We continue our weekly series at projecting post-season brackets across the state and this report involves the 1A girls’ basketball division. We advance the story this week by projecting district qualifiers and then placing them into regional brackets.
The format is different for the three regional tournaments. Region #1 pairs up the top two teams from Districts 1 and 6 into two games with winners of each advancing to the state tournament. Region 2 takes the top three teams from Districts 4, 5 and 8 and places them into three separate three-team pods with the winner of each moving to the state tournament. Seeds are determined by RPI standings at the end of the regular season. Region 3 takes the best three teams from Districts 2, 3 and 7 also groups them together in three three-team pods. Winners of each advance to the state tournament but district champs are guaranteed first round byes and two teams from the same district are not allowed in the same pod.
So Region 1 is relatively easy. We believe Dove Creek will win District 1 with DeBeque placing second. The district six crown should go to Sangre De Cristo with Cotopaxi our pick at number two. That leaves these matchups.
- Dove Creek vs Cotopaxi
- Sangre De Cristo vs DeBeque
Region 2, we make the following selections for teams to qualify. Unlike our first report, we list the teams in district order but it doesn’t matter too much as teams are placed in the bracket based on RPI. For RPI purposes, we use numbers from Wednesday February 5th.
- District 4: Briggsdale, Fleming, Merino
- District 5: Lone Star, Idalia, Haxtun
- District 8: Shining Mountain, Flatirons Academy, Belleview Christian
RPI Standings are in this order:
- Shining Mountain
- Briggsdale
- Fleming
- Lone Star
- Flatirons Academy
- Merino
- Belleview Christian
- Idalia
- Haxtun
With those numbers in mind, the pairings could look like this:
- #4 Lone Star vs #9 Haxtun – winner faces #3 Fleming
- #5 Flatirons Academy vs #8 Idalia – winner faces #2 Briggsdale
- #6 Merino vs #7 Belleview Christian – winner faces #1 Shining Mountain
In looking at Region 3, district finish is important as district champs earn first round byes. Our picks for district champs are below and place them 1-3 through based on RPI standings.
- #1 South Baca
- #2 Genoa Hugo
- #3 Kit Carson
Our picks for second place teams are below and they are also placed in order by RPI.
- #4 Springfield
- #5 Elbert
- #6 McClave
Seeing for third place teams is not important as they’re simply placed in the pod to avoid having two teams from the same district in the same bracket.
With that in mind, here is our bracket if laid out today.
- McClave vs Kiowa – winner to face to #1 South Baca
- Springfield vs Eads – winner to face #2 Genoa Hugo
- Elbert vs Wiley – winner to face #3 Kit Carson
These are for projections only and do not reflect any official information. Of course, district results will be different and that will result in different pairings. We will look at the bracket again in the same scenario next week.
