The Warsaw Lady Tigers basketball squad is closing out its regular season, heading into its final three games at 11-7 overall and 5-0 in the Northern Lake Conference (NLC).
While the Lady Tigers are 6-7 against non-conference foes, it’s quite apparent – other than disappointing losses to Jeffersonville and Huntington in December – their tough schedule enabled them to accomplish what they set out to do.
First, they eviscerated most of the NLC opposition to date, and barring strange events, should run the NLC table at 7-0 for the third straight year.
Second, Tuesday’s win over Homestead, 32 near-perfect minutes, was testimony to their preparation for the rigors of the IHSAA Class 4A Sectional 4 tourney hosted by Northridge. The field is tough, and wins are not guaranteed, of course.
Parings, by the way, will be announced tomorrow on the IHSAA Champions Network around the time most people here eat Sunday dinner.
Let’s take a closer look at the NLC’s girls’ basketball field to date, but – first - I’ll preface it with an Ohio State-Michigan football analogy.
The Buckeyes and the Wolverines were the Big Ten Conference (B1G) representative for 13 straight Rose Bowl games, 1969-1981. Ohio State (6 trips) and Michigan (7) turned the B1G into the Big 2-Little 8 for each of those seasons,
I get a good feel for why people around here hate both programs, especially when my Buckeyes and the Wolverines were several rungs higher on the ladder of quality football programs (as I fondly recall).
As much as most of you hate the Buckeyes, I’ve experienced equal amount of converse, inverse, and perverse pleasure from my favorite college football team’s perennial superiority over your Indiana-based B1G schools, except for two Purdue wins in the ‘00, and ‘10 decades.
It was nothing like the Big 2-Little 8, though. Those were the days.
The 1970s were especially fun because the condescending moniker for the league’s football collective was thrown around a lot where I was reared.
The NLC girls’ basketball field in the last two seasons has become the Big 2-Little 6. No one in the league came close to the caliber of teams fielded by Northridge and Warsaw in the recent and prior year campaigns.
Warsaw will face and, whether it’s pretty to watch, defeat an (improved from last year) Concord and a struggling Goshen squad tonight and Tuesday respectively.
Northridge faces Plymouth and winless (in NLC action) Mishawaka. Warsaw eviscerated the latter last year, and nearly two weeks ago breaking the 70-point mark, triggering the running clock, and setting last year, then toppling this year their team record for three-point buckets.
This isn’t about disparaging the conference collective, comprised of good kids, staying out of trouble, getting plenty of cardio, and fighting to the finish regardless of the massive margin gaps. Let’s just look at the gap quickly created by Northridge and Warsaw using this season’s results to date.
Four of Warsaw’s five conference foes so far were part of the Little 6. They were vanquished by an average score of 66.8-33.8. Northridge outscored four of the Little 6 by a margin of 34.3 points, 64.8-30.5.
Cheers to Wawasee’s respectable 4-2 conference record, but even an improved Warrior side couldn’t get closer than 17 points and 19 points in their respective clashes against the respective Tigers and Raiders sides. The Warriors are effectively, however, “eating the young” among the rest of the NLC.
Wawasee will be quite ready to play well in their Class 3A sectional. Fairfield will be the Warriors’ most daunting foe.
Many of the conference teams are younger, like the Tigers who return each of their starters next season, but the skill level gap doesn’t appear likely to narrow much in the 2024-25 winter campaign.
The Tigers have replaced some traditional local matchups with higher-ranked teams around the Hoosier State, giving the conference slate a comparatively inferior look than years’ past in the NLC.
Warsaw should, by no means, abandon the NLC, but it will take approximately two additional seasons before the Little 6 shrink to a field of (possibly?) the Little 3. This evolution would make the NLC opposition a more watchable collective on the hard court.
It seems, in prep basketball, when you get one or two consecutive groups of freshman players in the mix, they’ll breathe new life into the program.
I’m looking forward to seeing who – aside from Northridge and Warsaw – “got next” and I’m hoping the current collection of teams among the Little 6 can evolve.