March Madness is about to get under way. As much as I used to be into the college version, I have become much more interested in the game at the high school level.

Being at games, talking with coaches and players, seeing the emotion, both good and bad and knowing what is at stake for these teams — it all combines to make the state playoffs very intriguing to me.

This year, six Butler County teams will be involved in the PIAA tournament and there should be no shortage of drama.

Will Butler’s boys team be able to come down from the high of winning a WPIAL title for the first time in 29 years?

Can Slippery Rock’s girls and Mars’ boys put the disappointment of losing in a district championship game behind them in time to make a run?

Both teams from North Catholic have been dominant this season and have a WPIAL title to show for it. How far can they go now that the state tournament has arrived?

For North’s girls, the first test comes against a very familiar foe in Freeport. The Trojanettes and Yellowjackets are section rivals and while Freeport dropped both meetings in the regular season, few teams have been able to compete with North like Freeport has.

Like so many other aspects of high school sports, the state basketball tournament has experienced some drastic changes over the years.

The PIAA title game used to match the eastern champion against the western champion in every class. But the expansion to six classes, coupled with the large population located in and around Philadelphia, means there are a lot more schools, especially in the large classifications, in that part of the state.

This has led to many PIAA brackets being imbalanced with many more eastern teams than those from the west.

Two years ago, the Class 6A Girls championship game was between Upper Dublin and Central Bucks South, two teams from District 1, which is suburban Philadelphia.

Mars’ boys play Friday against Elizabethtown, which is located in Lancaster County. It’s a matchup that used to be possible only in the state championship game. Now it’s a first-round meeting.

Those are just two examples and there are many more.

Four wins will get a team, regardless of class, to the state title game later this month. Many teams believe they have a shot, but the vast majority of them will stumble between now and Hershey.

It’s a three-week frenzy of buzzer-beaters, tide-turning runs, tears of joy and defeat.

And Butler County will be in the thick of it all.

Derek Pyda is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle