The district tournaments are set and the regional round of the playoffs are a week-and-a-half away. We thought it might be interesting to try our hand at some “Bracketology” and try to determine the shape of the regional playoffs.
This year is different as the regional round will be “re-seeded” at the end of the district tournament and will include results from both the last week of the season as well as the district tournament. In the past, rankings at the end of the next to last week of the season, the last week for district play, was used for district seeding purposes as well as to determine the at-large seeds.
We used assumptions to get to the brackets. We based them on the idea that the district tournament will play out as seeded, with no upsets. From there, we used the FHSAA rankings as of January 30th to help determine seeding.
Here goes.
REGION ONE
Another region that stretches from Pensacola to the east coast, look for the automatic qualifiers to be Gulf Breeze (#14) from District One, Gainesville High (#7) from District Two, Ponte Vedra High (#5) from District Three and Ocala Forest (#17) from District Four. Our guess is Cantonment Tate (#21) of District One, Orange Park Oakleaf (#10) and Ponte Vedra Nease (#13) both from District Three and Land O’Lakes from District Four will take the at-large berths. Orange Park (#26) and Gainesville Buchholz (#32) have a chance to sneak in should they reach their respective district finals.
The bracket then shapes up to be:
One Seed Ponte Vedra (#5) vs. Eight Seed Land O’Lakes (#25) at Ponte Vedra
Four Seed Nease (#13) vs. Five Seed Gulf Breeze (#14) at Gulf Breeze
Three Seed Oakleaf (#10) vs. Six Seed Forest (#17) at Forest
Second Seed Gainesville (#7) vs. Seven Seed Tate (#21) at Gainesville
Though lower seeds, Gulf Breeze and Forest earn home games in the first round as the bracket naturally shapes up for them to play non-district winners.
REGION TWO
Oviedo (#36) in District Five, Apopka Wekiva (#3) in District Six, Lakeland (#4) in District Seven) and Viera (#15) in District Eight earn automatic bids using our assumptions. District Six’s Orlando Edgewater (#8) and Lake Minneola (#20), along with District Eight’s Stuart Martin County (#23) and Stuart South Fork (#28) grab the at-large berths. Both Palm Bay Heritage (#31) and Melbourne HS (#33) will enter the picture should upsets occur.
The bracket then works out to be:
One Seed Wekiva (#3) vs. Eight Seed Oviedo (#36) at Wekiva
Four Seed Viera (#15) vs. Five Seed Lake Minneola (#20) at Viera
Three Seed Orlando Edgewater (#8) vs. Six Seed Stuart Martin County (#20) at Edgewater
Two Seed Lakeland (#4) vs. Seven Seed Stuart South Fork (#28) at Lakeland
REGION THREE
District winners are expected to be Tampa Leto (#16) in District Nine, Palmetto (#57) in District Ten, Punta Gorda Charlotte (#22) in District Eleven and Naples Palmetto Ridge (#24) in District Twelve. Three of the four at-large spots are expected to go to District Nine’s Tampa Wharton (#19), Clearwater Countryside (#27) and Largo (#30). The last one would go to Immokalee (#45). East Lee County (#46) of Lehigh Acres could sneak in should upsets occur.
The bracket would then be.:
One Seed Leto (#16) vs. Eight Seed Palmetto (#57) at Leto
Four Seed Palmetto Ridge (#24) vs. Five Seed Countryside at Palmetto Ridge
Three Seed Charlotte (#22) vs. Six Seed Largo (#30) at Charlotte
Two Seed Wharton (#19) vs. Seven Seed Immokalee (#45)
REGION FOUR
Again, lots of power down south as seven of the top eighteen teams reside here. Palm Beach Gardens Dwyer (#1) of District Thirteen, St. Thomas Aquinas (#2) from District Fourteen, South Plantation (#6) of District Fifteen and Miami Southridge (#11) from District Sixteen project to be the automatic qualifiers. Boyd Anderson (#9) and Sunrise Piper (#29) from District Fourteen, Pembroke Pines Charter (#12) from District Fifteen and Miami Beach (#18) are the expected at-large berths in this region.
The brackets would then be:
One Seed Dwyer (#1) vs. Eight Seed Piper (#29) at Dwyer
Four Seed Southridge (#11) vs. Five Seed Boyd Anderson (#9) at Southridge
Third Seed South Plantation (#6) vs. Six Seed Pembroke Pines Charter (#12) at South Plantation
Second Seed St. Thomas Aquinas (#2) vs. Seven Seed Miami Beach (#18) at St. Thomas Aquinas