Disclaimer: This will be my second year covering high school girls’ basketball. I am not affiliated with an organization, and I am not paid to do this. I do partner with 695 Hoops and the Central Maryland Basketball Coaches Association on certain events and publications. My mission is to give a platform to female student athletes across the state of Maryland. As an educator in this state, I have had the opportunity to network with fellow coaches, athletic directors, and school leaders to make my mission possible. Let us have a great 2023-2024 season.
Week 5 (Ending January 5th) “Maryland Public School Girls Basketball”
Welcome to 2024. Hopefully, everyone was able to spend time with their loved ones over the break. I had the pleasure to see multiple holiday tourneys from Delaware, PA, and of course here at the 695 Holiday Hoops tourney. It is extremely important to support local events as we highlight our Maryland Public school student athletes. Let us recap week 4. I would call it “The Hard Truth.” Ten teams out of the “Top 15” lost over the holiday break. As you can imagine it took a little longer this week to formulate this week’s ranking. Some losses were to privates, some to other publics, some blow outs some close games. After doing some further digging I realized that some teams ranked have never beat a quality team with a winning record. I sat down with a committee of coaches to make sure the integrity of the rankings would remain solid, and that it was justification for each team. Rankings are based on strength of schedule, win/loss, quality of wins and most importantly the “eye test.” Some teams were ranked high at the beginning of the year and have not been living up to the ranking. Some teams have only lost to national powerhouses out of state. This was by far the hardest week to rank teams. The good thing is that we are in a new year, and everyone will get progressively better. Congratulations to all the public-school tournament winners Poly, Clarksburg, Forest Park, Severna Park, Annapolis, Hammond, Howard, Damascus, Western and Oakland Mills.
For this week only I was able to do a “Top 25” for the New Year to let everyone know where they stand. Let us continue to support student Athletes and most importantly please continue to have fun while playing the game of basketball.
We try to be as accurate as possible, so we encourage teams to please submit your game scores to MaxPreps, scorebooklive.com, twitter, teams IG page or on your school’s athletic page.
Follow me on Twitter: SamBuckMDPreps Instagram: sambuckmdprephoops
Here are the Top 25 rankings for week 5.
#1 Poly: 9-0 Balt. City-3A
#2 Forest Park: 7-1 Balt. City-1A
#3 Hammond: 8-0 How. Cnty-2A
#4 CH Flowers: 6-0 PG Cnty-4A
#5 Pikesville: 5-2 Balt. Cnty-1A
#6 Frederick: 8-1 Fred. Cnty 4A
#7 Clarksburg: 5-2 Mo. Cnty-4A
#8 South River: 7-1 AA. Cnty-3A
#9 Oxon Hill: 7-2 PG Cnty-3A
#10 New Town: 6-2 Balt. Cnty-2A
#11 Bethesda C.C: 7-1 Mo. Cnty-4A
#12 River Hill: 4-1 AA Cnty-3A
#13 Broadneck: 6-1 AA Cnty-4A
#14 Severna Park: 8-1 AA. Cnty- 3A
#15 Western: 6-3 Balt. City-4A
#16 Seneca Valley: 5-3 Mo. Cnty-4A
#17 Oakland Mills: 4-2 How. Cnty 3A
#18 Loch Raven: 4-2 Balt. Cnty. 1A
#19 Hereford: 5-1 Balt. Cnty. 2A
#20 Damascus: 8-1 Mo. Cnty. 4A
#21 Catoctin: 7-1 Wash. Cnty 1A
#22 Francis Scott Key: 5-2 Carr. Cnty 2A
#23 Dulaney: 4-2 Bal. Cnty. 3A
#24 Annapolis: 4-1 AA Cnty. 4A
#25 Bowie: 6-1 PG Cnty 4A
Other teams considered: Gwynn Park Perry Hall, Wise, Oakdale, Linganore, Walter Johnson, McDonough, Parkdale, Lackey,
“Must See Games of Week 5: Week ending January 5th. 2024”
January 2nd, 2024
Oakdale vs #6 Frederick: 7pm
January 3rd, 2024
Perry Hall @ #5 Pikesville: 530pm
January 5th, 2024
Milford Mill @#19 Hereford: 530pm
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