Random thoughts on prep basketball:
North Medford’s Karissa Dixon has left little doubt she’s a go-to girl. Early this month, she made a 3-pointer at the regulation buzzer to force overtime at Sheldon in a game the Black Tornado eventually won. Wednesday, her 3 from the top of the key in the final two minutes gave North the lead for good in a 50-45 win over rival South Medford. She had five 3s in the game.
Cascade Christian’s Brian Morse knows what it takes to win in the postseason. The coach of the Class 3A boys defending state champion leaves a couple open dates on the schedule for late in the season, then tries to fill them with quality opponents to toughen his own club for tournament play. It’s not easy finding good teams with open dates — winter cancellations help — but he was able to do so this season. The late additions were top-ranked Dayton, a 72-61 loss, and Ashland, ranked sixth in 5A, a 55-52 win this week. The Challengers are ranked fourth in 3A.
I’m not a big fan of extended league playoffs, and I don’t pretend to understand how they all work. But the Sunset and Mountain Valley leagues have it set up, I think, where No. 5 plays No. 4 and No. 3 plays No. 2. Then the 4-5 winner plays the 3-2 loser for a state berth, and the 3-2 winner plays No. 1 for state seeding. What further complicates things are regular-season ties that must be broken before the league playoffs can start. For instance, Cascade Christian’s girls have four games in six days this week because of the league tiebreaker-league playoff-state seeding situation.
