Yesterday Detroit Pershing took down fellow eastside rival Detroit Southeastern to win their first Public School League (PSL) championship in boys' basketball since the 1996 Doughboys. The Catholic High School League (CHSL) will play their girls' championship this weekend and their boys' title tilts next weekend.

Make no mistake, these are great traditions and any suburbanite who's never attended at least one of these tournament championships is missing out on a great day of basketball. It's a great thrill for the players, coaches and fans of the schools participating. It's a healthy exercise in fellowship within your community of schools. Finally, championship tournaments create buzz about school sports, and when is that not a good thing?

So why don't the bigger suburban leagues have a championship tournament? The PSL and Catholic League aren't exactly using dollar bills for scrap paper these days. In fact, these two leagues are hit harder than any of the suburban public schools by the recent economic hardship. ThePSL has had nearly 100 tournaments since 1904 and the Catholic League is less than a generation behind their PSL soul mate.

The suburbs? Zero and counting. In New York City, many of the public schools don't even bother to participate in the New York state tournament because the NYC title means so much more. Thankfully, nearly all our schools participate in the annual MHSAA tournament. We could have the best of both worlds -- why don't we?

Here's the facts. Suburban schools, specifically the Oakland Activities Association (OAA) and Macomb Area Conference (MAC), have a number of schools that could host games as neutral sites. Parking, seating, lockers and security in some of these modern schools is not an issue like it is in the parochial and Detroit public schools.

Let me take it a step further: How much fun would it be to include the OAA and MAC champions in an Operation Friendship Final Four? Are you kidding? A potential quarterfinal, semifinal or finals preview? Clarkston v. Pershing? How fast can you spell 'sold out' on the eve of the MHSAA tournament? Would it not be a great opportunity to share the respective communities with one another through school sports? There's great life lessons to be learned here through b-ball.

Unfortunately, it looks like the OAA could be a candidate to dissolve before an idea like a conference tournament, much less a super-conference Final Four, even takes hold. Maybe a tournament could help hold theOAA together. The MAC isn't going anywhere soon.

I hope someone grabs the ball and get things rolling.

The Detroit News had a write-up in this morning's boys' basketball notebook that recanted Pershing's loss to Detroit Southeastern on January 27th as 78-77. Previously The News reported the score as 77-76 and the Freep reported a 78-75 tally, both coming the day after the game. That makes three losses in the same game for the Doughboys. Ouch.

DOUGHBOYS V. C-TOWN? Would a Clarkston - Detroit Pershing game in the MHSAA tournament be worth the price of admission? Clarkston is having a great season and is clearly the best OAA team this season. Pershing is the region's top-ranked team and still a statewide No. 1 in some polls. Clarkston's Dan Fife can coach his kids to play any game at any tempo; Coach A.W. Canada from Detroit Pershing has proven himself equally adept. I think it would be a marquee game that would be remembered for years, much like Bruce Flowers and Berkley, undefeated after 25 games, taking on Highland Park and Terry Duerod in the 1975 Class A quarterfinal. The Polar Bears defeated Berkley 84-55.

MARIAN MAGIC: Birmingham Marian advanced to the Catholic League's championship game last night when the Mustangs went the length of the court in the final 5.9 seconds to score a lay-up at the buzzer and nip Warren Regina's Saddelites, 42-41. Marian Coach Mary-Lillie Cicerone stayed to watch the nightcap, a rugged 56-52 victory by Dearborn Divine Child over Livonia Ladywood.

These two games, played at Novi's Detroit Catholic Central High, illustrated quite nicely the girls' ability to offer an entertaining brand of basketball, different from the boys, but equally as compelling. It's too bad these games were seen by a few instead of the many that nearly filled the gym the night before for Birmingham Brother Rice and Catholic Central.

NUMERICALLY SPEAKING: Friday night's Rice-CC game revealed an instance that scoreboard watchers all know to be rare. During the game's second stanza, a foul call stopped the clock and all three rows of the scoreboard had the same number for a few seconds.

The top row showed the time remaining. 3:33. The second row detailed the score and quarter: 22-22 in the 2nd period, reading 22 - 2 - 22.

The bottom row showed fouls and timeouts remaining, and before the 6th foul was reported, the board revealed five fouls against each team and each team with all five timeouts available, or 5 - 5 - 5 - 5.

What are the odds of that happening again this season?

~T.C. Cameron is the author of Metro Detroit's High School Basketball Rivalries, due August 2009 from Arcadia Publishing.

If you've lived, worked and played in Oakland County for the majority of your life as I have, you might think you know a few things about the city and county you call home.

I'm brave enough to admit today I knew nothing 14 months ago. Of course, I thought I did, but as I researched my football and subsequent basketball book more and more, I discovered my knowledge base was lacking. Over the past 14 months, I've learned so much about the city of Detroit, Oakland, Wayne and Macomb counties and our metro region as a whole. My sports knowledge has blossomed and my working knowledge from a socioeconomic standpoint is greatly expanded, too.

Here's what stands out to me today: Oakland County has a long way to go to catch up to other cities and counties in basketball prowess. If you think that's mean-spirited, baseless or otherwise foolish to say, consider what Oakland County's basketball history would look like without Pontiac Northern or Detroit Country Day. When Pontiac Central closes in a few months, a significant chunk of the county's basketball cache will close with it.

