Seeding the North/Memorial girls hoops regional

So, who should get the No. 1 seed in the local regional of the WIAA Division 1 girls basketball Eau Claire North Sectional?

Both Eau Claire North and Eau Claire Memorial can make a pretty convincing argument.

First, let’s look at the Huskies (12-6). North had a rough start to the season, but played some pretty tough competition. In conference play, North lost twice to Rice Lake and split with Chippewa Falls, but swept Eau Claire Memorial.

Memorial (13-5) coach Steve Smith will need to convince the other coaches that those two losses to North could have gone the other way. He can also point to the fact the Abes swept both Rice Lake and Chippewa Falls.

“That’s going to be interesting,” Smith said after beating Chippewa Falls on Thursday night. “It is hard. North beat us twice. The only hammer we have on them is that we’re the only team to beat Rice Lake twice. I don’t know how my colleagues are going to vote, but I’m certainly going to ask (for that top spot).”

Not only does the top seed get the advantage of an easier road to state, it also gets a first-round bye, which allows all those bumps and bruises acquired over a long and arduous conference season to heal.

The guess here is that North will get the top seed. It will be hard to overlook the sweep of Memorial no matter how close the games where. Plus, the Huskies have won nine of their last 10 games. Memorial will get the No. 2 seed.

The rest of the regional is fairly easy to predict. Chippewa Falls is a lock at No. 3. River Falls and Superior will battle it out for the No. 4 seed, but I think the Wildcats will get the nod due to Superior’s lack of success against the top half of the Big Rivers. Menomonie and Hudson will get the sixth and seventh seeds. Which one will go where? Take your pick.

Voting will be held Friday morning by e-mail, which is kind of disappointing. I’d like to see Smith and North coach Dan Sippel make their case in person. That would be interesting.

— John Casper Jr.