Tuesday's heavy snow forced postponement of the WPIAL Basketball Tournament pairings meeting for a day.

It also kept the 154 participating schools — including eight Butler County teams — from learning the identity of their first playoff opponents until tonight.

The meeting has been rescheduled for 7 p.m. today at the Embassy Suites in Coraopolis. WPIALexecutive secretary Tim O'Malley will not release the brackets until then.

Some consideration was given to putting the brackets on the WPIALwebsite Tuesday night, but the idea was dropped.

"We have to be able to administer this tournament,"O'Malley said. "We have to disseminate information and if we had released the pairings the night before, I'm not sure who would attend (today's)meeting.

"There are 90 games that need to be played by Tuesday. Not having an effective meeting would make that task very, very difficult."

The brackets were still being finalized Tuesday night.

"We're putting the finishing touches on as we speak,"O'Malley said.

Butler County teams in the tournament include the Butler, Knoch, Mars and Freeport girls, and the Knoch, Freeport, Seneca Valley and Summit Academy boys.

O'Malley said no games will be played Thursday, but a number of teams will be involved in "pigtail" games Friday and Saturday.

Freeport's girls likely will be one of them.

"Everybody's in the same boat, so it doesn't bother me having to wait an extra day,"Freeport coach Kevin Smetak said. "By this time of year, you're not going to change your personnel or style of play anyway.

"We play a difficult schedule: seven Triple-A teams and the toughest Double-A section in the WPIAL. If that doesn't get you ready for the playoffs, nothing will."

Butler girls coach Dorothea Epps said she would have preferred knowing her team's opponent Tuesday.

"The meeting is important in terms of exchanging game tapes and everything,"Epps said. "I'd prefer this be a year we don't exchange tapes and find out who we're playing Tuesday.

"If you don't play untilMonday or Tuesday, it's not that big a deal. But if you play Friday or Saturday ... you can't schedule a scrimmage beforehand. One day doesn't seem like much, but it throws everything out of whack."

Knoch boys coach Chris Andreassi said he doesn't mind waiting a day — as long as his Knights don't have to play this weekend.

"Then it's a different story,"he said. "I'd be disappointed because I'd feel like we deserve better."

Knoch girls coach Curt Vasas figures his team won't play until early next week.

"Class AAAgirls have a straight bracket,"he said. "The Class AAteams are the ones who will be hurt because there's a lot more teams there."

O'Malley said the pairings meeting will take place today regardless of the weather.

"The forecast is for things to improve as the day goes on,"he said. "There's no way we could have met Tuesday. Schools were shut down. Malls were shut down."