Recreational Spectacles — A New Way to Look at Sports in the Ozarks

When you see Seth Davis on TV, understand he's going to tell you the most obvious thing possible. Yes, even stuff your sports-hating grandma could point out.

When talking about the Blue Division of the Blue and Gold Tournament, which begins at 9:30 a.m. Saturday at Hammons Student Center, some people I’ve spoken to said I could write a preview in five words:

Nixa Eagles, Blue Division champions

Wow, what a leap of faith, crowning the top-seeded Eagles as the champions. Even Captain Obvious thinks that’s apparent. (FYI, Sports Illustrated’s Seth Davis is the modern-day Captain Obvious. God, he sucks. Badly. It’s unfortunate CBS has him as their primary in-studio March Madness analyst.)

Even to Davis’ or anyone else who would handicap Nixa as the favorite, the Eagles (9-0) are the easy choice. They have the three tangible measurements the truly good high school teams need:

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If you’re not familiar with how the RecSpecs 15 works, it’s simple. These are Allen Vaughan’s high school basketball rankings, assuming each team will beat the teams ranked below them. No questions asked.

With the holiday tournaments quickly approaching, be sure to check back often for Blue and Gold previews, as well as Pink and White and Lady Classic.

Now, on to the rankings:

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I’m not going to get into some longwinded, sobbing tale of how I miss last year’s boys’ basketball teams and seniors, but let’s be honest. Last year was spectacular.

We saw Central and Hillcrest emerge as powerhouses, along with Branson and we saw the maturation of stars like Tate Unruh, Mike Wiebe, Johnny Gray and Alex Hall. We saw Central win a district championship and Branson nearly make the final four.

The beauty of this year? Much of what we came to expect has vanished. It’s time to wipe the slate clean.

(Go ahead. Wipe it. Clean.)

Instead, it’s a time to learn some names — including who transferred where — what teams are contenders, pretenders and forgettables. And it’s time to meet a new star.

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