Seeds set for district basketball tournament

By Joe Warren

Nevada Daily Mail

The seeds have been set for the Class 4 District 12 basketball tournament and Nevada now has an idea who they will play when the tournament starts Feb. 22 in Carl Junction.

The Nevada boys were seeded third in the six-team field, while the Lady Tigers got the second seed.

The boys will play Carthage in the first round of the tournament Feb. 22, as the Tigers from down south were given the sixth seed.

The top two seeds in each bracket receive first-round byes, which means the Lady Tigers will not play until Feb. 24. Their opponent will be the winner of the Carthage-Carl Junction game which takes place Feb. 22.

The top seed in the boys' bracket was Carl Junction. The district tournament hosts have gone 12-2 since Christmas Break.

The second seed is Webb City. While Webb City has three losses to district opponents (compared to only one for Nevada), Tiger coach John McNeley has maintained all season that he thinks Webb City is the best team in the district.

Besides, Webb City is the team that handed Nevada their lone district loss.

The fourth seed is Seneca, a team Nevada beat to open the season. The fifth seed is McDonald County, another team Nevada has already defeated once, but a team that also has two wins over Webb City.

The parity in the district was something McNeley said made for an interesting discussion Wednesday during the seeding meeting.

"It's the only seed meeting I've ever been to where nothing was set in stone going in," McNeley said.

Even sixth-seeded Carthage has a win over Webb City this season.

The Lady Tigers are seeded behind McDonald County, which earned the top seed in the district and has established itself as the favorite going in.

The third seed is Carthage, followed by Webb City, Seneca and Carl Junction.

The Lady Tigers have beaten Carthage (twice), Carl Junction (twice) and Webb City this season while they have lost to McDonald County.

In other basketball news, Nevada senior Ben Wilson may be out for the season with what McNeley called a "severe broken nose" which happened at practice Wednesday.

McNeley said the starting point guard will be hard to replace if he can't return.

"That kind of changes the way we have to do things," McNeley said. "This will be a good challenge."

McNeley hopes that Wilson will be back for the district tournament, but was not sure if that would be possible.