Welcome to the March to Macon. The road to the state championship is set and we dive into the bracket.

RELATED: Meet the No 1 seeds

First Round Game(s) to Watch 

McDonough at Holy Innocents’: Of all of the first round matchups across the state, this might be the best on paper. It pits one of the 4A favorites in McDonough against one of the country’s best sophomores in Caleb Wilson. McDonough’s guards are hounding and gritty, and Caleb Wilson is a legitimate quadruple-double threat on any given night. Sign me up for this game. 

Miller Grove at Pace: For those who may not be aware, Pace head coach Sharman White built a dynasty at Miller Grove in the 2000s into the early 2010s. He won seven state titles—six in a row—during his time there. For that connection alone, this is an intriguing matchup. 

The Most Interesting Quadrant

The top left is the one to look out for. A first round matchup between McDonough and Holy Innocents’ is one of the best first round games in any classification, and Westover lurking on the opposite end of this quadrant could make for an interesting elite eight if we get McDonough/Holy Innocents’ against the Patriots. 

The first-round matchups are as follows: 

#3 McDonough at #2 Holy Innocents’

#4 Seckinger at #1 Sonoraville

#3 Southeast Bulloch at #2 Whitewater

#4 Spalding at #1 Westover

Final Four Picks

Before the season, I predicted Pace, McDonough, Lovett and Westover.

As has been the theme throughout the other classifications, the preseason picks look solid, but with how the brackets ended up shaking out, the final four can happen as predicted. 

Here are the updated picks: 

Westover: Picking anyone other than McDonough feels wrong, but this is one of the brackets in which we should expect the unexpected. Westover shouldn’t be too much of a surprise pick because the Patriots return plenty of stars from the team that made the 4A championship game a season ago. Not only is this pick based on trying to account for the chaos of a single-elimination tournament, but it’s also based on the merit of this Westover group. 

Pace: This is a younger Pace squad. They might be a year away from being a no-brainer favorite to win 4A, but this year, they’re still good enough to make plenty of noise in the tournament. They have some tremendous guards running the show, and having multiple playmakers is crucial in a tournament setting. There are some potential roadblocks in their way, but the Knights have a pedigree that we’re not betting against. 

Lovett: The Lions are on a hot streak and picked up wins over McDonough and Pace to win the 5-4A championship. Specifically, Christian Anderson has been lighting it up for Lovett. He’s the kind of player that can lead a team on a run through a tournament like this. We’re expecting the Lions’ success to continue for three more games at least. 

Southwest Dekalb: The Panthers have been the most consistent team in 4A this season. They’re 25-2 with single-digit losses to Eagle’s Landing and Columbia. That’s it. While Fayette County is a worthy contender as well, Southwest Dekalb has done enough for us to believe in them to make it out of this part of the bracket. 

The 2022-23 4A Champions are…

The Pace Academy Knights. 

From the jump, it felt like the winner of this tournament would come from region 5-4A. Between Pace, McDonough and Lovett, the region has some of 4A’s best teams. 

While we tend to think that Pace might be a year away from being a true reckoning force in 4A, this group is absolutely good enough to win it all.