{"id":79319,"date":"2017-03-06T16:25:04","date_gmt":"2017-03-06T16:25:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sandbox.web.rcn.net\/rcntv\/?p=79319"},"modified":"2023-04-13T20:44:48","modified_gmt":"2023-04-13T20:44:48","slug":"behind-mic-march-1-madness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.astound.com\/atvn\/behind-mic-march-1-madness\/","title":{"rendered":"Behind the Mic: March 1 Madness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Any true basketball fan is well aware of March Madness<\/a> \u2013 the term that indicates basketball season is coming to an end, but not before the colleges and high schools battle for conference, district, state and national championships.\u00a0 It normally builds each week until the final games are played.<\/p>\n

For Lehigh Valley fans, March Madness began a bit early \u2013 on March 1!\u00a0 That is the night that District XI<\/a> decided to take their AAAAAA boys\u2019 semifinals to the PPL Center<\/a> in center city Allentown.\u00a0 PPL had hosted two college basketball games in the past and a professional exhibition game, but it had NEVER hosted a high school game.\u00a0 No one was quite sure what to expect.<\/p>\n

District XI officials worried that they may have taken on more than they should have in terms of rental costs and expectations.\u00a0 After all, the place held 8,000 people, but up until game night \u201conly\u201d 3200 tickets had been sold.\u00a0 PPL cooperated to make the fees more palatable, but the numbers were still risky, for sure.\u00a0 What both had going for them were the teams themselves and the individual talent.<\/p>\n

You see, this was a basketball \u201cperfect storm\u201d.\u00a0 There were four great teams (17 total losses – eight losses by one team) and many of those losses coming when they played one another.\u00a0 There was a plethora of great talent (seven 1,000 point scorers) who, by themselves, were well worth the price of admission all year long.\u00a0 Three of the four teams had their school\u2019s all-time leading scorer and one school had two players who went back and forth for that honor each time they took the floor.\u00a0 And there was Allen <\/a>High School; a team that had grabbed a hold of their fan base in December and watched it grow to immense numbers by the end of the season.\u00a0 These were four teams who were so talented and so successful that no Lehigh Valley gymnasium could hold the crowd.<\/p>\n

Fans poured in when the doors were unlocked.\u00a0 The upper deck seating, originally thought to be unnecessary, started to be occupied by halftime of the first game.\u00a0 The fans just kept coming.\u00a0 By the time the first quarter of game two rolled around a \u201cSold-Out\u201d sign had to be posted at the ticket windows.\u00a0 The final count was a paid attendance of 7,661 and an estimated final tally of over 8,000 people, the largest crowd to watch a high school game ever in the Lehigh Valley.\u00a0 It really didn\u2019t matter so much who won the games, because everyone – coaches, players, and fans, won that night.<\/p>\n

Congratulations to all who put this together, who had the foresight to give it a chance.\u00a0 It is hard to imagine that teams this good, with players this talented, and fan interest this high will happen for a long while, but, on this night, in this arena, with these four teams, it was awesome.<\/p>\n

\"PPL<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ABOVE THE EARS (SOME MUSINGS)<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. If you were wondering where District XI big basketball games were played in the past, when there were NO really big gyms, I can tell you that it was NOT in District XI. Way back when I was playing at Wilson High School, we played Bethlehem High School in the District semifinal at the Harrisburg State Farm Show Arena.\u00a0 We won and returned to Harrisburg for the championship against Larry Miller\u2019s Catasauqua team.\u00a0 There were @ 8,000 people for each of those games.\u00a0 Only one classification existed back then.\u00a0 Catty beat us, if you care.<\/li>\n
  2. The Lafayette <\/a>women\u2019s basketball team beat Holy Cross<\/a> on Saturday. With the win, they became the first Patriot League<\/a> #10 seed to win a tournament game.\u00a0 They were getting better as the year progressed and their hard work paid off.<\/li>\n
  3. The Northeast Regional Wrestling<\/a> championships were an absolute showcase for Lehigh Valley wrestlers. Nazareth had six champions; Bethlehem Catholic had four; Northampton two; and Freedom one.\u00a0 That\u2019s thirteen out of fourteen \u2013 amazing results.\u00a0 And talk about fans \u2013 perhaps, this is the next high school event at PPL.<\/li>\n
  4. The Bucknell <\/a>men will face Lehigh <\/a>on Sunday, March 12, for the Patriot League basketball championship.<\/li>\n
  5. Congratulations to Brad Pensyl, the coach of Pocono Mountain West for winning the District XI AAAAAA basketball championship. It was his second and it will be his last.\u00a0 After 28 years (making the Districts in every one of those years), he has decided to retire.\u00a0 He will move into administration at Pocono Mountain.\u00a0 Brad will be very hard to replace and I will miss him on the sidelines.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Any true basketball fan is well aware of March Madness \u2013 the term that indicates basketball season is coming to an end, but not before the colleges and high schools battle for conference, district, state and national championships.\u00a0 It normally builds each week until the final games are played. For Lehigh Valley fans, March Madness…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"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":[2,3,4],"tags":[612,162,219,609,623,778],"class_list":["post-79319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-behind-the-mic","category-featured","category-sports","tag-allen-basketball","tag-district-xi-basketball","tag-high-school-basketball","tag-parkland-basketball","tag-piaa-basketball","tag-ppl-center"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBehind the Mic: March 1 Madness - ATVN<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Behind the Mic: March 1 Madness - ATVN\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Any true basketball fan is well aware of March Madness \u2013 the term that indicates basketball season is coming to an end, but not before the colleges and high schools battle for conference, district, state and national championships.\u00a0 It normally builds each week until the final games are played. 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