Orlando Christian Prep’s undefeated state championship boys basketball season will not continue into April.
The Warriors, who finished 27-0 with a lopsided win in the Class 2A FHSAA state final 10 days ago, were hoping to receive an invitation to participate in the nationally-televised GEICO Nationals high school basketball tournament, which will be played in Florida for the first time when it’s held in Fort Myers in two weeks.
OCP did not get the invitation it coveted, despite the tournament expanding from eight to 10 teams this year. The bracket was announced Tuesday afternoon with two Georgia state title teams, Milton (28-2) and Pace Academy (28-1), receiving bids ahead of OCP.
The rest of the boys field is made up of independent academy teams that can house players, some from multiple states and nations. That list is topped by Montverde Academy (21-1), the Lake County boarding school that has won the national tournament four times.
The biggest surprise may be that the field includes two national academy teams that have been GEICO Nationals regulars but did not have banner win-loss records: Oak Hill (16-8) of Virginia and La Lumiere (10-9) of Indiana. OCP is above both of those teams in national rankings.
Orlando Christian Prep is No. 17 in this week’s MaxPreps expert rankings, trailing No. 7 Milton and No. 16 Pace.
Top-ranked Montverde and fourth-ranked IMG Academy (20-2) of Bradenton, another boarding school, will again be the two Florida representatives in a tournament that expands from three to four days, March 31 through April 3, at Florida SouthWestern State College’s Suncoast Credit Union Arena.
Montverde is the No. 1 seed ahead of Sunrise Christian (19-3) of Kansas, which stopped the Eagles’ 44-game winning streak when it beat Montverde 69-66 in overtime in a Feb. 5 game.
The Eagles won their other two games against Sunrise, including a 61-57 victory last week in the championship game of the newly-formed National Interscholastic Basketball Conference.
IMG is seeded third.
The fourth seed is AZ Compass Prep (27-1) of Arizona, which lost at Montverde 76-65 in an overtime game Jan. 28 and owns a 50-47 win against Sunrise.
The other entries are Wasatch Academy (18-6) of Utah and Prolific Prep (30-3) of California.
Montverde won the national invitational four times in a span of seven seasons before the event was canceled last year due to the COVID-19 outbreak. IMG beat the Eagles 65-64 in a semifinal and won the 2019 crown when the tournament was played in New York City.
Montverde and IMG are Florida High School Athletic Association member schools but do not participate in the state playoffs in an agreement with the association.
Lake Highland’s 19-0 girls team, ranked No. 1 nationally by Maxpreps, drew the second seed for the female four-team tournament, which has nothing but unbeaten teams. The Highlanders, winners of 35 games in a row over two seasons, will make their first appearance and play Paul VI (10-0) of Chantilly, Va., in a Friday, April 2, semifinal at 10:30 a.m.
Atlanta Westlake (19-0) is the top seed. The Lions will play Utah state champ Fremont (25-0) of Utah at 12:30 p.m.
The Saturday, April 3, championship games are set for 10 a.m. for the girls and noon for the boys.
LHP coach Al Honor told the Sentinel his team was promised a berth if it won the Feb. 27 Class 4A state championship game. The Highlanders made that look easy with an 84-30 rout of Fort Pierce Lincoln Park.
Honor said Lake Highland received an invitation to the 2020 GEICO event but missed out on a trip to New York City when the tournament was shelved.
This story was first published at OrlandoSentinel.com. Varsity Content Editor Buddy Collings can be reached by email at bcollings@orlandosentinel.com.
