It's tournament time (almost)! We'll get to some girls basketball tournament analysis, but first, I've got to respond to my associate Dave McConnell. He took some grief yesterday for his commentary on the film "Crash." And rightfully so.

It's several years old. The Mind doesn't often absorb a lot of classic movies. We quote a lot of movies around the office and Dave is often doing the nodding along and smiling routine until we ask him if he's seen it. Generally, the answer is no. But I'm glad that he watched a couple movies over the weekend. Maybe, just maybe one day he'll be able to watch something made in the last 12 months.

If you're looking for something slightly, uh, from the New Release file, check out "3:10 to Yuma."  Fantastic, classic Western.

Onto a few musings about the girls basketball tournament, now in it's 33rd year. For a complete look at Central Indiana teams in action, click here.

  • Sectionals begin next week, the week of Monday, Feb. 4. This next week will be very important in terms of not only preparation, but rest. Most teams have played 20+ games and need a little break from the 2-3 games a week scene. It will be interesting to see which teams come into the grueling tournament schedule  - and the pressure - fresh and ready to play their best ball.

  • A couple of the sectional pairings that really caught my eye: Sectional 9 at Carmel and Sectional 10 at Arlington. The two favorites in Sectional 9, No. 7 Carmel and No. 15 Hamilton Southeastern, will face off in the first round. No doubt this will be a hard-fought game, will someone be able to sneak up on the winner in the later rounds? And at Arlington, will No. 4 Lawrence North and No. 6 North Central overlook anyone in anticipation of an impending Top 10 match-up? I doubt North Central star Briana Bass, a tournament vet and very good leader will let the Panthers lose focus, nor will a very solid LN team.

  • In Class 2A, Lapel and No. 3 Heritage Christian seem to be on a collision course for regionals. But Lapel, which is on our Feb. cover, knows it cannot overlook a very talented Winchester team in sectionals.

HSSTM will be covering the girls basketball  tournament throughout the month of February, so continue to check HSSTM.com for updates and thoughts.

Finally, this week, at some point, our new intern, Bob Herman (a.k.a. The Butler Bulldog) will be joining the HSSTM blogosphere. I'm sure that he'll have plenty to talk about, as he currently serves as the editor of Butler's student newspaper. We're going to have to get a link up here to his Soulja Boy dance...