Jump into the Basketball Bracket Frenzy

The hoops fans at will have double duty cheering in the stands as both the boys and girls qualified for the state playoffs.

Campbell's girls won the Region 4-AAAAA Tournament championship and have a No. 1 seed in the state playoffs. They play in the first round at home Friday night versus Newton. The boys are a No. 3 seed and travel to face Stephenson on the road Saturday evening.

High school teams across the state are a five-game winning streak away from a state championship and lasting glory. It’s the time of year for Cinderella stories and dynasties—on and off the court. While your favorite high school teams are playing for their crowning achievement one game at a time in gyms and arenas, you can play for bragging rights and some great Patch gear by picking the winners of all those games, one round at a time, in our first Patch Georgia High School Basketball Challenge.

The links below will take you to forms to forecast the winners of all the first-round playoff games for AAAAA and AAAA, boys and girls. (We love our A, AA and AAA basketball, too, but we’re sticking to the big schools for this year’s contest.) You have choices on how to play. Pick either classification or both of them. Enter once or up to five times. Because you pick one round at a time instead of filling out the entire bracket at the start, it’s up to you whether you play every round, and if you have a bunch of bad luck one round or skip a round, you can bounce back and win prizes later.

Here’s how it works: Follow the links to fill out the forms. Pick a winner for each boys and girls game in the first round in either AAAA or AAAAA, then return to click through to the other classification if you want to. You’ll have to give us the name you want to be known by in the contest (it could be your real name or a clever but clean pseudonym), your home Patch and your e-mail address (after all, we need a way to contact you when you win). We will not sell or share your e-mail address or use it in any way outside the contest unless you ask us on your entry form to subscribe you to the newsletters for your Patch.

We’ll post an update on the contest the morning after each round is completed, along with links to the forms for the next round’s games. Just come back to Patch, see where you rank, celebrate your victories and make your next set of picks. Here’s what you could win:

• In the first three rounds, the person with the most correct picks in the boys and girls brackets combined will receive a Patch prize pack featuring a Patch polo shirt (retail value $17.50). We’ll award one prize pack in AAAA and one in AAAAA for each of the first three rounds. That means six chances to grab your Patch polo.

• A Patch T-shirt or baseball hat (retail value $6) can be yours if you correctly pick all the winners of the semifinal and final games in both classifications, boys and girls. If more than 10 people achieve perfection, picking 12 out of 12 games correctly, we’ll hold a drawing among those entries for 10 prizewinners.

• A Patch hoodie worth $29 goes to the top prognosticator, boys and girls games combined, for the entire AAAA tournament, and another hoodie goes to top picker for the whole AAAAA bracket.

• Patch’s fabulous Columbia Conundrum Springs jacket, a $100 value, goes to the one person who reigns supreme by picking the most winners in AAAA and AAAAA combined.

To maximize your chances of winning, you’ll want to play every round. The entry deadlines are 5 p.m. Feb. 25 for the first round, 5 p.m. March 1 for the second, 4 p.m. March 4 for the third, and 3 p.m. March 9 for the semifinals and finals.

Feel free to show off your basketball knowledge by sharing your big upsets and your championship forecasts in the comment box, and don’t forget to follow the game action at Patch and on Facebook and Twitter so you know right away how your team is doing.

Click here to make your AAAAA picks.

Click here to make your AAAA picks.

The Campbell girls, 22-6, are back in the state playoffs for the 13th straight year, but have yet to reach the semifinals during the stretch. Coach Randy McClure's senior-led team has been consistent throughout the season and comes into Friday's 7 p.m. game against Newton having won 15 of its last 17 games.

"Obviously it's good to be at home, but we're going to have our hands full because they've got pretty good size and they shoot the three pretty good,'' said McClure.

Erica Norwood leads the team in scoring at 14.6 points per game, while fellow seniors Chakecia Miller (14) and Angel Foster (10.8) are also averaging in double figures. Junior point guard Baylee Hawkins chips in 8.9 points per outing to lead a balanced Campbell attack.

North Cobb and Hillgrove were the only two Georgia schools to beat Campbell this season as the Lady Spartans will be facing a Region 2-AAAAA Newtown team that has won six of its last eight contests. The Lady Rams from Covington are 16-11 overall on the year.

The Campbell boys, 21-7, will travel to Stone Mountain for a rematch against Stephenson, which fell 70-58 at Wills Gym on Feb. 5. That concluded a five-game losing streak for the Jaguars, 15-13, who rebounded to win four straight before falling in the region tournament championship game. Game time Saturday is set for 7:30 p.m.

"That game kind of was a wash as they were missing their point guard and we were missing a key player (leading scorer Justin Seymour),'' said Campbell coach James Gwyn.

Seymour leads the Spartans in scoring at 21 points a game. Roderick Perkins averages 19 points and 11 rebounds per contest while Matt Cotton is chipping in 18 points an outing. The Spartans bolted out of the gates this season with 11 straight wins, then dropped four of six, before winning eight of their last 11 games.

They fell to McEachern on the Indians' home court last week in the region tournament semifinals before bouncing back to beat Hillgrove in the consolation game.

"That was good to give us some confidence because you don't want to lose two straight going into state,'' said Gwyn, whose team won a regular season game last year at Stephenson. "We played a lot of tough, close region games this season, so hopefully that will have us prepared to go on the road Saturday.