Basketball: Storms forces majority of Tuesday schedule to Wednesday

While there were 30 games on tap for Tuesday night around the northeast Georgia area, only one was to involve a first-place showdown and and only a few others will have any significant impact at the top of region standings.

However, the entire was postponed to later dates as a winter storm that is expected to move through the area on Tuesday caused school systems to call off all extra curricula activities for the day. 

(See below for the full schedule of Wednesday's games.)

But area teams sure are getting a lot of love from pollsters and the computers at the moment. However, there are plenty of disagreements on who should be where in the rankings.

Rankings won’t matter come playoff time for Classes 4A and up. We’ll look at just the top 10, use the Kyle Sandy Spiel poll, and compare that to MaxPreps (MP) in the latest rankings. 

However, the GHSA Postseason rankings will determine how teams will eventually be seeded for the playoffs once region tournaments are complete for Classes 3A and below. We’ll look at the top 32 in each of those and compare them to Spiel and MP.

Starting with the boys, Buford is ranked 6th in Class 6A but is not ranked in the top 10 in MaxPreps. In Class 5A, Spiel has Habersham Central 4th, while MP has the Raiders 7th. Gainesville is 7th in Spiel but is 4th in MP.

In Class 3A, Cherokee Bluff out of Region 8-3A had been dominating the polls. The PSR and MP both have the Bears No. 1, while Spiel has them 4th. That is likely to change after the Bears fell to Jefferson last week. 

The PSR has three 8-3A teams in the top 12, with East Hall 6th and Jefferson 12th. Spiel has Bluff 4th, East Hall is 6th, and Jefferson is unranked, and MP has East Hall 5th and Jefferson 13th.

Two Region 6-3A teams -- Lumpkin County (20th) and North Hall (27th) -- would make the field right now in the PSR. MP has the Trojans 22nd and the Indians 27th. Neither is ranked in Spiel.

In Class 2A, Union County is ranked 3rd in the PSR and 5th in both Spiel and MP. In Class A D1, Rabun County is 3rd, Banks County 20th, and Commerce 23rd in the PSR rankings. Spiel has Rabun County 6th and Banks County 10th, while MP has Rabun 4th, Commerce 20th, and Banks 27th overall.

Towns County is 12th in the PSR, unranked by Spiel, and 15th in MP.

For the girls, North Forsyth is ranked No. 1 in Class 6A by Spiel, but the Lady Raiders are just 4th in MP. Buford is 10th in both polls in 6A.

Dropping down to Class 3A, Jefferson is 2nd in the PSR and MP, but Spiel has the Lady Dragons 3rd. Cherokee Bluff is 4th in the PSR but 6th in MP and 7th by Spiel. White County is 5th in the PSR, 4th in MP, and 6th by Spiel.

Also, in Class 3A, Chestatee is 7th in the PSR and 9th in MP and is unranked by Spiel. According to the PSR, several teams could secure a spot if the playoffs started today. Dawson County is 19th, East Hall 20th, and Lumpkin County 25th. North Hall, however, is right on the bubble. The Lady Trojans are 34th in the PSR, but they could slide into one of the final spots with two private schools rated ahead of them.

In Class 2A, Union County is ranked just 16th in the PSR, but Spiel has the Lady Panthers 9th, and MP has them 11th.

In Class A D1, Banks County is 12th, but Spiel has them 6th overall,l and the Lady Leopards are 9th in MP. Rabun County is 32nd, but eight private teams are rated ahead of the Lady Wildcats.

FIRST PLACE SHOWDOWNS

As mentioned earlier, only one game on the docket Tuesday night has first-place implications.

The Class 6A top-ranked North Forsyth girls (19-0, 9-0 Region 6-6A) travel to Lambert (14-5, 8-1 Region 6-6A) with the Lady Longhorns looking to force a tie atop the standings. But the Lady Raiders clobbered Lambert in their first meeting last month, 62-36. North Forsyth has scored 64 or more points in 9 of its last 10 games, while Lambert is allowing just 45.7 points/game on the season. The 62 by NoFo in the first meeting is the second-most points the Lady Longhorns have surrendered this season.