It's not exactly the halfway point, but the high school boys basketball season is generally broken into two parts — pre-holiday and post-holiday.
The post-holiday portion of the schedule begins Thursday or Friday for most area teams and Bangor and Pen Argyl are wasting no time jumping back into Colonial League play as the Slaters and Green Knights meet tonight at Pen Argyl.
Things will move swiftly from there with most teams playing at last three games per week right through Feb. 8 — the final night of the regular season.
You'll then have the league tournaments taking center stage the week of Feb. 10-16 with the District 11 tournament to follow from Feb. 19 through March 2.
It will all wrap up the weekend of March 22-23 with the PIAA championships, which for the first time since 2006 will be held at the Giant Center at Hershey after a six-year stint at Penn State.
Barring a major snowstorm, there will be little pause in the schedule between here and Palm Sunday (March 24).
So, it's a good time to take stock and surmise what might be ahead.
And, as usual, there are more questions than answers at this point in the season.
Here's one person's look at five of the most compelling questions to be answered over the rest of the regular season:
Question No. 1 — Will Central Catholic ever become consistent?
The Vikings, as they have been for several years, continue to be one of the area's most perplexing teams. CCHS, led by the highly recruited Muhammad Ali Abdur-Rahkman, is 7-2 and has been very impressive in most of its seven wins. But thrown in the mix are baffling losses to Allen and Emmaus.
The defeat to Allen was in double overtime when the Vikings simply stopped scoring and the loss to Emmaus was one-sided. The potential is there for CCHS to go as far as any team in the area, and yet, there's also always the potential for a loss that will have everyone scratching their heads.
Question No. 2 – Which one of the Lehigh Valley Conference East's elite won't make the league tournament?
Few involved with the LVC would dispute that the East Division is the toughest featuring Liberty, Easton, Freedom and an improved Bethlehem Catholic team. However, only two of those teams can make the league tournament.
Liberty, despite its pair of losses in a quality holiday tournament in Trenton last week, seems like it's the best team in the league at the moment. But it's hard to determine who is more solid between Easton and Freedom. The Red Rovers own an overtime win over Freedom, but don't show up and play their best every night. The Patriots also have revealed a few warts over the season's first 31/2 weeks.
And beware of Becahi, which may be 0-3 in the league, but has played excellent defense and has a young nucleus gaining confidence and cohesion. Take out a blowout loss to Liberty and the Golden Hawks have three losses by a total of 15 points.
Question No. 3 – Who is the best of the LVC West?
Central Catholic was the clear-cut favorite in this division entering the season, but has those aforementioned losses to Allen and Emmaus.
The Canaries have a lot of talent, but so many new faces that they still may need more time to mesh, Doug Snyder has to search for the right combination every night.
The defending league champion Green Hornets have been one of the area's biggest surprises after the graduation of all-area players Greg Bobal and Matt Wiseley and other key cogs. Coach Steve Yoder said this group was hungry and eager to make its own mark, and so far, they have with Nate Feiertag becoming one of the league's most prolific scorers.
