Basketball season begins in earnest in Pea Ridge

When I looked at the schedule, I realized that it was only a couple of months before the district basketball playoffs begin. It seems like the season just got started but here we are, just a few weeks away from the “big dance” to the state finals.

Though the cage ’Hawks began play back in November, and have been practicing for months, the complete team could not truly be together until the end of the football season. For the first time in Blackhawk history, football season didn’t conclude until Dec. 9, well into what is normally considered the basketball season. With several athletes from the football team now joining their basketball teammates, it will be full steam ahead for a team that hopes to replicate the success that was enjoyed this past fall.

The Trent Loyd led athletes received a No. 9 state ranking in the initial MaxPreps CBS 4A Poll that was released last week, and hopes and expectations are as high for the roundballers as they were for the football boys.

With a large and seasoned senior class coming into the campaign, the ’Hawks added even more depth when they welcomed senior transfer Matt Thomas who played his first three years for Farmington. On a team with multiple scorers like returning allstate honoree Joey Hall, the 6’5” Thomas would have likely become the all-time leading scorer for the Cardinals had remained. The ’Hawks will be tall this year with four players topping 6’3” and 10 more at 6’0” or taller.

The only fly in the ointment going forward will be the rehabbing of Weston Church a clutch defender and shooter who is recovering from a knee surgery. When he is finally back and game ready, the ’Hawks will have a really enviable starting lineup and bench.

A big change in this years’ schedule is the composition of the the conference. The Arkansas Activities Association decided to combine the six 3A and the six 4A classifications into 12 blended conferences. The Blackhawks will be home to the 3A-4A-1 along with 4A members Gentry, Gravette, Lincoln, Prairie Grove, Shiloh and West Fork. The 3A members are Elkins, Haas Hall and Greenland. The 4A-1 members Berryville and Huntsville have been reshuffled off to the 3A-4A-2 conference.

After the conference season, the original members of the 4A-1 will come back together for the district playoffs. Under the old system, the top two finishers in the conference round robin would automatically advance to the district semi-finals but with these blended conferences, I am not sure how they will determine that. My search of the AAA website revealed no details.

What else I am unsure of, is why the AAA did what they did this year regarding the conference configurations. The 3A teams in our conference will be hard pressed to be successful when they are playing seven other schools much bigger than their own. Teams like Pea Ridge and Huntsville, (now in the 3A-4A-2), will gain nothing playing teams that are not competitive. Huntsville is now in a seven-team league with the only 4A member being Berryville.

At any rate, when the conference games end the second week of February, we will be going back into what we are used to. An eight-team district tournament, with the top four finishers playing in a regional tournament against the top four teams from the 4A-4. The preseason picks Pea Ridge, Huntsville, Gravette and Berryville to be the top four of the 4A-1 with Dardanelle, Pottsville, West Fork and Booneville considered the best four from the 4A-4.

The biggest change from last year concerns the