Sunday is the release date for the state tournament pairings for Class 1A boys and girls basketball teams. Ahead of that release, we will take a few shots at predicting where the teams may end up in the bracket. Our first look this evening is done without updated RPI standings from CHSAA so these are bound to change once new numbers are out.
As we mentioned in our 2A report, more criteria other than RPI can be used to seed teams. Those points include head-to-head results and results against common opponents.
GIRLS
We think this is a tale of two segments for the bracket. There will be a long discussion of the top five seeds between Springfield, South Baca, Briggsdale, Fleming and Sangre De Cristo. It will be surprising if any of those teams are seeded lower than number five. We also believe that Cotopaxi, Shining Mountain and McClave are destined to be the bottom three seeds with some pairings maybe altered to avoid conference matchups in the quarterfinals or to split districts between the upper and lower half of the bracket.
There’s probably three teams bidding for the top overall seed as Springfield, South Baca and Briggsdale could be in that spot. RPI could be used to determine the order. Briggsdale has just one loss to Fleming for the season but also beat the Wildcats twice. South Baca and Springfield split two matchups. South Baca won the second game which usually gives a team an advantage in our mind, but Springfield also beat South Baca on the road while South Baca’s win came on a neutral court. That win though came in districts so the Patriots are a district champion and Springfield is not.
With that in mind, we go with South Baca as the top seed with Briggsdale at number two and Springfield number three. Springfield and Briggsdale could be flipped as either way, Springfield and South Baca are separated in the bracket. Then Fleming and Sangre De Cristo are numbers four and five and the order doesn’t matter except for the color of uniform each team will wear on Thursday in Greeley. Sangre De Cristo though could have an argument for a higher seed. They do have three losses but all three are against 2A clubs and two of them are against state qualifiers in Sanford and Del Norte. The T-Birds are unbeaten against 1A clubs but RPI may hold them down a bit. They were #7 before regional tournament play started.
Cotopaxi and Shining Mountain have similar resumes for sixth and seventh but it’s likely Shining Mountain will have the much higher RPI. That should push them ahead of the Pirates and that move also avoids a matchup with Briggsdale in round one. Briggsdale has already played and beaten the Lions twice this year.
That decision also leaves McClave in eighth as we discussed previously.
So here is our first bracket but this could change based on RPI. The top three is wide open at this point until we have final RPI standings.
- #1 South Baca vs #8 McClave
- #4 Fleming vs #5 Sangre De Cristo
- #3 Springfield vs #6 Shining Mountain
- #2 Briggsdale vs #7 Cotopaxi
BOYS
When we published this story at 8:45pm, there was still one available state tournament bid available as Briggsdale is playing Denver Jewish Day in a very late start. Once that game goes final, we can provide a look at the bracket. We can tell you that the order below was for RPI involving the teams that have qualified for state. Briggsdale/Denver Jewish Day were separated by just one spot entering the weekend so that winner would be fifth in our pre-regional tournament RPI.
- Kit Carson
- Mile High Academy
- Walsh
- DeBeque
- Briggsdale/Denver Jewish Day
- Merino
- Evangelical Christian
- Ouray
