Thoughts and leftovers on and from the WPIAL basketball tournament.

• Buzzer-beater shots are the main reason basketball tournaments in March create madness. Friday night's Class A final at the Palumbo Center had two such shots, one went in and one didn't.

Sewickley Academy's Tom Droney drained a 3-pointer from the top of the key to give the Panthers a 49-48 victory against Lincoln Park. But his shot would have been just a footnote if Lincoln Park's Alex Kross had connected on his 3-point attempt from deep in the corner at the buzzer.

It was hard to determine if Kross got his shot, which rimmed out, off in time. But officials had their hands up as the ball was in the air, signaling it was a good attempt.

The question is: Would WPIAL officials have checked a television replay had the shot gone in to see if Kross got it off in time?

The answer is: No.

The WPIAL would have stood by the call on the court by the game officials and the reason is that the WPIAL wants to be consistent throughout the playoffs.

"We don't have the capabilities to do that [look at TV replay] at, say, North Hills [in a semifinal], so we have just decided in an effort to be consistent throughout the tournament not to do it in the finals," WPIAL executive director Tim O'Malley said.

That's fair.

• Farrell coach Ed McCluskey is the WPIAL's version of John Wooden, even though Farrell no longer competes in the WPIAL.

During his 29 seasons as the boys' basketball coach at Farrell, McCluskey's teams won 11 WPIAL titles in the large-school classification and seven PIAA championships. The common denominator on all of those Farrell title teams was defense, plus McCluskey's squads usually just played harder than anyone else.

McCluskey is the icon for WPIAL boys' coaches. He is at the top of the mountain and no one else has made it to the summit, but a few others have come close.

Ed Olkowski, who guided Midland to five consecutive WPIAL Class A championships -- a record that might never be broken -- is in a group that includes Blackhawk's John Miller, North Catholic's Don Graham, Wampum's and Ellwood City's L. Butler Hennon, and Chuck DeVenzio, who coached at Springdale, Ambridge and North Allegheny.

After this year's championships another name should be added to that group ... Chartiers Valley's Tim McConnell.

McConnell's Colts won their fifth WPIAL title Friday night when they defeated Hampton in the Class AAA championship game. He was won three Class AAA crowns and two Class AAAA titles and shows no signs of letting up.

All McConnell needs to solidify his place among the best coaches in Western Pennsylvania history is to win a PIAA title. That might not happen this season, but it will happen before he gets out of coaching.

• Is it just a coincidence that when Dori Oldaker was the girls' coach at Blackhawk, the school's boys' and girls' teams won WPIAL titles in the same year and now that she's coaching the girls at Mt. Lebanon, the same thing has happened? We don't think so.

Lost in the lights of the WPIAL tournament was the league announcing its basketball realignment for the next two seasons. Chartiers Valley is moving up in classification -- it's one of those schools that always seems to be on the bubble between Class AAAA and AAA -- and has been placed in Section 4-AAAA.

That's the section home of Mt. Lebanon, which won the Class AAAA title Saturday night. Also in that section is Peters Township, which won the WPIAL Class AAAA crown last year. Moving up in classification and into the section with Chartiers Valley is Moon Area, which won WPIAL Class AAA titles from 2004 through 2006. And Bethel Park, which won the Class AAAA crown in 2007, is also in Section 4.

Somebody on the WPIAL Basketball Steering Committee has a sense of humor.

As a side note it should be pointed out that Mt. Lebanon and Chartiers Valley each have three underclassmen starting this season.

The price of winning basketball also went up in Section 5-AAA where Class AA title contenders South Fayette, which has four of its top six players returning, and Washington have moved up in classification. They will join Montour and Trinity, both of which made it to the PIAA playoffs this season. Waynesburg and McGuffey are also in the section.

Over in Section 1-A, the competition will be stiff with Lincoln Park, Cornell, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, Union, Western Beaver and Class AA finalist Rochester. Cornell made it to the Class A semifinals this season and has just three seniors on the roster, OLSH is always solid and Union has been a fixture in the playoffs in recent years.

And how about Section 2-A? The teams in it the next two seasons will be Aquinas Academy, Class AA champion North Catholic, Quigley Catholic, Class A champion Sewickley Academy, Trinity Christian and Vincentain Academy. See any public schools in that group?

Mike White's "High School Sports Edition" videos are featured exclusively on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.