One thing was apparent as I watched this year’s NIAA boys basketball playoffs.
The Sierra League was head and shoulders above its High Desert collegaues, as evidenced by three Sierra teams making the Final Four along with Spanish Springs, the HD regular-season champion. Carson and Galena won their openers by a wide margin, and Spanish Springs barely scraped by Douglas. Manogue needed a last-second score to edge Reed.
On the girls’ side, there were only two good teams all year. Reno and Bishop Manogue cruised through their schedules. Manogue’s only league loss during the regular season was to Reno. The Huskies, led by 6-4 junior Mallory McGwire, went 16-0. After that, the dropoff was huge.
In the semifinals, Manogue beat Reed, 72-40, and Reno pounded Douglas, 61-28. Maybe they should have just called off all the other games and just had a championship game between Reno and Manogue. Or better yet, a best-of-three series.
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And speaking of basketball, I miss the days of the eight-team state tournament.
I’d like to see Nevada adopt the California state tournament where each side of the state plays things out until there is one team from the north and one from the south left. It makes no sense when you have two Vegas teams playing each other for a state title in Reno. High school fans are provincial. They aren’t going to be interested in two out-of-area teams. Doing it the California way, you would have one north team playing a south team in all championship games.
If you do it that way, you can play the tournament in two days, and all the games could be held at the main arena. You could play four games on Friday and six on Saturday.
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It’s not 100 percent official, but it appears Reed and Carson will hook up in a non-league football game to open the 2015 season.
According to Bob Bateman, CHS athletic director, everything has been agreed on in principle.
The game will be played at Carson, and CHS will pay $1,000 to Reed for the one-year contract. Carson will not play Reno and Reed in the regular season for the second straight year.
Reed knocked off Carson 28-25 in last year’s regional championship game, as the Senators missed a game-tying field goal in the final seconds.
Both teams return a lot of key players, so it could be an exciting way to open the season.
Coach Blair Roman indicated he had thought about possibly returning to Idaho for a game, but that apparently didn’t materialize.
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Nice to see the Warriors knock off San Antonio on Friday. Both teams came into the game well rested, so that tells methe Warriors are a viable contender to make the NBA Finals. In fact, I think whomever comes out of the Western Conference will be the NBA champion.
If the Cavs can get one more piece, they would be a championship caliber team. LeBron James is 30, and it remains to be seen how much longer he can be the No. 1 player in the game. The Cavs need to make noise while he’s still in his prime.
