Frustration has begun to overtake the excitement typically associated with the start of the high school basketball postseason. After more than three weeks of having games postponed because of inclement weather, many area coaches have run out of time and options to complete the regular season before the district tournaments tip off.
Game that were pushed back by icy conditions now likely won’t be made up, meaning several teams will not have completed their district schedules. That may affect seedings for district tournaments, most of which were set to begin Thursday.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Brainerd coach Robert High said. “We’ve done about everything we can — moved games around to odd days that would have been off days and pushed games back as far as we can to the point that now we just have to move on and start the tournament.”
Howard coach Walter McGary said his team likely will wind up with four fewer games than were originally scheduled, and he said the weather postponements have affected the momentum his team had gained. Lookout Valley’s boys’ and girls’ teams have played four games in the last five days and won’t have time to rest before the start of the District 6-A tournament this weekend.
Also in 6-A, the weather has caused the Marion County and South Pittsburg teams to face the potential of having two district games each that can’t be made up. South Pittsburg currently is first in the district and the Warriors are second, so those games, which include a head-to-head matchup, can make a notable difference.
“Right now we won’t know what we’re going to do until we have our district meeting Wednesday morning,” Pirates coach David Phillips said. “There are all sorts of scenarios for about every team, but we’ll have to vote on how to settle it all when we get together.
“We’re at a point now where you wonder how do you decide which game to make up. When you’ve got more than one but only one day to get them in, what do you do? It’s been pretty frustrating for everybody.”