Five things we learned from Tuesday night's games

FROM KEITH GROLLER

Glad the weather cooperated enough for us to get in a full night of games on Tuesday night and hopefully what's coming tonight won't derail the rest of the week.

Looking at the scores as a whole on Tuesday night, the big thing we learned -- or at least had confirmed -- was that there is a pretty big gap between the good teams and the not-so-good teams.

Allen beats Northampton by 21, Easton rolls over Dieruff by 32, Wilson routs Pen Argyl by 24, Notre Dame pounds Northwestern by 36 and so on.

Truly, there is no parity in the LVC or Colonial League this year.

In each league you have about four really, really good teams and you have at least four teams that are -- to put it kindly -- in rebuilding mode or should be rebuilding. And when a team from one group meets the other, you're going to have a blowout. We had several on Tuesday.

But what we most learned was:

1. Liberty might be just as good this year as it was last year, and remember they were in the state's final four last year. I didn't think it was possible after the Hurricanes graduated Jarrod West, Anthony Gonzalez and Brandon Holland. But with Darrun Hilliard really setting himself apart as an elite player, and the rest of the guys knowing their roles, this is becoming quite a team. Hilliard is special, but there are some very talented athletes on this team. And the thing that Liberty does better than anyone else in the LVC is play defense. Holding Emmaus to just 17 points in the second half -- and four field goals until the final 40 seconds -- was impressive.

Libertydefense

2. Central Catholic is getting its act together. Seth Stoudt and Muhammad Ali Abdur-Rahkman had big offensive nights, but the important thing for this team is defense and holding Nazareth to 56 points shows CCHS is getting better in this department. It's too late to get in the LVC tournament, but CCHS is positioned well to win another district gold in 3A.

3. Parkland is playing much better. The Trojans are the only LVC team I have yet to see in person this year, and I will finally get to see them on Sunday at the Hoop Group Lehigh Valley Showcase. Even without a personal peek, it's obvious the Trojans are playing better basketball. They have had trouble scoring at times this season, but they've done a good job defensively. Holding Becahi to 45 points and Hungarter to 19 shows they're getting it done on the defensive end.

4. Freedom still has a shot at districts. The Patriots are 5-9 overall, but just one game under .500 in the league (3-4). They need to win four of their remaining seven games to qualify and they still have winnable games against Becahi, Northampton and Dieruff left. It could come down to beating Parkland in a makeup game on Feb. 7 -- a game that actually could determine both teams' district fate.

5. Salisbury beating Northern Lehigh helped several South Division teams in the Colonial League. The South is clearly the better of the two divisions, although, to me, Bangor is the best team. Northern Lehigh is set to benefit from playing in the weaker North. The Bulldogs (6-4 in the league at the moment) will play Bangor on Friday night, and frankly, probably lose. They also have a tough makeup game against Wilson on Feb. 12. But they should run the table against the rest of the North and finish the regular season at no worse than 10-6. The question is will that be good enough to get into the league tournament?

Let's assume that both Saucon and Wilson -- each with two league losses at the moment -- will join Bangor in the four-team tourney.

That leaves Northern Lehigh fighting with Notre Dame (7-3 at the moment) and Salisbury (6-4 right now) for that last slot. But ND and Salisbury have to play a lot of tough games within the South Division in the next two weeks. Both the Crusaders and Falcons now own the head-to-head tiebreaker over Northern Lehigh, but it's going to be interesting to see which of those three games secures the final slot.