A couple random musings as we approach the District Finals and now that Central District awards have been given out:
- I think there are probably some teams who felt they may have fallen short of some expectations, but in general I think that D3 and D4 Central District were more competitive this year than in past seasons, especially in the MSL.
- Northside Christian vs. Newark Catholic is a rematch from earlier this season. I wonder how much of a factor that will play in preparation?
- Patriot Prep vs. Northmor is really intriguing to me, not just for the matchup but because both of these teams are young and could very well meet up again next year in the same place. Not a matchup geographically that would normally take place so I'm really interested to see how it turns out.
- Zach Fleer tweeted that Landon Vanderwarker for Northside scored his 1,000 point as a sophomore, which is truly an amazing accomplishment. It will be interesting to see how his scoring progresses during his final two years (assuming he stays). What I mean is that Northside probably won't play another MOCAL game within 20 points for the next two seasons. I've heard Genoa Christian is joining the conference, which makes 14 league games against vastly inferior opponents. I would assume this would mean lots of running clock second halves and most likely the starters coming out early unless the coach wants to pad the stats a little. As he improves, will his scoring continue to go up (he's around 23 ppg right now), or will the lack of opportunities cause the scoring to decrease? If he were to transfer to a bigger school, he would probably have more chances to score but the opponents would have a better shot at slowing him down. Something I'm just curious to keep an eye on.
- I know every team probably feels they had players snubbed from the District awards, but this year I am extremely confused as to how things turned out. Undoubtedly the lack of media coverage in the area is a huge part of why this is the case, especially with small schools. The Dispatch does next to nothing anymore and 270 Hoops seems to have only focused on D1-D2 schools this year, but it seems like very little effort went into these. I guess they just went based on who had the best stats. And I get that it's tough to wade through all of the information for over 100 teams for boys and girls when most media members haven't watched most of them, but still. Here's a few examples (without naming names):
* Tree of Life had a player go 1st-Team All-District in D4 as a junior. They got bumped up to D3, had a similar season with a worse team, and that player (who is much improved) only made Honorable Mention. I get the step up to D3 being a barrier, but only being HM seems a bit harsh after making 1st-Team D4 a year ago.
* Division 3 had over 20 players make HM for girls and boys. D4 has fewer schools, but they only had 7 boys and 4(!) girls. At least one girls and one boys team had no representation at all, which I've never seen before. And both of those were from schools who had a player named 1st-Team All-Conference Maybe I'm getting grumpy in my old age but that just sort of shows how little the media cares for small schools in Central Ohio.
* My MOCAL connection gave me this tidbit: "Shekinah had a player make HM All-Conference...who made 2nd-Team All-District. His own teammate made 1st-Team All-Conference but didn't earn any District honors. Madison Christian also had a 1st-Team All-Conference player who got no District honors. Huh? What? This player who made 2nd-Team AD was honored higher than other 1st-Team MOCAL kids too, including players from Delaware, Granville, Northside, and Liberty were honored lower than him. Not saying he didn't deserve some recognition because he was probably their best stats guy, but you'd think that a media who has no knowledge of small school basketball would at least use the league honors as a reference point since they were announced well before the media awards."
* To end with a thought on that as D4 Coach of the Year: Congratulations to coach Vanderwarker on what is surely Northside's only District COY ever. His team has attained what is now a 21-3 record, grabbed the top seed in the tournament, and won a league title for the first time in school history. Those are certainly excellent qualifications to earn that honor from a school that has very little history of success. I do find it a little funny though that he didn't win Conference COY or District 10 Coaches Association COY honors for those accomplishments. Because of my friend I have a pretty good idea why and won't get into it on here, but in general there is a stark difference on how different the media votes on things when they don't necessarily know the inner workings of an entire division.
