START GAME

Whoops.  Nature called and wouldn’t stop talking.

Apologies.

4:15 left 2nd, Imhotep leads 27-15

From what I’ve been able to see, Imhotep’s athletic ability is ruling the game.  Brandon Austin moves inside and GCC can’t cut off his drives.

Imhotep on a steal by Austin, lead 36-21 under1:00

END HALF: IMHOTEP 36, GREENSBURG CENTRAL CATHOLIC 21

START 3RD

Imhotep keeps the pressure on, leads 40-26 at 5;46

TO at 5:02 … Imhotep 40, GCC 27

Pace has slowed, two FT by David Appolon give IC a 42-27 lead at 3:12

Kyhree Woten of Imhotep starting to put on a show.  5-for-5 from field and just had a grand dunk wiped away by foul call … IC leads GCC 50-31

Wooten with steal and dunk at :30 ..Imhotep leads 55-31

END 3RD: IMHOTEP CHARTER 55, GREENSBURG CENTRAL CATHOLIC 31

START 4TH

Won’t get to the mercy rule (40-point lead), but Imhotep is giving it a go with a 59-31 lead with 6:22 to play

TO at 4:43 … Imhotep 62, GCC 31

Imhotep leads  64-34, toying with boys Class AA championship game record margin of victory (31)

Imhotep wins it 67-34, establishes boys Class AA championship game record for margin of victory at 33

FINAL: IMOTEP CHARTER 67, GREENSBURG CENTRAL CATHOLIC 34

Montour keeping early pace with NG, tied 5-5 at 4:54 1st

Both teams missing plenty from floor (33.3% for Montour, 26.7% for NG)

Montour with 9-5 lead at 2:21 … all nine points between Dillon Buechel (5)  and Austin heter (4)

Tied at 9-9 under 1:00

Big trey by Kevin Sciulli late 1st … 12-9 Montour

END 1st: MONTOUR 12, NEUMANN-GORETTI 9

START 2ND

TO at 6:22, Montour leads 15-11

NG rallies, ties game at 17-17 … Montour TO at 4:34

NG finds a little smoke at the end of the quarter, lead 24-21 at the half

END HALF: NEUMANN-GORETTI 24, MONTOUR 21

NG strikes quickly, opens lead to 26-21 and gets turnover … Montour will have to get to work now

Nice reverse lay Devin Wilson closes it to 26-23, NG

Big trey by derrick Stewart of NG makes it 29-25 at 5:30  … And Jimmy Sciulli of Montour responds with a 3

Montour gets lead at 4;51, 30-29

TO at 3:54, Montour 30-29

Nice run by Goretti, retake lead at 31-30

Heter down low, M leads 32-31

Pace is strong now, lots of lead changes, M up 34-33 at 1;45

N-G gets nice play along baseline by derrick Stewrat for and one, 38-34

END 3rd: NEUMANN-GORETTI 38, MONTOUR 34

START 4th

NG unloads quickly, raise lead to 42-34

Goretti running Montour, up 44-34, M coach Adam Kaufman trying to call and can’t get TO

NG calls TO with 4:34 left … Montour getting close to miracle tim, must come out with strong run out of the TO

NG running away … lead 48-34 with 2:36 left .. Montour definitely in Miracle Land now after NG 15-0 run

Trey by Aaron McGee at 2:14 gets it back to 10, 48-38 NG

Down to 1:40, NG leads 49-38

Timeout at 1:00, McGee makes jumper to close to 49-40, but M burned a lot of clock setting up the shot

NG Derrick Stewart wraps it up, 51-40 at 47.2

Buechel cans a 3 at ;39 to make it 51-43, but it’s too little too late

NG’s Ja’Quan Newton dunks at 23.2 … 55-43 with 23.2 left … Montour subs

FINAL: NEUMANN-GORETTI 55, MONTOUR 45

You know what I’m talking about.  Every year, folks with a vested interest in the public v private issue rush to the state basketball brackets and scream, “Eureka! We have found evidence of disparity and unfairness!  We must correct this injustice by being unjust ourselves and throw the private schools out of  – pick one – (Class AA and A, the PIAA basketball playoffs, all PIAA playoffs, the PIAA altogether, America)!”

There’s no doubt the drumbeat will continue: 10 of the 16 teams are private schools. Yes, I include the charter schools in the private category even though they are creations of public school districts, which make them public schools.  But in practice, they act more like private schools.  If you consider Imhotep Charter and Lincoln Park Charter, the boys’ AA finalists, public schools, well, your breakdown is 8 publics and 8 privates.

