GHSA Tournament of Champions: No. 2 Buford vs. No. 7 Douglass

There are a lot of items on GHSA basketball fans’ wish lists. One that we may never see is a tournament of champions. All eight classification champs grouped together and seeded or even paired at random to set up a bracket to determine the overall champion of the state. With no basketball being played currently, why not breakdown some hypothetical matchups in this new series and let the fan vote determine who will advance to the next round? We will provide a preview, a thoughtful prediction and let you – the fans – decide the fate of each game. <hr /> <h3><strong>No. 2 <span style="font-size: 12pt">5A</span>Buford (31-1) vs. No. 7 <span style="font-size: 12pt">2A</span>Douglass (26-5) </strong></h3> Four-peat vs. repeat. Buford, an eight-time champion, lands the number two seed with their only loss coming to Wesleyan 45-43, who they beat in their first meeting. The Lady Wolves are extremely dangerous having blown out No. 5 GAC 59-25 and rallying to stun No. 4 Holy Innocents’ 47-44 during the regular season. The Wolves won a thriller in the Class 5A Championship, outlasting Kell 66-63. Douglass, no stranger to playing bigger schools, hasn’t seen a machine that executes like Buford. The Lady Astros did however take the toughest route possible to defending their Class 2A state title, beating five ranked teams along the way capped by a 56-46 win over Southwest-Macon. The Astros’ size and quickness bothers everyone they play in Class 2A. [player_tooltip player_id="156766" first="Ikenya" last="King"] is a space-eater at 6-foot-4 while [player_tooltip player_id="118113" first="Ashuntee" last="Weems"] is a dynamic slasher and defender. The emergence of soon-to-sign point guard [player_tooltip player_id="156786" first="Kayla" last="Sesberry"] put Douglass over the top. She broke out this season and dumped in 25 points, 7 rebounds and 4 steals against Southwest-Macon. Furman-signee [player_tooltip player_id="118069" first="Tate" last="Walters"] posted 18 points and 5 rebounds in Buford’s win over Kell and has been trusted in big games. Buford’s balanced onslaught will pose problems for Douglass as they are nine deep compared to the Astros’ two-man bench. Ball security and three-point shooting will determine whether Douglass can hang around. They had their best shooting performance of the season when they hit seven threes to beat Early County in the Final Four 53-49 but regressed to the mean in the championship going 1-12. The Astros can be loose with the ball as well and against Buford’s full-court press that will be a major issue. They had 27 turnovers against Southwest-Macon and Buford forced 24 turnovers against Kell while committing just 10 against the Longhorns’ press. Three-point specialist [player_tooltip player_id="152624" first="Blair" last="Wallis"] will need to be tracked at all times. The point guard matchup of Sesberry vs. [player_tooltip player_id="148891" first="Ashyia" last="Willis"] will be entertaining. Willis is a quick playmaker who protects the ball and can get into the paint. Expect Buford to rotate Katelyn Klein, Tamori Plantin, Sara Viti and Abbi Perkins in at the forward positions to help rebound. Against Kell, the Wolves gobbled up 17 offensive rebounds. Douglass pulled down 24 offensive rebounds and 51 total led by King’s 16 boards. Line: Buford -15 <em>Vote below to decide who advances to the next round of the GHSA Tournament of Champions Voting ends on 4/12</em> https://poll.fm/10533378