{"id":79456,"date":"2017-04-03T20:45:18","date_gmt":"2017-04-03T20:45:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sandbox.web.rcn.net\/rcntv\/?p=79456"},"modified":"2023-04-13T15:04:11","modified_gmt":"2023-04-13T15:04:11","slug":"sportstalk-shop-hs-basketball-recap-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.astound.com\/atvn\/sportstalk-shop-hs-basketball-recap-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The SportsTalk Shop:  HS Basketball Recap (Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As promised in last week\u2019s blog, I did want to share a few of my reflections on the high school basketball season before we jump full force into our Lehigh Valley spring sports coverage.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s start with the \u201cgood\u201d things:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The District Semifinal contest at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pplcenter.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">PPL Center<\/a> may have been a once in a lifetime experience for many associated with the event. Perhaps the biggest crowd we\u2019ll ever see at a Lehigh Valley basketball playoff game was enhanced by two great games and many of the participating schools\u2019 best players of all time converging at the same time. You could argue that the teams featured the four largest fan bases of any team in the region, which certainly make for a truly special night for many fans, athletes, parents and administrators.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The 6A boys and girls brackets were very competitive. Both Easton and Nazareth (in my opinion) were two of the best large school teams in the state entering the PIAAs, and both were eliminated in the first round.\u00a0 The boys\u2019 matchups were almost always entertaining as well in the league, district and state levels.\u00a0 While there were a few blowouts and quite a few \u2018lower seeds\u2019 advancing deeper into the state playoffs than normal, these teams were usually quite talented and the contests were very competitive.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The nice-sized crowds at many of the larger schools featuring girls\u2019 games as well as for both boys and girls teams at some of the smaller schools were encouraging. While not getting the media attention the <a href=\"http:\/\/epc18.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">EPC <\/a>does, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.colonialleague.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Colonial League<\/a> has some great crowds at most of their playoff games.\u00a0\u00a0 Bangor is an area that always supports its sports programs that followed its team well. Notre Dame fans were out in full force for both their boys and girls playoff runs.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Also, the Becahi girls had a nice turnout for many of their playoff games\u2014most of them very one-sided with their Hawks dominating the opposition, and we already talked about the four schools (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/wmallenbball?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Allen<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.emmausbasketball.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Emmaus<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/parklandboysbasketball.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Parkland<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pmwestbball\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pocono Mountain West<\/a>) who showed up in droves at the PPL Center.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Last and certainly not least, congratulations to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nazarethwrestling.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nazareth <\/a>wrestling squad and the Bethlehem Catholic girls basketball team for their dominating seasons, culminating with raising the state championship trophy. The Blue Eagles and Golden Hawks are two of a handful of teams from the Lehigh Valley that have state titles so far this school year.\u00a0 We\u2019ll be honoring Nazareth\u2019s program on this week\u2019s \u201cSportsTalk\u201d show (live, Thursday at 7pm) and we will be featuring more of this year\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.piaa.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">PIAA <\/a>champions (and hopefully we\u2019ll add a few more title winners this spring) to upcoming editions of our Thursday night program\u2014so keep checking back to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rcn.com\/atvn\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">RCN-TV website<\/a> for the dates and more details on when we\u2019ll feature more championship teams.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And now\u2026a few areas of concern:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>As I predicted several weeks ago, the level of competition in many of the classifications below 6A was not nearly as strong as in years past. While I applaud the idea to get more schools involved and to try to create a \u201cwinning atmosphere\u201d for as many kids as possible, it certainly diluted the overall quality of playoff games.\u00a0 There were <strong>some<\/strong> very close\u2014and very competitive&#8211;games overall, but there were also more blowout games in which the outcome of the game was never in question.\u00a0 In 20 years of watching high school games as a media member and as a fan, I had only seen one \u201cmercy rule\u201d game in my life (many fans didn\u2019t even know this rule existed for basketball until this year).\u00a0 This year I sat through three games (including one state game) in which the contest\u2019s clock just continued to run in order to let the losing team \u2018off the hook.\u2019\u00a0 The combined margin of victory in the last four playoff games I broadcast was 108. Looking over the statewide brackets, there were many more games that were either \u201cmercy games\u201d or came close to invoking this dubious \u201crule\u201d in league, district and state rounds.\u00a0 To combat this, there is talk that the PIAA is putting together a \u201ccompetitive committee\u201d to balance the playing field for some schools.\u00a0 Considering the state\u2019s governing body just revamped their entire system and it resulted in more lopsided victories than ever before, I am very skeptical that things will change any time soon.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The attendance at a number of the mid-sized and smaller schools was not good (and, for some games, I\u2019m being kind with that term) for premiere playoff games. I can understand smaller turnouts for mid-week games played in the afternoon and\/or schools that have a far distance to travel.\u00a0 But when the fans from Jim Thorpe outnumber three other Lehigh Valley schools for a district semifinal game, followed by a similar scene for the title game\u2014and both were at sites in the heart of the Lehigh Valley\u2014it did not represent the area very well.\u00a0 One of the mid-sized classification\u2019s championship games featured&#8211;at best&#8211;half-capacity and was not played at a gym that has a huge bleacher sections.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Granted, the overwhelming support at the bigger school games I\u2019m sure made up for the games featuring lower turnouts.\u00a0 Also, by having many more playoff games and inviting more teams in, I don\u2019t think there\u2019ll be any question that the final numbers of total playoff tickets will (and should) be higher than in years past.<\/p>\n<p>I think overall it was a very good season for high school basketball.\u00a0 With the graduation of many talented people this June, the summer basketball leagues will be even more intriguing as coaches look for people to step up and fill in some gaping holes.\u00a0 Check back to the \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.rcn.com\/atvn\/author\/rcntvchris\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SportsTalk Shop<\/a>\u201d in the coming weeks and months as we feature interviews and video of your local teams participating in spring and summer events.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As promised in last week\u2019s blog, I did want to share a few of my reflections on the high school basketball season before we jump full force into our Lehigh Valley spring sports coverage. Let\u2019s start with the \u201cgood\u201d things: The District Semifinal contest at the PPL Center may have been a once in a&#8230;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/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":[17,51,162,790,180,362,401],"class_list":["post-79456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-sports","category-the-sportstalk-shop","tag-allen","tag-bethlehem-catholic","tag-district-xi-basketball","tag-east-stroudsburg","tag-emmaus","tag-nazareth","tag-parkland"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The SportsTalk Shop: HS Basketball Recap (Part 2) - 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=\"The SportsTalk Shop: HS Basketball Recap (Part 2) - ATVN\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As promised in last week\u2019s blog, I did want to share a few of my reflections on the high school basketball season before we jump full force into our Lehigh Valley spring sports coverage. 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