State tournament prep basketball tips off Friday: The Journal previews the matchups (brackets attached)

Mar. 2—The 2023 high school state basketball tournaments begin Friday, with the girls up first.

There are 40 first-round games on the docket, from Animas to Springer, from Hobbs to Kirtland. The boys first-round matchups follow on Saturday.

Week 2 of the postseason starts Tuesday in and around Albuquerque. The 10 championship games are next Friday, with three games that day and the remaining seven on Saturday, March 11.

In all the 10 boys/girls brackets, there are two No. 1 seeds from the metro area: the Volcano Vista boys and the Albuquerque Academy boys.

GIRLS: No. 1 Hobbs is attempting to extend a remarkable streak: the Eagles have played in the last five state championship games, including the most recent three against Volcano Vista. It is the third-seeded Hawks who are the two-time defending state champs, and who open the playoffs against No. 14 seed Eldorado and the Eagles' special guard, sophomore Bella Hines, New Mexico's leading scorer at 30 points a clip.

La Cueva and Sandia also are hosting first-round games in Class 5A on Friday.

The Bears, coming off an upset win at Farmington in the District 2-5A tournament final, are home to No. 12 seed Mayfield.

The Matadors are in the 8-9 game, facing ninth-seeded Albuquerque High which is sporting a 5A-best record of 25-2, This game features two of 5A's top players in sophomore guard Sydney Benally for Sandia (24.7 ppg, second only to Hines in 5A) and senior forward Leilani Love for AHS, who averages 19.3 points and 9.2 rebounds.

There is a similar such matchup in Las Cruces, where two other premier 5A talents square off in Centennial guard Aspen Salazar (19.9 ppg) and Organ Mountain post/forward Caitlin Turnbow (17.1 ppg, 10.7 rpg). No. 6 Centennial is 3-0 against Organ Mountain this season, but the last two games have been very close.

Kirtland Central begins defense of its 4A title at home versus Deming. Gallup is on the other half as the No. 2 seed, followed by St. Pius and Hope Christian on the 3-4 seed lines. District players of the year in junior guard Alyssa Maes from St. Pius and senior post Kathleen Obisike from Hope (19.3 ppg, 15.5 rpg) hope to get their teams to the Pit on Tuesday for the quarterfinals.

Highland, Valley, Valencia, Moriarty and Albuquerque Academy are all on the road in 4A's first round.

No girls team in the state begins the playoffs with a better record than 26-1 Robertson, the top seed and defending state champion in 3A. The Cardinals own wins over the likes of 4A's Hope and St. Pius. Neither Robertson nor No. 2 seed Navajo Prep have dropped a game this season to another 3A school.

Senior center Mika Juan from No. 6 seed Sandia Prep, her district's player of the year, led the Sundevils into the playoffs, averaging 16.4 points and 9.2 rebounds.

Menaul is the metro's lone 2A playoff entry as the Panthers visit Laguna-Acoma. Evangel Christian/Oak Grove won 22 games and visits No. 7 Fort Sumner, the defending state champion, in 1A's first round. Escalante (2A) and Melrose (1A) are No. 1 seeds, and both finished second in state last March.

2023 Nusenda Credit Union Girls Basketball State Championships Class 5A

2023 Nusenda Credit Union Girls Basketball State Championships Class 4A

2023 Nusenda Credit Union Girls Basketball State Championships Class 3A

2023 Nusenda Credit Union Girls Basketball State Championships Class 2A

2023 Nusenda Credit Union Girls Basketball State Championships Class A

BOYS: The odds of another state champion from the metro area must be considered fairly good, since the top four seeds — and nine of the top 11 — hail from Albuquerque, Rio Rancho or Los Lunas.

That list starts with No. 1 seed and defending state champion Volcano Vista, which is 54-1 over its last 55 games. The Hawks open at home with No. 16 Capital.

No. 2 seed Sandia, one of 5A's quickest and most dynamic groups, faces a feisty Rio Grande group that expects to have its leading scorer, senior guard Jonah Lopez (20.7 ppg, 8.1 rpg), back in the lineup after he missed the Ravens' most recent game, a blowout loss to Santa Fe in the District 5-5A semifinals.

