It’s no secret — Section 3 is the cream of the crop in WPIAL Class AAAA boys basketball.

New Castle, North Allegheny and Hampton were awarded the top-three seeds in the district playoffs, while Seneca Valley — seeded 12th — knocked off a pair of section champions en route to joining its season-long adversaries in the all-Section 3 WPIAL semifinals.

The quartet had the opportunity to prove just how good they were throughout the playoffs — and did so emphatically, as only Hampton notched postseason wins by less than 10 points.

I have pity for the bottom-four teams in the section, which never had a chance to shine.

With the WPIAL’s top-four squads grouped in Section 3, the likes of Pine-Richland, North Hills, Shaler and Butler were doomed from the start.

We’ll never really know how they would have stacked up in a less rugged division. It’s clear, however, that each of those teams were better than their records indicated.

The top squads and eventual WPIAL semifinalists combined for a sparkling 39-1 record against non-section foes.

Meanwhile, the non-playoff teams from Section 3 weren’t too shabby, either.

Pine-Richland went 8-0 in non-section play, while North Hills (5-3), Shaler (6-2) and Butler (4-3) were also successful outside of their brutal division.

It was only WPIAL section in any classification where every team, from top to bottom, boasted an above-.500 record outside the section.

Each of the non-playoff teams owned some impressive victories, too.

North Hills beat Mars, a WPIAL Class AAA semifinalist.

Shaler throttled McKeesport, which went on to reach the playoffs in Class AAAA.

Pine-Richland dropped Central Valley and Blackhawk, both postseason teams in Class AAA.

It appeared to be down year for the Golden Tornado, who finished in the basement of their division at 2-12 in Section 3.

However, Butler earned a 52-37 win over Thomas Jefferson, which went on to win the Section 4-AAA crown with an unblemished 12-0 mark.

The Tornado topped Quad-A playoff qualifier Canon-McMillan 54-46 on Dec. 27 and beat Trinity, the fifth-place team in Section 4-AAAA, 60-51 the following night.

After that, it was a Section 3 tailspin, as Butler dropped 10 of 11 games within the stacked division.

The Tornado ended the season with a positive, though, edging South Fayette — the thid-place team in Section 5-AAA behind WPIAL finalists Chartiers Valley and Montour — despite having nothing but pride to play for.

A decade from now, if someone looks back at the year-by-year record for the Butler boys basketball program, it would be reasonable to assume the 2012-13 squad was a bad team.

I’m not convinced that was the case, though, as numbers don’t tell the whole story when shown out of context.

Butler wasn’t a bad team, it was an unfortunate one.

There’s a big difference between the two.

Jason Orfao is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle.