Pre-Season Cleveland.com Rankings

cardzfan1234

cardzfan1234

Well-known member
Matt Goul always does a great job (in my eyes) on high school coverage for Cleveland.com. In an era where most media outlets are doing less and less coverage, I think they are doing about as much as ever considering the limited staff. Here is the pre-season top 25:

1. SVSM
2. St Edward
3. Mentor
4. Lutheran East
5. Green
6. Cleveland Heights
7. Lake Catholic
8. Lorain
9. Medina
10. Shaker
11. Brush
12. St Ignatius
13. Buchtel
14. Cleveland Central Catholic
15. Richmond Heights
16. Garfield Heights
17. Rhodes
18. VASJ
19. Hoban
20. Fairview
21. Holy Name
22. Benedictine
23. Revere
24. Brunswick
25. Warrensville Heights
 
 
While the Irish will be good, IMO Mentor should be ranked #1. They have a ton of talent coming back and that Floria (sp?) kid looks to be the best player in NEO.
 
Crazy to think about the amount of Talent in Cleveland and surrounding areas this year. Anyone who is a high school basketball fan needs to try and see as many of these teams as possible.
 
Maybe no. 6 Cleveland Heights didn't have everyone but I watched no. 5 Green annihilate them the other week. I'm not a Green supporter and I know they lost the Kaleb Martin kid off the regional final squad, but they don't look like they are gonna fall off any this year. That ranking is justified, imo.
 
SVillegrad said:
Maybe no. 6 Cleveland Heights didn't have everyone but I watched no. 5 Green annihilate them the other week. I'm not a Green supporter and I know they lost the Kaleb Martin kid off the regional final squad, but they don't look like they are gonna fall off any this year. That ranking is justified, imo.
Click to expand...
Totally agree....4 starters return, great defense.
 
What is the deal with cleveland.com? They preview the weekend tournament at Heights then don't even post scores. In fact, there's not even a results page.
 
With only one more weekend of regular season left before they release their final rankings, it seems that Goul did a pretty solid job with the pre-season expectations. The top 5 in his pre-season poll are all currently in the top 5. Of the top 11 in his pre-season poll, nine of them (all but Lake Catholic and Lorain) are still in the top 11.

Two teams that stand out as exceeding expectations are Solon and Garfield Heights. I know that Sonny gets a lot of criticism, but if I were giving a coach of the year award in the Cleveland.com coverage area, he would be high on that list. The two Johnson boys (Meechie and Sonny Jr) are injured or no longer part of the program. And yet, Garfield shared the league title in a competitive LEL with Cleveland Heights. The Bulldogs' schedule outside of the LEL is admittedly pretty mediocre compared to season's past. But still, they are 16-5 with a chance to win 17 games. 12 months ago, if you would've said that Garfield would win 17 games without Meechie or Sonny Jr - most would've thought you were crazy.

Solon is another team that deserves some praise. They weren't even in the top 25 to start, and I can't really blame him. Two years removed from a state final appearance, the star of that team (Sincere Carry) is long gone. Last season, the other four starters on that state runner-up returned. All graduated in 2019, leaving Marcus Steele as their only returning starter from 2019-20. The cupboard seemed bare. Coach DeCesare is one of the area's best coaches and he proved it big time this year. Solon is 16-5 (9-4 in the rugged GCC) headed into their last game tonight at Mentor.

If the chalk holds up, Solon and Garfield will meet in what should be a competitive district semifinal at Twinsburg.
 
cardzfan1234 said:
Matt Goul always does a great job (in my eyes) on high school coverage for Cleveland.com. In an era where most media outlets are doing less and less coverage, I think they are doing about as much as ever considering the limited staff. Here is the pre-season top 25:

1. SVSM
2. St Edward
3. Mentor
4. Lutheran East
5. Green
6. Cleveland Heights
7. Lake Catholic
8. Lorain
9. Medina
10. Shaker
11. Brush
12. St Ignatius
13. Buchtel
14. Cleveland Central Catholic
15. Richmond Heights
16. Garfield Heights
17. Rhodes
18. VASJ
19. Hoban
20. Fairview
21. Holy Name
22. Benedictine
23. Revere
24. Brunswick
25. Warrensville Heights
Click to expand...
Matt goul said thanks for this thread.
 
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