But that steams the public school backers just the same.  As always, they whip out the stats and point to the argument that private schools dominate the basketball brackets despite the fact that only 18 percent of PIAA member schools are private.

Indeed, the only pure public v public matchup among the eight classes comes once again in boys AAAA between Chester and Mount Lebanon. So a 50-50 fight isn’t a fair fight, in the public mind.

I really can’t add much new to the tired, old arguments that swirl around this issue, save for a change of language.  When the issue arises, as it inevitably does at this time of year, it is always framed as “public schools” vs. “private schools.”  I think it’s time to frame this debate properly.

Thus, let RodFrisco.com be the first to call this “government schools” vs. “private schools”.  Why?  Because it’s accurate.

Yes, I know.  The private schools have their hands in the public till at least partially because the government schools have to provide bus transportation for private school students in their government school district.  And they damn well should, given the amount of taxpayer money private-school parents cough up to the state for virtually no return.

But I get a laugh out of the government school proponents carping about the extraordinary advantages conferred upon private schools in athletics because the private schools can draw from multiple government school districts while the poor wittle government schools with their multimillion-dollar budgets and their multimillion-dollar state subsidies (well, until now) are stuck with whoever limps through their front doors.  Or million-dollar stadium gates.

(Here’s where I always add the disclaimer:  I’m a government school graduate – Clearfield Area High School, Class of ’75 – in large part because I was barely aware that private schools even existed in the Great White North and because my parents had a whole bunch of kids, precluding any thoughts of paying additional tuition.  For the record, I had a blast at Clearfield, at least when I wasn’t being turned down for dates or getting thrown out of my homeroom for being a smart-ass, trends that continue to this day. Well, not the dating requests, Mrs. Frisco.)

The point is, I have some trouble dredging up sympathy for the government school plight in athletics, especially since I’m a big believer in constitutional principles and  believe that kids who attend private school should not be counted differently or treated differently than their government-school counterparts.

Of course, the government types have been emboldened by two recent developments.   First, Ohio’s serious look at what it calls “Competitive Balance” (I just adore euphemisms) might well bleed into Pennsylvania, where the topic is not quite as white-hot, but soon could be.

Second, for years the government vs. private issue was pretty much limited to basketball, but that’s changing.  Private schools are making inroads into PIAA championships that had been more or less the domain of government schools, sports like football, wrestling, soccer and swimming.  Just this school year, a private school – Bethlehem Catholic – won a PIAA dual meet wrestling championship for the first time, prompting Lehigh Valley wags to name Bethlehem Catholic head coach Jeff Karam Recruiter of the Year.

In football, four private schools – PIAA champion Allentown Central Catholic, runner-up Harrisburg Bishop McDevitt, Archbishop Wood and Erie Cathedral Prep – all reached the Class AAA semifinals, the first time four private schools had filled a semifinal bracket in the 24-year history of the PIAA Football Championships.

So the Issue That Will Never Die will remain alive (but not particularly well) now that it’s had in annual PIAA basketball bracket booster shot.  In the meantime, enjoy the games.

PIAA BASKETBALL PAIRINGS

In all honesty, I like basketball. There’s really nothing to dislike about it, although it should clearly be a spring sport. And outdoors. Swimming, too.

Anyhow, here are the brackets for the District 3 Basketball Championships, which begin Friday with preliminary games in the top two classes. The District 3 Championships conclude March 3-5 at Giant Center.

You can access the District 3 brackets at the District 3 website here.

Look for district basketball pairings from around the state later this week.

The ratings can be accessed at the District 3 website here.

Here are the PIAA brackets:

BOYS

Play-in round

Class AAAA

Class AAA

Class AA

Class A

GIRLS

Play-in round

Class AAAA

Class AAA

Class AA

Class A

The boys power ratings will be updated later tonight (Tuesday).

Click on the links below to access the power ratings:

District 3 Girls Basketball Power Ratings

District 3 Boys Basketball Power Ratings

You can access them here directly.

CLASS AAA

CLASS AA

A reminder that all matches through this Saturday, Jan. 29, will be counted toward a team’s final power rating. As the wrestling power rating compiler, I’ll be working all day and night on Saturday to complete the power ratings as soon as possible.

Once completed and checked, they will be posted first on the District 3 website, then at RodFrisco.com.

