I have to keep it real here\u2014it was not the most exciting regular season in terms of monitoring our scholastic ranking system this winter.<\/p>\n
While we\u2019ve seen some well-played games (last Friday\u2019s Freedom\/Liberty <\/a>game by far the best contest I\u2019ve called this winter) and I\u2019m anticipating a very entertaining post-season, there wasn\u2019t a whole lot of movement among our \u201cSportsTalk\u201d poll results over the course of the regular season.<\/p>\n Before we get to our last rankings of the year, here\u2019s a quick recap if you are not familiar with our program.<\/p>\n Our pollsters are comprised of a combination of local media members (Morning Call\u2019s Keith Groller<\/a>, RCN Sports Director Gary Laubach and RCN basketball Announcers Tom Stoudt and Dennis Laub and Lehigh Valley Basketball Rankings<\/a>\u2019s<\/em> Toomey Anderson).\u00a0 We also have three distinguished head basketball coaches giving their insights on the top teams in the Lehigh Valley area.<\/p>\n All District XI schools<\/a> were eligible for the poll and were divided into either our \u201cbig schools\u201d (5A & 6A classifications) or \u201csmall schools\u201d (4A & below) rankings.<\/p>\n The \u201csmall schools\u201d consist of Wilson<\/a>, Saucon Valley<\/a>, Bethlehem Catholic, Northwestern<\/a>, Palisades<\/a>, Palmerton<\/a>, Salisbury<\/a>, Notre Dame-GP<\/a>, Moravian Academy<\/a>, Lincoln Leadership<\/a>, Pen Argyl<\/a>, Northern Lehigh<\/a> and Catasauqua<\/a>.<\/p>\n The \u201cbig schools\u201d are Bangor<\/a>, Central Catholic<\/a>, Southern Lehigh<\/a>, Whitehall<\/a>, Allen<\/a>, Dieruff<\/a>, Easton<\/a>, Emmaus<\/a>, Freedom<\/a>, Liberty<\/a>, Nazareth<\/a>, E. Stroudsburg North<\/a> & South<\/a>, Pocono Mountain East<\/a>, Pocono Mountain West<\/a>, Stroudsburg<\/a>, Northampton<\/a>, Parkland<\/a>, and Pleasant Valley<\/a>.<\/p>\n As far as our \u201cfinal\u201d results\u2026which looked very similar to what our pre-season poll looked like:<\/p>\n Big School Basketball Poll\u2014Class 5A & up (8 pollsters)<\/strong><\/p>\n ____________________________________________________________<\/p>\n Small School Basketball Poll\u2014Class 4A & Below (7 pollsters)<\/strong><\/p>\n Just to recap, Allen maintained its standings as the area\u2019s (and the state\u2019s) top \u201cbig school\u201d team all winter by running the table (through this past weekend), and was only really challenged in a handful of games all year.<\/p>\n Among the \u201csmaller schools,\u201d Bethlehem Catholic lost just three league games to date\u2014all by three points are less, and all of them to bigger-sized schools.<\/p>\n The only other teams that had any significant in-season movement in our polls were Parkland and Wilson.\u00a0 The Trojans \u00a0got off to a slow start and fell off our poll completely before \u00a0bouncing back and, now, looking about as good as any team in the region (except perhaps Allen, who they played Monday night on RCN-TV).\u00a0 The Warriors, under a new coach and armed with a very young squad, have made a late-season push and end the season as our \u201cnumber five\u201d team.<\/p>\n One other note, while Pocono Mountain West slid down from its \u201cnumber two\u201d position in our preseason poll, I had one local head coach whose opinion I really trust tell me last weekend that he is seriously concerned about \u201cWest\u201d and does not want to face them in the post-season.\u00a0 The Panthers dropped a few regular season games that, on paper, they probably shouldn\u2019t have lost\u2014but with all the talent on that squad and the match-up problems they could create–they very likely could play deep into the league and\/or district tournaments.<\/p>\n To help break down these results in further detail and to talk about the Colonial League and Eastern Pennsylvania Conference playoffs, RCN Sports Director Gary Laubach will join us on this week\u2019s \u201cSportsTalk.\u201d<\/p>\n We\u2019ll also talk about high school basketball in the DC region on this Thursday\u2019s show as DMV Elite\u2019<\/a>s<\/em> Marcus Helton<\/a> will join us via Skype to talk about the area\u2019s regular season, identify the top players and teams and look ahead to a busy final week of the regular season.\u00a0 Marcus will also give us some upcoming \u201cmatch-ups to watch\u201d along with his take on which teams will have the most success in the region\u2019s post-season tournaments.<\/p>\n So tune in to the show this Thursday at 7pm or catch the podcast at rcn.com\/atvn\/sports-talk<\/a> and let us know your basketball opinions and questions. If there\u2019s a team, athlete or playoff match-up you\u2019d like us to address on that show, be sure to email us at rcnsportstalk@rcn.com<\/a> and tune-in for our panelists\u2019 responses!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have to keep it real here\u2014it was not the most exciting regular season in terms of monitoring our scholastic ranking system this winter. While we\u2019ve seen some well-played games (last Friday\u2019s Freedom\/Liberty game by far the best contest I\u2019ve called this winter) and I\u2019m anticipating a very entertaining post-season, there wasn\u2019t a whole lot…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"Yoast SEO Relevanssi index exclude","inline_featured_image":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,5],"tags":[17,41,48,51,162,180,722,385,401,432,473,480,555],"class_list":["post-79235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-sports","category-the-sportstalk-shop","tag-allen","tag-bangor","tag-becahi","tag-bethlehem-catholic","tag-district-xi-basketball","tag-emmaus","tag-lehigh-valley-basketball","tag-notre-dame","tag-parkland","tag-pocono-mountain-west","tag-salisbury","tag-saucon-valley","tag-wilson"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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