The 2019 South Dakota Boys State B basketball tournament is slated for Aberdeen on March 14,15,16 in the Barnett Center. And two of the eight schools in this year's tourney had also competed in the recently concluded State B girls' event in Huron!

De Smet indeed won the girls' B and is seeded fifth in the boys' event at 21-2. The Bulldogs will meet number-four Jones County, 19-2, in the second afternoon game on Thursday, beginning at approximately 1:45 p.m. And who is seeded first this year? The White River Tigers, at 20-2, a perennial attender in the boys' event, after finishing sixth in last week's girls' tourney! The Tiger boys will open the tourney at noon on Thursday versus number-eight Viborg-Hurley, 21-2.

The evening bracket, beginning at 6 p.m. Thursday, will pit number-two Timber Lake at 18-2 versus number-seven Bridgewater- Emery, 19-4. Clark/Willow Lake, the third-seeded team at 20-2, will conclude the first day's action, facing number-six Sully Buttes (19-3), last year's champion and the lone Region 2B survivor. (Potter County was ousted by De Smet 56-44 in a SoDak 16 game last week and Sully Buttes won its SoDak 16 appearance over Lemmon 66-53.) No Lake Region Conference teams qualified for this year's boys' B. Northwestern Area was narrowly eliminated by Viborg-Hurley 55-52 in their SoDak 16 confrontation.

So, if you haven't noticed, nobody in this week's boys' B has less than two defeats. So it could be a wide-open event to say the least!