- Flickr/Bryan Horowitz/SportsAngle.com
- Jabari Parker
The Public League boys basketball championship has diminished over the years. It used to mean an automatic berth in the so-called elite eight in the state basketball playoffs and a direct trip downstate to the quarterfinals. Yet city hoops coaches justifiably argued that, most years, (make that every year) more than one Public League team belonged among the state’s top eight, so they were rolled into the statewide playoff system of sectionals and supersectionals. The Public League playoffs continued on, but as a preliminary event, now culminating in February rather than March, before the serious statewide business gets started.