Gramps Braggin Rights Boys Basketball Prognostications - Suburban Yellow 9/19/2021

 The St. Louis Suburban Athletic Conference organization set up four St. Louis suburb conferences to bring together more equally matched teams.  The setup allows teams to opt for a conference for two years and they can then reseed themselves to a level of competition that allows them some measure of success.

The conferences are labeled by colors with Yellow as the highest competition, Red the next toughest, Blue and Green.  Today, I will review the Yellow Suburban boys basketball conference predictions, using the VPS formula that I introduced HERE.

Webster Grove won the shortened league schedule last year and I don't have any reason to not put them on top again.  A traditionally strong basketball program continues to maintain its winning ways.  The rest of the conference is good, too.  You could throw the next four teams (Kirkwood, Marquette, Eureka, and Hazelwood Central) into a hat and draw out the next best team.  All five of these teams could win 20 games this coming season.

One of the key components to good team chemistry and game management is a good coaching staff. Obviously, the kids still play the game, but how they are prepared can make a big difference.  Again this year, the Eureka Wildcat staff, led by coach Austin Kirby, has former Lafayette head coach, and current assistant head coach Scott Allen, freshman coach Corey Choate, JV coach Trevor Noonan and volunteer coach (with over 400 HS wins) Rick Kirby.  The coaches at Eureka always seem to elevate an average group of kids to outperform more athletic and physical teams.   I am not sure there are many better coaching staffs in the State.  Watch out for those Wildcats.

Here's my mathematical analysis of the Yellow Conference teams: