That’s not quite what we expected, was it?
2024 Berks basketball coverage presented by
Utilities Employees Credit Union
Well, that didn’t go exactly as planned, did it?
Of the six top-seeded teams in the District 3 boys basketball tournament just one won a championship this week – Linville Hill, in the lowest classification.
The other champs consisted of four No. 2 seeds and a No. 5, Eastern York in 4A.
Things didn’t turn out too well for Berks, either. Twelve months after arguably the most successful tournament in Berks history . . . nada. Not one team in a championship game.
The highlight of the tournament was a third-place match-up between Berks Catholic and Fleetwood. Exeter and Muhlenberg scored first-round upsets and were the only double-digit seeds among the district’s 31 state qualifiers.
Not much to hang your hat on there.
Safe to say our cup runneth over in 2023: Reading High, Exeter and Berks Catholic came home with the Class 6A, 5A and 4A trophies, respectively, a clean sweep of the three highest classifications.
The only performance to rival that came in 1961 when Reading, Kutztown and West Reading swept the A, B, and C titles – the only three classifications at the time. Safe to say that’ll never happen again.
Not only did Berks have three champs last year but it also had two other district finalists, Fleetwood in 4A and Antietam in 2A.
This year all we had is a couple of “wouldas” and “couldas.”
Berks Catholic “woulda” won the Class 4A championship with Kingston McKoy on the floor. There’s no debate about that. With all due respect to eventual champ Eastern York, the Golden Knights beat a much lesser version of the Saints in the semifinals. Without the scoring, passing, ballhandling, and defensive wizardry of Berks’ best player the Saints were simply not the same time.
With McKoy they were 14-0 and compiled the best power rating of any team in the district; since he saw his season ended by a broken leg they have gone 8-4.
Exeter “coulda” won another Class 5A championship. It ran into a little bad luck when several players, including All-Berks point guard Kevin Saenz, came down with flu-like symptoms before a quarterfinal at Mechanicsburg.
Anyone who has followed the Eagles throughout the season could see immediately they weren’t quite the same team that night. They still managed to inch ahead briefly in the fourth quarter, despite getting a season-low six points from Saenz.
Mechanicsburg pulled away for a 57-48 win, then knocked off No. 3 York Suburban and No. 1 Hershey on the way to a championship. Exeter could’ve done the same but those things happen in sports; half the battle sometimes is staying healthy and in the game.
Five Berks teams head to the state tournament – that’s not a small number – but each will likely be considered a first-round underdog, at least on paper. Reading, Berks Catholic, Fleetwood, Exeter, and Muhlenberg are each on the bottom line of their respective PIAA brackets, designating them as the visiting team.
Just one, Berks Catholic, finished as high as third in the district tournament. That’s the worst in the eight years since the PIAA expanded to six classes. You’d have to go back 10 years to find a worse collective performance by county teams.
As far as the District 3 Tournament this is the first time in the six-classification era that only one top-seeded team claimed a championship. There have been at least two in every other season. Last year four top seeds won it: Reading (6), Berks Catholic (4), Lancaster Mennonite (2) and Linville (1). Four No. 1’s won the year before, in the four highest classes: Reading, Lampeter-Strasburg, Berks Catholic and Columbia.
Until this week, that’s been pretty much par for the course. Over the first seven tournaments of the six-class era No. 1 seeds won 22 of the 42 boys championships – that’s 53 percent. A No. 1 or No. 2 seed has won 71 percent of the time. A 1, 2, or 3 seed has won 83 percent of the time.
Sixty-one percent of the finalists have been a No. 1 or 2 seed; mix in the No. 3’s and that percentage rises to 79 percent of all finalists.
Everyone loves to see a Cinderella run away with a championship but it rarely happens. Only five times in 42 brackets (seven years times six classifications) has a team seeded No. 7 or worse reached a championship game.
Only one of those has won it: Muhlenberg, the No. 8 seed, claimed the Class 5A championship in 2020, beating No. 9 Northeastern, No. 1 Gettysburg, No. 4 Northern York, and No. 3 Milton Hershey (in overtime, no less).
That one didn’t go exactly as planned, either.
