High school basketball tourneys try to get back on track

Postseason high school basketball tournaments will be postponed for a week as many teams across Arkansas try to advance following a debilitating week of snowy weather that restricted travel.

Many conferences were set to conduct their own tournaments as not every team played an equal amount of games this season. Some teams endured postponements as a result of positive covid-19 results and subsequent quarantines.

It was not immediately clear how that would impact the 5A-South Conference, which includes Pine Bluff and White Hall. Those teams were scheduled to play tournament games next week.

But in classes 1A-4A, region and state tournaments would be delayed by a week to allow conferences to either complete their regular season schedules or conduct district tournaments to determine the top four seeds for the region stage. Region tournaments will now be held March 3-6, state tournaments in classes 1A, 2A, 3A and 5A are rescheduled for March 8-15 and in classes 4A and 6A, March 9-13.

The state championships will be held March 18-20.

The Conference 4A-8 boys basketball playoff between Star City and Watson Chapel has been postponed to 5 p.m. Monday. The game will be played at Watson Chapel. The winner will automatically qualify for the 4A South Region tournament in Star City later in the week.

The conference earlier this week decided to stop its district tournament and send the top two boys and top two girls teams to the regional, with the teams remaining in districts to play for the final seeds. Star City and Watson Chapel have already advanced on the girls side.

Conference 3A-6, which includes Dollarway, elected to not hold a district tourney since every team played a 14-game conference schedule. The Dollarway boys team has advanced to the 3A Region 3 tournament at Central Arkansas Christian in Little Rock.