What's Going On: Tourneys bring new hoop hope

In most sports, the regular season means a lot in determining playoff positioning and has an impact on whether or not you even make the playoffs.

For instance, in Region 7-3A in football, you have to be one of the top three teams in your sub-region to have a chance to qualify for state through a “play-in” game in the final week of the season. In Region 7-4A, only the top four teams from the regular season advance to the state playoffs meaning the regular season means everything.

Not so in basketball.

With the tournament concept of everyone playing at least one more game after the end of the regular season, it is possible for a team to go winless in the regular season and still make the playoffs as long as they can advance to the region semifinals. The regular season means next to nothing with the exception of maybe giving you a bye in your tournament depending on your region’s by-laws.

I always like to tell the tale of a team from Dodge County in middle Georgia that I covered in the mid-1990s. The Indians finished fourth in their sub-region at the end of the regular season, but somehow got hot, finished as the runner-up in the region and then got really hot and made their run to capture the Class 2A state title.

It is the time of year when things really matter, and if things haven’t gone as well for your team as you would have liked this year, the slate gets cleaned. It is time to catch lightning in a bottle.

Two teams that will look to do that today will be Murray County and Southeast Whitfield boys as the Region 7-3A tournament begins this afternoon in Chatsworth. Heritage-Catoosa will play Cedartown at 4 p.m., followed by Gilmer versus Ringgold at 5:30 before the local action heats up. The host Indians will take on Ridgeland at 7 p.m., followed by the Raiders playing Pickens in the nightcap at 8:30.

The girls’ portion of the tournament will begin on Tuesday with all games serving as elimination games until Friday’s semifinals. All of the teams that make it to the semifinals are guaranteed one of the region’s four slots in the state tournament, which begins next weekend. On Tuesday, the Southeast girls will play Gilmer at 4 p.m., and the Lady Indians will take on LaFayette at 5:30. Dalton’s boys and girls received byes to the second round with the Cats scheduled to play the Heritage-Cedartown winner on Wednesday at 5:30 and the Lady Cats playing on Thursday against the winner of Southeast-Gilmer at 5:30.

Northwest Whitfield’s teams will be in action at the Region 7-4A tournament at Cass, starting with the Bruins taking on Sequoyah at 4 p.m. on Tuesday. The Lady Raiders will play Forsyth Central at 4 p.m. on Tuesday. Also, tonight three Sub-region 7B-2A entrants into the region tournament will be decided.

The North Murray girls will take on Sonoraville in an elimination third-place game at 5:30 p.m. with the losers’ season coming to an end. The North Murray boys will try to assure themselves a slot in the state tournament in the sub-region championship game at 7 p.m. against host Dade County. Both teams will advance to the region tournament, but the winner tonight will receive a bye to the region semifinals and will have secured a spot at state.

Coahulla Creek’s teams were eliminated from the sub-region tournament last week, and the Christian Heritage teams will open up the GISA Class 2A tournament at Middle Georgia College in Cochran on Wednesday.

For the Murray County boys, who won the region tournament and advanced to the second round of the state tournament last year, a strong finish would erase a regular season that saw the Indians win just two sub-region games and finish with a 10-15 record. Standing in their way is a Ridgeland team that beat the Indians by 25 points in the second game of the season.

But Indians’ coach Greg Linder knows that both teams have come a long way from that game in December.

“I think we are playing right now as good as we have played all year,” Linder said after his team won two of three to end the regular season. “You always want to play your best basketball this time of the year, and I think we have grown up a lot as a team.”

The Indians could also catch Ridgeland coming in a little overconfident if the Panthers only remember the final score and not how the win cam about.

“The end result of that game wasn’t indicative as to what kind of game we played,” Linder said. We had a double digit lead in the third quarter before they went on a run and it got out of hand. It can be an advantage for us, because our guys know that they can play with Ridgeland. We played them the second game of the year, and now we have played 25 games and we feel like we have improved.”

For a complete schedule of tournament games as well as the beginning of the spring sports schedule, see the Prep Schedule on page 3B.

Chris Whitfield is a sports writer for The Daily Citizen. Got something you think should be in What’s Going On? Write to him at chriswhitfield@daltoncitizen.com.

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