This is always one of the toughest weeks for our HS rankings because of the HS National Championships and how many games those teams play.

It's also tough because we usually miss the week before, so there are extra results to incorporate. Add to that some little complications. This year it was Ohio, but we've seen this before in other states—a team limps out of BHSNC and has to play another game. Sometimes that doesn't work out so well.

At the same time, we're looking at teams that may go 1-2 at Nationals and move up ... perhaps past a team that went 2-0 over the past two weekends in local competition. Why? Well you know we reward programs that play tough games. 

So let's go through some of this and talk about it.

No problems with #1 through #5. Gonzaga is clearly the #1, and St. Ignatius is clearly #2. Now, Ignatius has a game to play, their Ohio state final. They lose that they will likely drop out of #2, but we'll worry about that if that happens. De La Salle is #3 because they won a very tough Northern California and then won the All-California. East is #4 because they finished higher in Utah than Herriman, and Herriman's performances at HS Nationals were pretty good. They could have beaten St. Ignatius—that was a razor-thin game. So we feel pretty good about that group.

Xavier (NY) is a fascinating team and for the most part if you toss out their close loss to Pelham then there’s no problem putting them at #6, following a tenacious loss and two wins at Nationals. That win over Greenwich is huge because, remember, they lost rather convincingly against the Cardinals in April. To throw out a 45-15 result you have to have a very good reason. A rematch between those two teams, playing for an important finish (5th at the National Championships) does the job.

So if we toss those games out, Xavier’s record is pretty darned good. BC High has done what’s asked of them and it seems like #7 is fair for them. Hypothetically, would Los Alamitos or Torrey Pines beat Greenwich or St. Ed’s or the other teams below? We get the sense that they would do just fine. But with Greenwich having split their games with Xavier, and having a competitive (40-24) loss to BC High, we think the Xavier-BC High-Greenwich triumvirate should stay close together. 

Greenwich’s body of work, including a really nice win over St. Martin’s, also says they deserve to be there. Yes they lost to Fairfield Prep, but Fairfield Prep is so mercurial we kind of have to look mostly as this past weekend for the Cardinals.

Los Al and Torrey Pines stay up there as those teams fed much of Belmont Shore and San Diego Mustangs in the club scene, so they stick around. Cathedral Catholic, same reason. St. Francis’s connection with the Wolverines has the same impact.

OK, now, St. Edward. Ultimately you could look at St. Ed’s from this past weekend and note that they were 1-3. But … they did beat Aquinas, who beat St. Martin’s, who were very close to Herriman. That doesn’t go away. Yes they lost badly to Gonzaga … take a number. They lost to Herriman, but were competitive there.

So St. Ed’s stating close to the Top 10 is fair. Should St. Xavier move past them? They did indeed beat St. Edward on Sunday. Was St. Ed’s at their best? Probably not. Does it matter? Kind of yes, kind of no. In the end, we’ve got some common opposition, so let’s do a fun little comparison. Including the two games they played against each other, plus games vs Moeller, Ignatius, Aquinas, and Pendleton, we have this:

St. Xavier 2-4 Points for 84 Points against 157

St. Edward 3-3 PF 122 PA 127

St. Edward had a better result in four of those games, and St. Xavier in two. So, with an added bonus for playing tougher games outside their region (St. Ed’s played Gonzaga, for example, and lost 36-21, which is not a bad result at all), St. Ed’s currently stays ranked ahead of St. Xavier. However, we move St. Xavier up nine spots and they are nicely placed to move up further with a good performance against St. Ignatius in the Rugby Ohio final.

And yes, we make a different decision for Gregory the Great and St. Joseph’s Prep, but we also don’t have any more games with which to adjust that ranking. But St. Joe’s, while they did really well at Nationals, weren’t playing in as high a level as St. Edward.

Keep an eye on Marquette; they have rebounded already from that one loss. The New York state playoffs should shake things up a bit and so should Connecticut.