Perceptive readers will note that there were minimal changes in this week's Xcellent 25. In fact, aside from some minor shuffling, only one team dropped out (Incarnate Word of Missouri) and thus only one newcomer made an appearance (
Archbishop Spalding of Maryland).
The big reason for the sudden calm that struck the Xcellent 25 is the arrival of league play. Teams strong enough to be in the Top 25 are expected to roll through the local competition, especially since many of them spent the holidays traveling around the nation and going up against the best girls basketball teams around.
But don't expect this island of stability to endure. Sure, almost all these teams are playing against local schools with not nearly the same level of talent, but there's also another big factor: Local rivalries.
That school down the street that has a pretty good team isn't really scared by the national ranking of its opponent. In truth, it's inspired by it, and inspired by the chance to take the cocky neighbors down a peg. After all, it's very likely that the girls who now go to those rival high schools grew up playing with and against each other. There's no mystique, there's no fear — there's just good old-fashioned competitive fire.
In fact, there's often good old-fashioned competitive hate, especially if the schools have been around for a while, and there are parents and coaches and fans who have been rooting against their rivals for decades, and having a chance to knock them off that national ranking perch is just fuel for the fire.
Of course, talent is required, but high school girls basketball is also fueled by emotion. Many ranked teams have one or two elite players that separate them from the best of the rest in their area, and if those elite players are sick, in foul trouble, fought with their boyfriend or tweak an ankle in the first quarter, well, all of a sudden there's a serious war going on in a game that everyone thought would be a comfortable win.
And if that war happens to be on the home court of the underdog, and if it happens to precede the boys game, so the stands are packed in the fourth quarter, then we have a situation. Even the top girls teams don't often face hostile crowds, and the summer circuit and holiday tournaments don't draw a lot of fans, so this late January game in a hot gym with screaming fans, gesticulating coaches and harried referees is a brand-new experience.
Now that 15-foot jumper looks like a long 3-pointer, and that easy free throw causes the throat to tighten. And in a one-point game in the last 30 seconds, that national ranking doesn't mean a thing. Somebody has to make a play, and the underdogs have everything to gain and nothing to lose.
So don't be fooled by this lull, and don't just expect upsets in the various events that match top regional and national teams. That crosstown team will claim some victims too — and the underdogs' midcourt celebration will be a lot harder to swallow than the perfunctory handshakes in some distant tournament with 100 people in the stands.
There's a reason they call them rivalries, and "upset" really might not be the right word.
MAXPREPS GIRLS BASKETBALL XCELLENT 251. (1)
Brea Olinda (Brea, Calif.) 13-0
2. (2)
Long Beach Poly (Calif.) 11-2
3. (3)
Mater Dei (Santa Ana, Calif.) 14-1
4. (4)
Bolingbrook (Ill.) 9-2
5. (5)
Spring Valley (Columbia, S.C.) 15-0
6. (6)
Lake Taylor (Norfolk, Va.) 13-0
7. (7)
St. John's (Washington, D.C.) 15-0
8. (8)
Ben Davis (Indianapolis) 15-0
9. (9)
Neptune (N.J.) 5-0
10. (10)
Potter's House Christian (Jacksonville, Fla.) 19-1
11. (11)
Princess Anne (Virginia Beach, Va.) 8-1
12. (12)
St. John-Vianney (Holmdel, N.J.) 7-0
13. (13)
Riverdale (Murfreesboro, Tenn.) 17-0
14. (14)
Heights (Wichita, Kan.) 7-0
15. (15)
Inkster (Mich.) 7-0
16. (16)
Midwest City (Okla.) 10-0
17. (18)
Troy (Fullerton, Calif.) 13-2
18. (19)
Start (Toledo, Ohio) 7-0
19. (16)
Konawaena (Hawaii) 21-1
20. (20)
North Little Rock (Ark.) 15-0
21. (21)
Norcross (Ga.) 11-1
22. (22)
Shabazz (Newark, N.J.) 9-0
23. (25)
Our Lady of Good Counsel (Olney, Md.) 15-0
24. (24)
Hopkins (Minnetonka, Minn.) 13-0
25. (nr)
Archbishop Spalding (Severn, Md.) 14-2
Dropped out: No. 23 Incarnate Word
