On the SCT seeding debate...

I have had several inquiries about why the SCT seeds came out the way they did.

The first thing you need to remember is that recent tournament history has proven that anything can happen, and just because a team might be ranked high going in, when the dust clears on May 10, someone very different can be standing there with the trophy.

In my opinion, any of the top five teams -- Hillsborough, B-R, Montgomery, Immaculata and Watchung Hills -- has what it takes to win it and it's going to come down to who gets hot, who executes, and who catches a couple of breaks along the way, while there are a couple of other squads that could sneak in.

That said, Hillsborough, in my opinion -- and in the opinion of all but two of the county's 17 head coaches, according to their votes -- is clearly the top seed.

The Raiders' only loss was to North Hunterdon, while they've beaten Bridgewater, Watchung HIlls and Immaculata.

As for the Montgomery-Immaculata thing, the key here is that according to the by-laws of the tournament, only games through TUESDAY count toward the seedings.

There was a big debate at the meeting whether or not the knowledge in the room of Immaculata's 11-0 win over Montgomery on Wednesday afternoon should affect how people vote. And while you cannot remove the knowledge from people's mind, ultimately it became clear that the Immaculata loss shouldn't be a factor.

Immaculata coach Bob Gillespie, of course, appealed the No. 4 seed -- and rightfully so -- and the final vote was 9-8 to uphold Montgomery's seeding.

Check out the latest Bats and Balls podcast, which should be up sometime today, for more on what went down at the meeting and how the brackets were set.

You can find the podcast at www.c-n.com/specialsections/multimedia


PROGRAMMING NOTE:
I still plan to post my analysis about how this tournament will play out -- complete with picks, of course.

I know I've said I will post it here Thursday night, but at this point it's looking more like it will be up sometime Friday afternoon or early evening.