This first full week of February signals the beginning of the end in the winter scholastic sports season. Area schools competing in swimming and diving, wrestling, and girls’ basketball will fight starting today and on through the week to survive, advance, and earn one more week of practice.
I hesitate to liken it to the thaw of February because among the last five years we’ve had screwy extremes: blizzards, rain, and even warmer temps like we’ve had in mid-week.
I liken it more to the unpredictability of February climes. One team could have a strong regular season, but a team or an individual in the same postseason field, on the fringe, begins playing its best ball, wrestling its best matches utilizing newfound or further improved moves.
In 2022 I recall Triton’s girls’ basketball team losing a sectional semifinal to a Culver Community High School team who had a prolific scorer, but the Trojans neutralized the rest of the team in the regular season. In the sectional, though, that Cavalier scorer lit up the stat sheet exceeding 30 pints, and a few teammates chipped in just enough to upend a Trojan squad who should have won the sectionals.
A Tippecanoe Valley girls’ team who was head and shoulders above the collective talent in their NorthWood sectional in 2022, and eked by Wawasee (42-41), then fell in the tourney’s final 56-61to the 5-17 West Noble Chargers.
Valley comes to mind again, their boys traveling to a sectional in Knox where they fell to a Knox team who played a tougher conference schedule, played physically without fouling, and neutralized Valley’s inside game in a first-round sectional game.
February is the month for upstarts.
With this in mind, I hope each area team plays to its highest level, and each individual competitor starts the postseason in peak condition and sharp focus. There’s nothing like filling the Times-Union pages with trophy-hoisting kids’ pictures.
These winter scholastic sports’ postseason runs are perfectly timed with the reduction of NFL competition down to two teams. The winter postseason action will fill all the football gaps left from the playoff drive’s Super Bowl finish.
Additionally, the Six Nations Tournament – England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland, and Wales rugby sides participating – will fill the screens with five matches and crown a champion after the round robin is finished.
As far as screens go, it’s pretty doggone hard to find what screens will televise the tournament, so I’ll be looking up and down my cable menu to see where these matches are tucked away.
Rugby gives me the uber-contact sports fix I can’t get once the Super Bowl’s clock winds down to zero ending the NFL season.
The Warsaw Lady Tigers basketball team had another running clock victory in their regular season finale, a convincing win over the Angola Hornets where Warsaw surpassed the 70-point mark for the fifteenth time in 22 regular season games.
It’s remarkable how teams can still score so much with the running clock in place, and the Lady Tigers lead the state in scoring average, and in margin of victory.
Are these athletes special to watch? Yes.
The regular season challenge for the most talented teams in high school girls’ basketball is finding suitable talent to give them a run for their money. In this 50th IHSAA State Girls’ tournament, the sport has come a long way, but the talent gap is widening at eye-popping levels.
I’ve said plenty about that issue already, so I’ll shift gears to something I just noticed watching Warsaw’s girls’ cagers on Thursday night’s livestream from Angola.
Part of their secret sauce for being able to transition quickly off made shots is their memory motion in swarming toward the net after an opponent sinks a shot.
All this time, and I finally picked up on that subtle but essential (to the Lady Tiger game plan)
Focus on getting the ball back in their hands so very quickly. Once I noticed it, I watched for it closely, especially after opponents sank outside shots and maybe admired their work for a split second too long. Whoosh, Warsaw responded on multiple possessions with baskets in a matter of single digit seconds.
Teams who play with the sense of urgency the Lady Tigers play with will be ready for the eventual use of the shot clock at high school level.
I love the shot clock because if I have to suffer through watching a team shoot 38% from the field, I want them to get it over with quickly and get it into the hands of the other team (hoping THAT team can shoot better than 38%).
The shot clock is what makes college basketball more fun to watch too because when two teams hit less than 40% of their shots, at least they’re moving up and down the court faster, and shooting more often. This goes for men’s ball as much as it goes for women’s ball. It also helps that I’m usually occupied behind a microphone for those college games.
Fortunately, each Warsaw Tiger team is shooting very well this season, and I wish all area teams the same success in future seasons.
Enjoy the surprises and the highs and lows of February prep sports, folks.