Class 5 final 4 predictions

It's a great final four with Rock Bridge, Lee's Summit North, CBC and Francis Howell all being great teams.  You can find in depth team analysis at Prep Hoops so I will stick strictly to numbers and a little tongue in cheek

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I looked at the weighted season power rating, unweighted season rating and the end of season rating, all of which tell an interesting story, if you like numbers.

Team             Wgted     Unwgted   Backhalf
Rock Bridge  134.3        136.5         134.0
LSN               126.7        125.7         128.7
CBC              127.1        128.0         130.6
FH                 131.9        129.2         128.4

When I look at the Weighted rankings, which I have used for all of the blog postings for the entire season, Rock Bridge has a slight edge over Francis Howell for the state championship but both CBC and Lee's Summit North are within striking distance of either team.  A turnover here, a missed free throw there at a critical point down the stretch and any of these four teams could be state champion.  Still it appears Rock Bridge is the clear favorite in all three ratings.

The Unweighted ratings is looking at the season without any emphasis on one game over another.  I simply entered their point spreads verses all opponents to arrive at their rating.  In this case, Rock Bridge is again the clear favorite.

In the Back-half ratings, I looked at the opponents for only the last half of the season and it appears that CBC and Lee's Summit North are both coming on dramatically after slower starts.  Francis Howell has fallen off slightly from their early season performance on a point spread basis.  Even with these trends, there is not enough difference between these teams to slip a thin piece of paper between them.

So it's time to flip a coin on the semi-final games.....

I say Rock Bridge will beat Lee's Summit North by 5

I will go out on a limb and pick Francis Howell to stop the red-hot Cadets with a last second dunk on a put-back missed three by 6'9" super soph Sam Thompson to win by one in the other semi.

In the final, I am going out on limb and picking Francis Howell to beat Rock Bridge in another upset.  This one will be another close one.  Down to the wire.  Two point game.  Free throws by Matt Schark with 10 ticks left. 

Francis Howell, Class 5 State Champs.