Basketball Brackets

Rocky Mount wanted this in football, but it will have to do in basketball as Rocky Mount High will host Western Alamance Monday at 7 p.m. in the RM high gym.

The Gryphons, the No. 2 seed in the NEW 6, will host the No. 4 seed in the Triad Conference which has a 11-14 record.

There is good news and bad news for Northern Nash. They made the field as a wild card, but they drew the No. 1 overall eastern region team Kinston which is 23-3 on the year.

Nash Central, the NEW 6's No. 1 seed host Eastern Wayne, the No. 4 seed from the East Carolina conference and the #4 seed who has a 6-16 record.

SouthWest Edgecombe will travel to Overhills High and Wilson Fike will travel to Southern Wayne.

All sectional boys action is schedule for Monday at 7 p.m.

In the girls bracket ....

The Lady Gryphons will host Eastern Wayne 9-15 which will travel to Rocky Mount
More than likely the Lady Gryphons will be without the services of starting guard Lakia Bynum who had a lower leg injury Friday in the tournament championship game.

SouthWest Edgecombe will host Northeast Guilford, Fike will drive across town to meet Hunt, Southern Nash will make the long trip to Overhills and the Nash Central girls drew the short straw as they travel to South Central which is 25-0 on the season.

All opening round sectional play for the girls starts Tuesday at 7 p.m.

The end of regulation was very controversial to say the least in last night's boys tournament finals at SouthWest Edgecombe.

Nash Central's relentless press had Rocky Mount in a panic in the last few seconds. Trey Sumler's t tied the game with 2.7 seconds to play. The inbounds pass was stolen by Sumler who feed the ball inside to teammate Brandon Thomas who put up the last shot of the game.

As the ball is hanging on the rim the backboard light goes off to tell everyone the game is over. Depending on witch side you pull for, here is what happened.

Last night I was the colorman as Wes Bradshaw did the play by play for the "Stretchlon Sports Show".

I looked at the clock as Sumler intercepted the ball and tossed it over to where Thomas was under the basket. The scoreboard went to four zeros as Thomas received the ball, the horn sounded and when the horn went off the referee blew his whistle to stop the end of the game. While all of this is happening Thomas puts up the shot and the light comes on.

It was obvious to me the clock was not in sync relating to the four zeros and the horn. The light seemed to me to be a good half second or more behind the clock and horn. When you are discussing hundreds of a second, II might be off by a tenth.

The referee's whistle was much like that Ed Hoculi call in the San Diego-Denver NFL game last season. Once the whistle sounds, the play stops. (I know all the Bulldog fans think they got hosed last night, but I think the right call was made due to a poorly syncronized clock system at SWE.

The bottom line is I think the right call was made but clearly everyone in the gym could see the light did not go off until the ball was on the rim.