Basketball Games: Early vs. Late

One thing worth watching is how teams navigate their second half schedules.  There were two games tonight featuring non-league rematches.  Both games turned out much different than they did the first time around and both games provided information that is helpful in evaluating everyone's chances in sectionals.

The first of those games was on the girls side matching up Galway from the WAC and Heatly from the CHVL.  When they met in late December Galway came out on top by 10 points, but tonight jacked it up to a 34 point win.  This is significant because it is another reference point for a CHVL team that we can use to help judge where Waterford's rightful place is in the bracket.  Waterford has played Heatly once and beat them by 33.  Once you get past a certain number, MOV doesn't really mean that much and I believe it is somewhere around 28-30 points.  If you are ahead by that much you're probably playing the end of the bench so all you are really proving is that your 8-12 players are decent, but since most of the time those players won't play significant minutes in sectionals anyway it doesn't make much difference.  What we've learned is that the second place team in the WAC North is just as capable as the best team in the CHVL, which would put them somewhere in Fort Plain's range in the 3-5 range in my mind.  Now if we could only see Fort Plain play Waterford we could know for sure.  Too bad we can't until sectionals.

The other game was on the boys side and matched up Broadalbin-Perth from the Foothills with Schuylerville of the Wasaren.  The first time they met BP won by 12.  This time, Schuylerville reversed fortune and won by 14.  In my mind this puts BP out of the running in the B bracket.  They could still win a game or two, but I don't think they will be able to compete with the top couple teams in the bracket, namely Watervliet.  It also solidifies Schuylerville's spot up  near the top for the time being.  Their first game had me a bit worried about how Schuylerville really fared in the B bracket as you wouldn't think they would lose a game like that.  Going in to this week, I thought this was one of the biggest games to watch.  Schuylerville responded how they had to and for once, we actually have an answer to one of those lingering questions.