In addition, I will post tentative Class AAA and Class AA brackets that evening.

I will provide links to the updated District 3 basketball power ratings once they are posted to the District 3 website.

Oh, in case you missed it, the National Federation of High Schools is once again considering a change in the wrestling classes. You can access my post on the matter here.

The new school, a merger of Indian Valley and Lewistown high schools that was approved by the Mifflin County School Board last week, will be in place next school year if current Mifflin County School District plans move forward. At current, there is no indication that anything will interrupt those plans, but with school mergers, anything can happen.

But here is what has happened: Indian Valley and Lewistown, both members of the Mountain League, were booted out of the Mountain League in 2012-2013, although the new school will have Mountain League schedules in most, if not all, sports for the next school year.

With the new school, which will be a mid-sized Class AAAA school in football and basketball, thrown out of the Mountain League, it is highly likely that the Mid-Penn Conference will accept the new school as a full member at the start of the next cycle.

On Thursday, the Mid-Penn Conference, as anticipated, accepted State College as an all-sports member; the Little Lions had been a football-only member since 2004. With Mifflin County between State College and Harrisburg, it makes adding Mifflin County a little more palatable to the Mid-Penn.

So palatable, in fact, the conference has included the Mifflin County school in its 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 schedules as a league member, despite the fact that no formal action has been taken on the Mifflin County matter.

In fact, the Mid-Penn, meeting at the same time as the Mountain League and unaware of the ML’s actions, would likely have passed the alignments that included Mifflin County had it not been for requests by Trinity and Steelton-Highspire to change basketball divisions. The conference will vote electronically next Wednesday on the alignments once Steel-High and Trinity resolve the issue. Assuming the Mifflin County school is included in those alignments, as they were on Wednesday, that’s a pretty good indication Mifflin County will have smooth sailing to Mid-Penn membership.

Taking a few days off in the website biz is the equivalent of locking the doors of a brick-and-mortar store during the shopping season. That’s bad business, but like many of you, I had soooooo many things to attend to, not the least of which was getting the District 3 wrestling power ratings up to speed … and what an 800-pound gorilla that thing is going to be.

There are 91 schools with varsity wrestling in District 3 – welcome, Camp Hill Trinity! – and we’re tracking every dual meet result of every District 3 team … and every dual meet of their PIAA opponents. Right now, with plenty of as-yet undetermined dual meet tournament opponents awaiting in January, there’s at least another 80 schools to track. I expect that number to edge close to 100 by the time the late January dual tournaments go live.

No complaints; I’m getting paid for it. But it did, along with working on District 3′s new website, consume the last three days.

Anyhow, RodFrisco.com is not as dead and gone as that batch of belt-loosening Christmas cookies, but unfortunately I will not hit up a holiday tournament, wrestling, basketball or otherwise. Instead, it’s off to the GWN (Great White North) for a delayed Christmas visit to Ma and Pa Frisco in Clearfield on Thursday.

(I have a sheepish confession to make. I had planned to load up the sleigh and head north on Sunday, but I allowed the weather forecast to scare me off … and there wasn’t a flake to be found in Harrisburg. Well, the snow kind of flake. So I wedged myself right into Governor Rendell’s paradigm and I am a deeply embarrassed Pennsylvanian and ex-tough guy as a result. On the other hand, Rendell thinks his beloved Philadelphians can’t leave the row house without taxpayer-subsidized transportation to the heavily securitized corner store in perfect weather, but should risk life and limb and pay premium prices to watch the Birds stink up the taxpayer-subsidized Linc.)

Even if Gov. Spendell used the wrong platform, he does have the right message for once: We are fast becoming a nation of hand-wringing Oprahs. Honestly, I remember when a snowstorm, even a whopper, wasn’t an “emergency.” And to the folks I’ve heard on radio and TV who have used the argument that fans who attended the game in the snow would end up driving into a ditch afterward, well, have you ever seen Eagles post-game traffic? Or pre-game traffic, for that matter?

Anyhow, later today I’ll post my winter-season game plan for RodFrisco.com, which has taken a little bit of thought since I’ve signed on to be District 3′s webmaster and director of corporate sponsorships. But it won’t keep me from posting daily and hosting a weekly chat for my wrestling and football friends; in fact, the first chat will take place next week after I return from the GWN.

So, starting today, I’m back to daily posts on Pennsylvania wrestling with a touch of basketball and swimming and whatever else is newsworthy.

But first, I have to grow another set, don’t I?