In a new feature that began yesterday, Colorado Preps will forego the weekly announcement of top 10 basketball rankings and instead focus on how the post-season bracketing may shape up.  Tuesday was the first release of our 1A projections and today we present our initial take on the 2A and 3A boys’ basketball playoffs.
The projections are a bit different as the pairings are quite different than 1A.  In both classifications, district champions are seeded one through eight and then the rest of the bracket is laid out based on RPI.  In Class 3A, District 5 receives five regional bids and District 3 gets three while the remaining six districts each qualify four teams to the next round.  In Class 3A, the top two teams from each district tournament advance to the 32-team state tournament and the remaining teams are based on RPI standings.
To get us started in Class 2A, we are simply predicting district champions and then seeding them 1-8 in the regional round.
Our first picks as district champions are:

District 1:  Del Norte

District 2:  Sedgwick County

District 3:  Ignacio

District 4:  Byers

District 5:  Meeker

District 6:  Crowley County

District 7:  Highland

District 8:  Simla

Seeding those teams is a bit tricky as it will be based on RPI as well and we haven’t seen the first release of official standings by CHSAA.  Those are expected out on January 16th.  But here’s our early picks.

#1 Sedgwick County

#2 Del Norte

#3 Simla

#4 Byers

#5 Crowley County

#6 Meeker

#7 Ignacio

#8 Highland

Turning to Class 3A, our first release involves our choices of the official qualifiers from each district tournament.  As mentioned, these teams would be guaranteed a spot in the 32-team state tournament bracket and the district champions will serve as hosts in the first two rounds.

Frontier:  DSST-Stapleton & Pinnacle

Patriot:  Sterling & Platte Valley

Metro:  Faith Christian & Kent Denver

Tri Peaks:  Colorado Springs Christian & Manitou Springs

Intermountain:  Alamosa & Bayfield

Western Slope:  Grand Valley & Coal Ridge

Confluence/Colorado 7:  Weld Central & Fort Lupton

The first team listed is our choice to be district champions so those teams and along the highest ranked team in RPI will get to host the first two rounds.  Our seed order for those clubs with Kent Denver serving as the “at-large” berth as top RPI club.

#1 Sterling

#2 Alamosa

#3 Faith Christian

#4 Kent Denver

#5 Grand Valley

#6 Colorado Springs Christian

#7 DSST-Stapleton

#8 Weld Central

These are our first projections for the 2A and 3A post-season pairings and each week we’ll provide an update and most likely there will be changes each week.