Well, originally we were scheduled to play four games tonight, but to my understanding, it seems the MSHSAA dropped the hammer down on the two seventh-place games. As a result, only the two consolation finals will be played tonight, with the girls game at 6 p.m. and the boys game at 7:30 p.m.
Here’s my understanding of it, just from listening to Greg Schmidt talk on the radio as I drove home last night. It appears MSHSAA frowns upon tournament directors filling in JV teams JUST for the seventh-place game and no other game in the tournament. There have been a handful of tournaments where JV teams have played at the varsity level, but they played the whole tournament, not just one game. I’m not sure why this is suddenly an issue, since this format was acceptable last year, but now it seems like it’s putting more and more pressure on Slater athletic director Bob Gonzalez to find an eighth team to fill up the brackets. Take that for what it’s worth.
No. 6 Slater (G) vs. No. 4 Fayette (6 p.m. tip-off): This is the third time I’ve had to predict a Slater-Fayette tournament game and it’s really starting to get old. Slater has the home-court advantage and, as we saw against Higginsville, has the ability to go on a pretty big run. But if Fayette plays like it did yesterday, this should be no contest. I anticipate the Lady Falcons to pound the ball inside. The question is, who has a big game: Ellie Johnson, Hayleigh Brunkhorst or Caitlin Wells? It could be any one of them. Hopefully this is the last time these two teams play each other. Prediction: Fayette 54, Slater 43.
No. 6 Pilot Grove (B) vs. No. 4 Fayette (7:30 p.m. tip-off): I gotta admit, I was impressed to see Pilot Grove hang with Glasgow as long as it did the other night. I don’t see that happening tonight. Sweet Springs beat Pilot Grove, and Fayette beat Sweet Springs by about 30 points. So how many points does Bruce Marshall score tonight? I’m going to go with 35. I heard somewhere that he’s about 12 or 14 points away from becoming the all-time leading scorer in Fayette history. I guess I’ll need to verify that, because if it’s true, he’ll reach that mark tonight. Prediction: Fayette 74, Pilot Grove 53.
