District basketball tournaments are coming up in quickly in February and those events will qualify teams to the various regional tournaments.  The top three teams from Districts 4, 5 and 8 will all head to Region Two while the top three finishers from Districts 2, 3 and 6 will comprise Region Three.  Two teams qualify from Districts 1 and 7 and they make up a one-day Region One tournament.
Before we look ahead to regional tournaments, we must first determine which teams will advance from districts.  We list the top finishers in order in each bracket below.  These are basically predictions on our part based on conference standings and results to date and they of course will be fluid through the rest of the regular season.
 

  • District #1:  DeBeque, Ouray
  • District #2:  Kit Carson, Cheraw, Cheyenne Wells
  • District #3:  Walsh, Springfield, South Baca
  • District #4:  Prairie, Peetz, Longmont Christian
  • District #5:  Otis, Haxtun, Arickaree/Woodlin
  • District #6:  Sangre De Cristo, Sierra Grande, Primero
  • District #7:  Evangelical Christian, Genoa Hugo
  • District #8:  Cornerstone Christian, Mile High Academy, Rocky Mountain Lutheran

 
With the qualifiers in place, we can start to determine regional pairings.  Let’s begin with Region 1 as it’s very easy.  The champions from Districts 1 and 7 cross-bracket with the runner-up from the other conference.  Winners of each game head to the state tournament in Pueblo.
REGION 1

  • De Beque vs Genoa Hugo
  • Evangelical Christian vs Ouray

 
In the Northeast, RPI will be used to lay out the regional bracket and teams could be moved to avoid district pairings in round one.  Based on RPI standings from January 28th, that won’t be an issue.  The top three seeds earn first round byes and play winners from day one.  The tournaments are Friday and Saturday with each winner from Saturday reaching the state tournament.  So, the projected pairings shape up in this order:
REGION 2

  • #6 Prairie vs #7 Otis — winner meets #1 Mile High Academy
  • #5 Haxtun vs #8 Longmont Christian — winner meets #2 Cornerstone Christian
  • #4 Arickaree/Woodlin vs #9 Rocky Mountain Lutheran — winner meets #3 Peetz

 
For the Southeast, seeding guidelines agreed to by the district will not allow teams from the same district to be placed in the same pod.  So we believe that the district champs will be seeded 1-3 through based on RPI and then paired up with runner-up and third-place teams from opposite districts.  With that in mind, we have Kit Carson, Sangre De Cristo and Walsh seeded 1, 2 and 3 based on our pick as district champions and current RPI standings.  Sierra Grande, Springfield and Cheraw are the choice for second place teams leaving Wiley, Cheyenne Wells and Primero as the last three qualifiers.
REGION 3

  • #6 Sierra Grande vs #7 Wiley — winner plays #1 Kit Carson
  • #5 Springfield vs #8 Cheyenne Wells — winner plays #2 Sangre De Cristo
  • #4 Cheraw vs #9 Primero — winner plays #3 Walsh

 
Please remember that these are projections only and not official in any manner.  We will continue to lay out our thoughts on a weekly basis throughout the remainder of the regular season.