Ferndale won a pair of championships under Roy Burkhart in the 1960s. Berkley had some good teams under Steve Rhoades, none better than the 25-0 edition with Bruce Flowers in the mid-1970s. Those Bears lost in the Class A quarterfinals to Pontiac Central, the farthest any Berkley team has ever advanced. The Chiefs went to four title games without bringing home winner's hardware. Southfield had some great teams, including the school's 1983 team that lost to Detroit Southwestern and Antoine Joubert's 44-point effort in the Class A semifinals. Their rival, Southfield-Lathrup, has also had a handful of great seasons in girls and boys' games alike, and save for the last two minutes of the Class A final about 15 years ago, the Chargers could have had a title in boys' basketball, too.

Obviously Pontiac Northern has earned a couple of titles as have the Eaglets of Orchard Lake St. Mary's. Country Day in girls and boys' basketball is a champion many times over along with Mary Lillie-Cicerone's Birmingham Marian teams. Her Mustangs have earned four titles in five finals appearances while neighboring Brother Rice had some good teams under Bill Norton in the 1970s.

There's a small handful of champions I'm omitting but you get the point. At face value that aforementioned list looks pretty good, right? But compared to Detroit, Flint or Saginaw, Oakland County schools, particularly the public schools, are seen within the MHSAA record books as often as the signs that tell you you're still 200+ miles from the Mackinac Bridge. Every so often you see an Oakland County school in the finals or semifinals. And before you get mad, understand that Macomb County's public schools are practically non-existent in this discussion.

What surprises me is one would think with the affluence in Oakland County, the ability to pay for and play AAU, quality coaching, gyms and weight rooms, Oakland County would have a better history. But money can't buy love, as I've heard more than once, and Oakland County school populations love football and baseball a lot more than they love roundball.

However, it's not all negative. Even as rumors swirl of the OAA's potential demise, one must look at the OAA and admit its' role in improving basketball in the O-C. The OAA gave Oakland County a look at Clarkston, Lake Orion and the two Pontiac schools on an annual basis. It forced the county's public schools as a whole to play a different brand of basketball.

Coaches familiar with the 'city game' have been populating Oakland County schools for the past 10-15 years. Not surprisingly, the tenor, tempo and energy of the game changed, too. Finally, when the OAA hired Mike Smith away from the PSL to assign games, the league gained officials who called a tougher, more physical game. It forced soft fouls and soft play out of the OAA. It also opened doors for an entire pool of officials who previously had not intermingled the two leagues to one another.

Obviously I'm starting to touch on some issues that get away from basketball and delve into culture and habit, so we'll stop here. It will be a fun last six weeks of the regular season. Can Clarkston continue an amazing season? Will Pontiac Central offer a final memory for her faithful fans? Pontiac Northern's final season as the Huskies is at hand, too. Will private schools like Country Day and Marian be holding hardware to end their season? Can any other Oakland County team step up and steal glory from a perennial contender?

Here's to a final six weeks of fastbreak, break-neck basketball!

~T.C. Cameron is the author of Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries from Arcadia Publishing. Cameron's 2nd title, Metro Detroit's High School Basketball Rivalries, is due August 2009.

Tonight Berkley High School, a school long known for boys' basketball above all else, rolled into the parking lot at Rochester High School off of Livernois for a north-south Oakland County tilt. The young coaching staff at Berkley have molded the Bears into a scrappy, hard-nosed bunch while Rochester is well-versed in the heavy-handed competition the OAA offers.

The wrench in the game? The Bears were an hour late, and when you're playing a freshman, jayvee and varsity game back-to-back-to-back, it makes for a long night. As far as the game went, it was worth waiting for, as Rochester fought off the Bears to the very end, surviving a half-court heave to tie at the buzzer to win 63-60.

Oakland County's sprawling traffic, available bus service to the Berkley teams and a pancake batter snowfall made punctuality all but impossible. This isn't an isolated incident within the OAA and it's not because the member schools don't have reliable transportation, qualified leadership or dedicated employees. It's because the league has outgrown it's usefulness. As one OAA athletic director put it this week, "Conceptually it's a fabulous league; Speaking practically, it's a nightmare."

Word has long been out that the OAA might be ready to follow the MEGA and dissolve. Ironically, the OAA and MEGA were also within a couple of years of each other's inception, too, back in the early 1990s. Now comes reliable information the I-75 corridor schools of the OAA might be poised to branch off together and soon. With Pontiac's impending consolidation of Central and Northern into one high school all but a forgone conclusion by the final half of this school year, the OAA athletic directors are meeting more regularly to address the changing landscape of the league.

It appears imminent that Clarkston and Lake Orion could merge with Troy and Troy Athens, Rochester, Rochester Adams and Stoney Creek to form a smaller, more manageable league. That would leave the southern Oakland County schools like Royal Oak, Birmingham, Berkley, Hazel Park and Ferndale to reconvene the defunct Southeastern Michigan Association.

The question unanswered? Where does that leave Pontiac and Avondale? Some have openly wondered why Grand Blanc joined the Kensington Lakes, and those questions would intensify if a north Oakland County league as aforementioned were to emerge. However, to even consider poaching Grand Blanc while leaving Avondale and Pontiac aside would evoke quick memories of the MEGA Conference disaster when a handful of schools successfully sued the original lineup of MEGA schools to gain inclusion into the league. Could Avondale be part of a northern-based county league? Will Pontiac be considered for a southern-based county conference?

And where do the 'Bloomfields' park themselves? West Bloomfield is on a bit of an island while Lahser and Andover have also been rumored for consolidation.

Times change, schools close, leagues come and go. As the death of the super-sized conference begins to play out, how Oakland County's schools re-invent themselves for athletics in today's recession-based economy will become the face of a new age in prep sports.

~T.C. Cameron is the author of Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries, released in August 2008 from Arcadia Publishing. Cameron's second title, Metro Detroit's High School Basketball Rivalries, is due in August 2009.