Photo courtesy of Joanna McMahan
As the 2022-2023 NCHSAA 1A Basketball regular season comes to an end, we decided to take our best shot at predicting what the first-round playoff matchups would look like if the season ended today. Obviously, these will change due to teams having more games to play and the human error aspect of things, but this should be a good generalization of what things will look like.
RPI Rankings
| CLASS 1A WEST | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TEAM | RECORD | |||||
| 1 | Mountain Heritage | 20-1-0 | ||||
| 2 | South Stokes | 18-4-0 | ||||
| 3 | Thomasville | 18-4-0 | ||||
| 4 | Eastern Randolph | 20-2-0 | ||||
| 5 | North Stokes | 20-3-0 | ||||
| 6 | Bishop McGuinness | 18-5-0 | ||||
| 7 | Robbinsville | 18-5-0 | ||||
| 8 | Bessemer City | 14-7-0 | ||||
| 9 | Corvian Community | 13-6-0 | ||||
| 10 | Murphy | 14-8-0 | ||||
| 11 | Starmount | 12-9-0 | ||||
| 12 | Carolina International | 13-14-0 | ||||
| 13 | Avery County | 14-8-0 | ||||
| 14 | Mount Airy | 7-12-0 | ||||
| 15 | Leadership Academy | 13-7-0 | ||||
| 16 | Cornerstone Charter | 14-4-0 | ||||
| 17 | Queen’s Grant | 13-8-0 | ||||
| 18 | Andrews | 13-10-0 | ||||
| 19 | Hayesville | 13-9-0 | ||||
| 20 | Swain County | 11-11-0 | ||||
| 21 | Winston-Salem Prep | 11-8-0 | ||||
| 22 | Cherokee | 11-11-0 | ||||
| 23 | Cherryville | 11-11-0 | ||||
| 24 | Piedmont Community Charter | 14-8-0 | ||||
| 25 | Uwharrie Charter | 6-16-0 | ||||
| 26 | Mountain Island Charter | 8-10-0 | ||||
| 27 | Christ the King | 10-10-0 | ||||
| 28 | Albemarle | 11-10-0 | ||||
| 29 | Alleghany | 11-10-0 | ||||
| 30 | Draughn | 11-11-0 | ||||
| 31 | North Rowan | 11-11-0 | ||||
| 32 | Bradford Prep | 11-12-0 | ||||
| 33 | Hiwassee Dam | 10-12-0 | ||||
As you can see, Hiwassee Dam looks like they are below the 32 team cutoff but thanks to the fact they are currently the Little SMC leaders, they will get one of the final top 10 seeds that go to conference champions. Albemarle is in the same boat as they will jump up the ladder thanks to being the top 1A team in their 1A/2A split conference, but North Stokes will suffer due to the conference champion priority seeding as South Stokes is the current leader in their conference.
Projected First Round Matchups (as of 2-7-23 / 1:30 pm)
(1) Mountain Heritage vs (32) Bradford Prep
(2) South Stokes vs (31) Draughn
(3) Thomasville vs (30) Alleghany
(4) Eastern Randolph vs (29) Christ The King
(5) Bishop McGuinness vs (28) Mtn Island Charter
(6) Robbinsville vs (27) Uwharrie Charter
(7) Bessemer City vs (26) Piedmont Community Charter
(8) Corvian Community vs (25) Cherryville
(9) Albemarle vs (24) Cherokee
(10) Hiwassee Dam vs (23) WS Prep
(11) North Stokes vs (22) Swain County
(12) Murphy vs (21) Hayesville
(13) Starmount vs (20) Andrews
(14) Carolina International vs (19) Queens Grant
(15) Leadership Academy vs (18) Mount Airy
(16) Cornerstone Charter vs (17) Avery County
These matchups will change as we get final results for the regular season and the Conference tournament, we will keep this post as current as possible with updates and amendments.
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