Congratulations to Missouri Boys Basketball Champions - March 14th, 2021

  It was a wild, roller-coaster ride this weekend with the Missouri Boy's classes one through three state championships and classes four through six quarterfinals.

Let me start by congratulating the three state champions:

Class One - South Iron.  I have had the Panthers at the top of the heap in class one all year.  The Panthers have been remarkable for 10 years with a 285-76 record, including 8 seasons with 20 game wins.  Coach Dusty Dinkins was not afraid to challenge his team with a tough schedule and it paid off in a tough final with a great Mound City squad.  Thanks to the Dusty and team for being such great support to my ratings and blog.  Look for great things in the years to come from the Panthers.

Class Two - Campbell.  I had Lakeland as my top team most of the year but Campbell (25-4) was always near the top.  Congrats to the Camels on their first-ever state championship.  I do not know what it is, but SE Missouri is a hotbed for good basketball, and Campbell and South Iron proved it again.  The Camels four close losses were to upper-class teams, or they might been perfect for the season.

Class Three - Hartville.  Speaking of perfection, was there a more remarkable season for a team than the 31-0 Hartville Eagles with wins over Greenwood (twice), Kickapoo and Nixa, all powerhouse teams.  With their second straight championship (and third in six years), Hartville has established its program in SW Missouri as a hotbed of basketball talent.  Wouldn't a Missouri playoff with all six classes be interesting?  Is another 30 win season in the cards for next year?  

Hats off to these remarkable teams and all the hard work they and their opponents put in to get to the state finals.  Just plain remarkable!

So, do you even care how my predictions and ratings played out?  Probably not, but here's my scorecard.  For the boy's and girl's combined (districts, sectionals, and the class one to three finals), I am chugging along at a nearly 80% prediction rate.  That includes a whopping 417 games so far in the MSHSAA playoffs.  Yup, 325 correct predictions on 417 games.

How about the class one through three predictions?  Almost perfect, with 11 of 12 semi- and final games correct.

I wasn't too far off on class four through six boy's predictions.  I was perfect on class four and six and totally missed the boat of class five upper bracket with Lutheran South's win over North County and Bolivar's win over Nevada.  

I will stick with my state champion picks, Vashon, Cardinal Ritter and Chaminade for a St Louis sweep of these classes but it won't be easy with all the talented teams in the semi- and final games.

As I mentioned in the girl's post, I will be having foot surgery on Tuesday so this blog might be quiet for a while.  I believe my beautiful bride might need to take my computer away until I get off drugs or I might post something really stupid.  LOL

I hope you have enjoyed the ratings and predictions.  Wish me luck!