This Bracket-Picking Contest is Getting Fierce

Either Patch has brilliant readers, or the AAAAA Georgia High School Association basketball brackets simply became too predictable in the second round.

We of course lean toward the first explanation, but the fact that six of the eight region champions advanced to the AAAAA quarterfinals on the boys’ side played a part in producing a four-way tie for first place in Round 2 of the Patch Georgia High School Basketball Challenge with 14-2 records.

All four Region 4-AAAAA teams—Cobb County’s Campbell, North Cobb, Hillgrove and McEachern—advanced, which might have given local basketball fans an edge. And speaking of, Campbell is set to face region rival North Cobb Saturday afternoon at Fort Valley State University.

Tip time is set for 4 p.m. as it will be a Cobb block party southwest of Macon on Saturday with Hillgrove and McEachern set to play at 7 p.m. Both games can be listened to live here.

Campbell is 25-6 on the season after winning six straight and 17 of its last 19 games. But both those losses came against you know who - the Lady Warriors of North Cobb, who are one of just two Georgia-based schools to have beaten Campblee this year. North Cobb is 25-5 on the year after a pair of state tournament road wins at Stephenson Saturday and at Savannah’s Beach High School on Tuesday night.

With regards to the Patch Basketball Challenge, newcomer BigJim, whose home Patch is unclear, matched sports contributor Mark Blumen of Lawrenceville Patch, overall leader windhamkn of South Cobb Patch, and balling22 of East Cobb and Kennesaw Patches.

Just a step behind were first-round AAAAA winner Dan Matthews of Oconee Patch, Travis Allen of Alpharetta-Milton Patch and kthellsn of Dallas-Hiram Patch with 13 wins each in Round 2. That creates a tight six-way race for the overall AAAAA title: Dan Matthews with 38 wins; Travis Allen, balling22 and windhamkn with 37 each; and kthellsn and Mark Blumen with 36 each.

We’ll use the combined AAAAA standings as a tiebreaker for Round 2 and declare balling2 and windhamkn each winners of a Patch prize pack, including a Patch polo shirt.

On the AAAA side, 14 also was the magic number, but picking that many winners was enough for photographer Cecil Copeland to win the second round outright and claim a Patch prize pack. He finished a game ahead of two fellow newcomers to the contest, Allen of North Clayton and Ray Alexander of Holly Springs-Hickory Flat Patch, and Kyle of Holly Springs-Hickory Flat Patch, the prognosticator formerly known as Justin.

In the overall AAAA standings, Trey of Cartersville Patch maintains a four-game lead with 40 wins, while windhamkn and Justin/Kyle are tied for second, kthellsn is next with 35 wins, and eorlingas of Cartersville Patch still has a shot with 34. But with only 14 games left in the two AAAA tournaments, it will be tough for anyone to catch Trey.

In the race for the grand championship combining AAAAA and AAAA, three players have realistic shots. Windhamkn leads with 73 wins, but kthellsn is right behind with 71. Eorlingas is hanging in there with 63 wins but has only 28 games left to make up that 10-game deficit.

Because of the shrinking number of games, we’re combining the AAAAA and AAAA brackets into one entry form for Round 3. We break out the results to track our overall AAAAA and AAAA leaders, but we’ll have just one third-round winner instead of two.

Here’s the entry form. And if you want to check on the official contest rules, .

Remember that you’re welcome to jump into the contest at any time. Even if you skipped the first two rounds, you still can play now and try to win a Patch prize pack for being the third-round champ. It’s free, so what do you have to lose?

Because the quarterfinal games start at 4 p.m. Friday, that’s the deadline for third-round entries. Good luck.