About an hour before coaches were set to select bracket positions for boys basketball sectional and district tournament play Sunday, Martin RPI published the rankings that would be used for seedings in the Northwest District.
One look at the Division III district seeding post on Twitter, and it was obvious which regional has the potential to be the most interesting. Come March 8 and 11 at the Stroh Center, if chalk holds, some of the best basketball in the state could take place.
OFFICIAL D3 NWO District seeding for boys basketball.
— Martin RPI (@MartinRPI) February 5, 2023
Two teams out of the TAAC earn the 1-seed in their respective districts in @StritchAthletic & @ecsportstoledo. @AthleticsOg takes the top spot in the Lima District! pic.twitter.com/g69vKCT63D
Emmanuel Christian, with a healthy Jerry Easter II set to go, has the top seed in the Napoleon district. Cardinal Stritch, which edged Emmanuel Christian 72-70 in a Toledo Area Athletic Conference thriller Friday, is the top seed in the Norwalk district. Ottawa-Glandorf, a regular come the third week of tournament play and last year’s Division III state runner-up, is the top seed in the Lima district. The Wooster district that rounds out the regional site features Creston Norwayne as the top seed.
There’s plenty of basketball to be played — two weeks of the regular season, plus sectional and district weeks — before regional week arrives. Let’s take a closer look at the tournament pairings set Sunday.
Central Catholic bracket a little beefier: Just like with the Division I girls tournament draw a week earlier, the top two seeds in the twin Northwest District brackets opted to enter the same bracket instead of playing in opposite districts.
Unlike the girls draw, however, the presence of No. 1 seed Whitmer and No. 2 seed Tiffin Columbian in the Central Catholic district bracket did slant the average RPI of the Central and Lake brackets.
The 10 teams entered in the Central Catholic district, a bracket that also includes No. 5 seed Findlay and No. 9 seed St. John’s Jesuit, combine for a .7678 RPI average. The Lake bracket, meanwhile, has a .7447 average RPI across its nine teams. Third-seeded Perrysburg, fourth-seeded Lima Senior, and sixth-seeded Northview are the top three seeds at Lake.
Division I uses a combined seeding format across the two Northwest District brackets. Divisions II, III, and IV seed each district separately.
Make that the beefiest: The average RPI of the Division I Central Catholic district is the highest of all district brackets involving teams from The Blade’s coverage area.
The Lake district is second strongest, with the Division III district at Napoleon (.7394) coming in third.
The three Division IV districts with Blade-area teams come in with the lowest average RPI: Willard (.6445), Liberty-Benton (.6558), and Defiance (.6662).
Peculiar pairings: A year ago, Northview and Lima Senior met in the Division I regional semifinals at Savage Arena, with a late Wildcats rally nearly sending the game to overtime before the Spartans beat the buzzer with a baseline 3-pointer.
After both sides lost several key pieces to graduation, there’s a chance that the teams could meet earlier this year in the Lake district. A Northview sectional final win over Bowling Green and a Lima Senior sectional final victory over Fremont Ross (both games Feb. 24 at Lakota) would set up a Feb. 28 district semifinal meeting.
Another potential district semifinal contest with intrigue comes in the Division I bracket at Central Catholic, where top-seeded Whitmer could meet its neighborhood rival, seventh-seeded Start. They faced off Jan. 7 at Start, with the host Spartans prevailing 64-54.
In the Division II Lake bracket, No. 2 seed Rossford, who has just one loss to another Blade-area team, could potentially meet that team it fell to, third-seeded Wauseon, in the district semifinals.
The Division III Napoleon bracket has a potential NWOAL rematch in the district semifinals, where No. 2 seed Swanton could play No. 3 Delta. They met Jan. 27 at Swanton, where the visiting Panthers claimed a 35-34 victory.
First Published February 7, 2023, 1:41 a.m.
