The Astound TV Network Sports winter season officially came to an end on Tuesday night with the loss of Notre Dame Green pond in the PIAA semi-final round, was the last remaining team standing in the ATVN – Lehigh Valley viewing area.
Although we had a lot of great games, exciting moments and some everlasting individual performances throughout the winter, the state playoff did remind us of a perennial issue with sports in the state of Pennsylvania: Philadelphia basketball is King!
A number of teams from our Delaware Valley viewing area will be playing for state championships this weekend. Astound TV customers can watch these games on the Pennsylvania Cable Network as they hold the rights to broadcasting the state finals.
Coach Marlon Randall who joined me for ATVN’s final broadcast of the season pointed out on the air during our last telecast that a major reason why Philly is so good in basketball is their leagues allow for many more non-league competition opportunities. While a few teams did schedule schools from the Delaware Valley market as part of their non-league schedule, he pointed out that it is tough for Lehigh Valley teams to add many of those schools to their schedule since our local leagues only allow for a small handful of games to be played outside of their league and the District 11 region.
Conversely, a team like Philadelphia West Catholic, who will be playing in the state finals this weekend, got to play some of the best teams from New York, Washington. DC, Maryland and Virginia in addition to the top teams in Pennsylvania.
Supporting his argument is the fact that many of those teams that went out to seek the best competition outside of the area will be playing for state championships this weekend and many of them ended up mercy ruling their competition during the PIAA playoffs.
Of course, another reason the teams still remaining are where they are is because of their ability to recruit and bring in players from different regions. This has been a hotly debated topic for decades and arguments about this usually pop up around this time of year.
Still, many of those “non-boundary” teams defeated other non-boundary teams in the state playoffs…a few rather significantly.
There’s always numerous discussions with people bringing up different ideas on how the state playoffs “should” be laid out. I think one of the best “newest” ideas I’ve heard during the last few weeks includes going back to a four classification format the way it had been for many years but expanding the number of teams involved.
Will this be the year where action is taken and the PIAA playoffs get revamped? /enhanced to try to ensure better competition going forward?
We’ll have to wait and see what the powers that be decide as there are quite a few high school sports issues up for debate over the next few months.
Now, here’s a look at the top plays from some of our recent broadcasts on ATVN….
Astound TV Network Sports: Boys’ Basketball – Executive Education vs. Notre Dame Green Pond (2/26)
Astound TV Network Sports: Girls’ Basketball – Blue Mountain vs. Allentown Central Catholic (2/26)
Astound TV Network Sports: Girls’ Basketball – Emmaus vs. Easton (2/26)
Astound TV Network Sports: Girls’ Basketball – Parkland vs. Nazareth (2/26)
Astound TV Network Sports: Boys’ Basketball – Parkland vs. Pocono Mountain East (2/24)
The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Astound or any other agency, organization, company or subsidiary.
