This week, already, attrition in scholastic sports has begun. The swimmers and divers started earlier this week, the wrestlers will battle in sectionals this week, and girls’ basketball sectionals begin Tuesday.
The local weather isn’t great among the next ten days, but at least it doesn’t look like it has during the two prior girls’ sectional basketball tournaments. We had some lousy weather moving some games around in certain parts of the state.
It’s refreshing to see each area girls’ hoops squad playing well at the right time this season. All the best on your tournament runs in 2024.
The team I’ve seen play the most, Warsaw’s girls, is easiest for me to guess in terms of where they will land in their sectional.
The upper bracket of the Class 4A Sectional hosted by Northridge will be a grind for those three teams seeded there: Warsaw and Northridge playing Tuesday to survive and face Elkhart on Friday. The upper bracket will make things interesting and fun.
The team who heads into the finals from this side of the bracket will beat a solid Penn team this year in the finals next Saturday.
Penn, on the other hand, has an easier journey unless there is a stomach bug decimating the available talent. The Kingsmen play Concord, and if they win, another “Little 6” from the NLC, Goshen will be waiting Friday courtesy of the drawn bye.
Warsaw’s convincing 64-52 regular season win over Northridge doesn’t guarantee an automatic advancement. Bear in mind the Raiders are the tourney hosts, they’ll have a packed gym, and they have not lost a home game this year.
This will be one of area fans’ last chance to see a game in the Raider’s loud, 2,500-ish seated box. The ‘Ridge will move to a newly constructed gym similar in layout to Columbia City in the 2024-25 season. They, too, were smart to abandon the rectangular perimeter seating and transition to a quasi-bowl seating configuration.
Games in the Raiders’ new facility will be just as noisy with a lower top row.
College football is topsy-turvy again, and predictably, “Michigan man” and now former head coach, Jim Harbaugh felt the time was right to leave the Maize and Blue for the L.A. Chargers. He helped the Wolverines secure their National Championship trophy, and now he and his ego are off the Second City to clash with egos of the billionaire Spanos family.
The Chargers’ ownership took a long to figure out you get what you pay for in a head coach. Harbaugh will take a team with many pieces in place to guarantee immediate success for fans and management who’ve had enough nonsense in Charger Universe.
I’m an Ohio State fan, and I’m enjoying the Alabama pipeline making its way to Columbus these days. The Buckeyes are poaching the Southeast Conference (SEC) with the recently legalized slush funds, the very slush funds SEC schools like Alabama covertly managed for years among its boosters/donors.
What I’m not enjoying, however, is Michigan fans donning these “Michigan Against Everyone” t-shirts.
Poor Michigan? Good grief.
When can anyone recall when Michigan did not have national appeal? People in this area seem to hate Ohio state even more than they hate Michigan.
It seems since the Fab Five had people buying Michigan basketball merch in the early 1990s, the Maize and Blue football teams haven’t truly had their backs against the wall like other institutions in NCAA athletics. While the basketball program these days is pathetic, they still have some national appeal.
Michigan Against Everyone was brought upon the Wolverine Universe by its collective self. Your head coach was alleged to be cheating. Now he’s gone, and so are more than a dozen seniors who will be drafted this spring.
The recruiting class doesn’t look strong for the U of M gridders, and I think Ohio State Ryan Day – who finally woke up and smelled the coffee – realized he needed someone else to call the plays, and a replacement of his current offensive line coach to improve his job security in Columbus.
College football still needs a czar, as I noted two weeks ago. It’s the wild West, with a leadership corps at NCAA’s top levels who are very out of touch with the structure required to run big revenue athletics.
February - among athletes, coaches, parents, and fans – will be increasingly sad week by week for most of the aforementioned participants and increasingly joyous for those who survive and advance.
The upcoming month also rings in college football signing season, despite the elasticity of *cough* commitments who can come and go whenever they please.
Super Bowl LVIII promises great matchups among the final four franchises competing for Super Bowl berths tomorrow. I’ll enjoy any combination of the challengers.
It’s noteworthy to remind NFL fans if the Detroit Lions and the Kansas City Chiefs advance to the Super Bowl for their respective conferences, the same two teams playing in the NFL’s Thursday night opener will be closing out the season, too.
Sure, January zoomed by us quickly, but instead of shaking my head, I’ll pay closer attention to all the fun and games February will bring.