Seeding the county teams

Tonight is a big night for basketball players, coaches and fans in LeFlore County.

The high school basketball teams will be seeded for the upcoming LeFlore County Tournament to be held Jan. 17 through Jan. 22 with the finals to be held at Spiro.

About the only sure thing about the seeding is Talihina’s boys will be the top seed for the boys. After that, it is a coin flip. Talihina’s boys and Heavener’s girls will be defending their championships.

And out of the goodness of my heart, I will give you what I expect will be the seedings for the LCT.

First off, for the girls.

Heavener and Howe will be the top two seeds, although it could go either way. Both teams have one loss from last week in tournament games.

I think Howe will be awarded the top seed with Heavener second. The next few seeds will be a tough call but based on the records and rankings, Bokoshe will be third and Whitesboro fourth. Talihina is the fifth seed followed by Poteau and Wister.

For the eighth seed, my guess is Spiro with Panama ninth and Pocola 10th. LeFlore is 11th followed by Cameron and Arkoma.

On the boys’ side, Talihina is an easy choice as the top seed followed by Poteau and Heavener. The Pirates handed the Wolves their only loss and deserve a better seeding based on the head-to-head meeting.

Spiro is fourth followed by Cameron in fifth and Wister sixth. Cameron and Wister have split their two meetings with the Jackets winning by a larger margin at home for the difference. An improving Panama team is seventh followed by Arkoma at eight.

The ninth seed will likely be Howe with Whitesboro and Pocola following. LeFlore and Bokoshe will probably be the two bottom seeds.

As a disclaimer, this does not necessarily reflect the best teams in the county, just how I feel they will be seeded. For instance, I believe Poteau's girls are better than some of the teams ranked above them, but the Lady Pirates have only one win. They have also played a difficult schedule, which should help them in the county tournament. Another team which could cause problems is the Spiro girls, which have most of their players back from last year but got a late start because of the football playoffs.