 boys picks: 107-21 (83.6 percent)
2019-22 District 2 girls picks: 121-9 (93.1 percent)
2019-22 total District 2 picks: 228-30 (88.4 percent)
2022 District 2 boys picks: 27-4 (87.1 percent)
2022 District 2 girls picks: 30-2 (93.8 percent)
2022 total District 2 picks: 57-6 (90.5 percent)
PLAYOFF SCHEDULE: The District 2 tournament pairings and schedule. District 2 sets basketball pairings – NEPA Sports Nation