District 1-5A has three teams with home games Saturday, including No. 7 Cleveland which takes on Eldorado, and No. 8 Rio Rancho, which faces another 1-5A rival in ninth-seeded Atrisco Heritage.

The Storm-Eagles contest pits two of the outstanding guards in 5A, junior Daniel Steverson of Cleveland (22.2 pgg), the 1-5A player of the year, and senior Caileb Parham (20.6 ppg) of the burnt orange.

Rio Rancho and Atrisco Heritage met three times this season, and all three were low scoring. The Rams won 44-41 at last week's district tournament. Fifty-three points was enough to win the first two games.

It's not often that a single game impacts a team's seed so dramatically for the postseason, but there was such a game on the penultimate day of the regular season. Had Rio Grande won at Santa Fe on Feb. 17, the Ravens would have won the District 5-5A title outright. But the Demons won the game, 46-44, creating a three-way tie for first that also included Los Lunas. The Tigers were going to be a double digit seed (around a 12) had Rio Grande finished first by itself. Los Lunas is now the 3 seed, and home for Las Cruces on Saturday.

Santa Fe visits West Mesa on Saturday to face the dangerous Mustangs.

Albuquerque Academy, Highland and St. Pius are 1-2-3 in Class 4A, with Hope Christian seeded No. 6. The Chargers, probably 4A's most explosive offense, are looking for their first blue trophy in 29 years, since the end of their dynastic and historic run that spanned 1989-94.

But it is Highland that is the defending state champion, and the Hornets also beat Academy in the regular season. Senior guard Alexis Dominguez (18.7 ppg, 3.5 apg), the District 5-4A player of the year, leads a balanced Highland team into the playoffs. In its first-rounder against Pojoaque Valley, the Hornets face a top scorer in the Elks' Derek Sanchez (25.1 ppg).

Del Norte and senior guard Shane Douma-Sanchez — the state's leading scorer at 32.7 points a game — are looking to reach the 4A state final for the third straight year. The Knights open at Deming.

No. 12 Valley and No. 13 Valencia, with with sub-.500 records, hope the competitiveness of their districts will serve them well as they play at Gallup and Artesia, respectively, in the first round.

In 3A, defending champ Robertson is seeded third, behind St. Michael's and Navajo Prep. There are six teams in this bracket at .500 or below .500,

Sandia Prep, the 4 seed, and No. 6 Bosque School are home Saturday. The Sundevils, led by district player of the year, senior forward Alex Jeffries, play host to Newcomb. The Bobcats have one of the first games of the day, at 2 p.m. versus Ruidoso. Bosque features one of the top 1-2 scoring tandems in 3A in junior guards Kyle Morris (19.5 ppg) and Cooper Hautau (18.6 ppg).

Former Menaul coach Gary Boatman is back coaching the Panthers this season, and Menaul — led by senior forward Prashant Chouhan (15.6 ppg) — is a No. 4 seed as the state tournament's most international roster tries to repeat as Class 2A state champ. Menaul is home Saturday to Lordsburg. Many of the Panthers' losses came to schools larger — in several cases, much larger — than themselves, such as West Mesa and Albuquerque Academy. Three losses came to district rival, the Academy for Technology and the Classics (or ATC), the Santa Fe-based No. 2 seed which qualified for state for the first time.

The road in 2A goes through No. 1 Pecos, which fell to Menaul in last year's state final.

New Mexico's only undefeated team, 28-0 Magdalena, is after a third straight Class 1A championship. Senior D'Shaun Vinyard is one of the most versatile players in the division, averaging 18.6 points, 5.7 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 2.5 steals.

Two Albuquerque teams in 1A hit the road Saturday: No. 9 Legacy Academy (coach Marty Zeller won multiple state championships with the Los Lunas girls), which is at Tatum, and the co-op of Evangel Christian and Oak Grove Classical Academy, which is seeded No. 12 and visiting Cliff.

2023 Nusenda Credit Union Boys Basketball State Championships Class 5A

2023 Nusenda Credit Union Boys Basketball State Championships Class 4A

2023 Nusenda Credit Union Boys Basketball State Championships Class 3A

2023 Nusenda Credit Union Boys Basketball State Championships Class 2A

2023 Nusenda Credit Union Boys Basketball State Championships Class A