There seems to be a pretty healthy groundswell of people who feel that too many teams qualify for the WPIAL basketball playoffs.

Looking at what happened in the first round of the Class A girls' playoff games this past weekend might just give some credence to what those people are saying.

The most glaring distance between two teams was a matchup between No. 1 seed North Catholic, which entered the playoffs with a 20-4 record, and Cornell, which came in with a 7-11 record overall and didn't even have a winning record in Section 1-A play, going through that portion of their schedule at 5-7.

Well, North Catholic rocketed to a 61-6 victory and the truth is, it could have been much worse if it wasn't for two factors -- the mercy rule and Trojanettes coach Molly Rottmann having her team ease up in the second half.

While there wasn't that big of an expanse in all the Class A girls' first-round games, blowouts were undoubtedly the norm.

Consider this: In the eight games, the average margin of victory was exactly 30 points, with the winners hitting for an average of 63.9 points and the losers scoring just 33.9.

And most of those eight games were finished early, with the winning teams putting the losers away with runs right out of the gate. The average lead at halftime was 19.5 points and of the eight games, four losing teams had 11 or fewer points at halftime.

Also, of the eight losing teams in that girls' Class A bracket, just two -- Rochester and Clairton -- scored more than 39 points in the entire game.

All those numbers point to one thing: maybe those people who say there are too many teams in the playoffs are onto something -- at least in girls' Class A they seem to be right on.

Want more examples on how the WPIAL tournament might have too many teams? Check this out.

The top four teams in each section qualify for the playoffs, right? Well, in the boys' and girls' Class AAAA and A portions of the tournament only three fourth-place teams -- Monaca boys, Peters Township and Avonworth girls -- advanced to the quarterfinals tomorrow night and just three third-place teams -- Upper St. Clair boys, Oakland Catholic and Vincentian girls -- moved on.

OK, so the idea is to keep interest in the section races into the second half of the regular season. Having four teams from each section qualify for the playoffs does that, but isn't it obvious that the top two teams in each section have a better shot of getting to the quarterfinals?

But, in all fairness, the idea of sending the top four teams in each section to the playoffs does have its merits.

The West Allegheny boys were fourth in their section last season and won the WPIAL Class AAA title. And all four of the girls' teams in Section 4 made it to the Class A semifinals.

The Quaker Valley boys' team played and beat Summit Academy in a preliminary round game Friday in the Class AA playoffs without 6-3 senior Ted Maloney, the team's leading scorer at 14.5 points per game.

Maloney missed with a high ankle sprain and was going to try and practice earlier in the week, but Quaker Valley coach Mike Mastroianni didn't hold out much hope that Maloney would be ready for last night's first-round game against North Catholic.

"We survived," Mastroianni said. "Without him, we played five juniors and two sophomores. We have only two seniors on the team, so from that standpoint it was nice to get the win with such a young team."

You win some and you lose some -- and this time we lost.

The subject of last week's search committee was former North Allegheny girls' basketball standout Nikki Otto. In the early 1990s, there were few players as dominant in the WPIAL as Otto.

But our search turned up empty to this point.

So if you know Otto's whereabouts, shoot me an e-mail and we'll bring you up to speed on what she has been doing if we can confirm it.

Now to this week's subject -- here is an all-points bulletin for former Sewickley Academy scoring machine Tim Appleton.

In the early 1970s -- before Sewickley Academy joined the WPIAL -- Appleton was famous for putting up some ridiculous point totals. Take for example the Dec. 5, 1972 night when he scored a school-record 65 points, leading his team to a 90-81 win over New Brighton.

Or, how about Jan. 26, 1973 when Appleton scored 50 of his team's 55 points in a 55-54 win against Shady Side Academy. And for good measure on Jan. 9, 1973, when Appleton scored 50 of Sewickley Academy's 60 points in an 83-60 loss to Penn Hall Academy. At that point, he was averaging 44.5 points a game.

A search through the Post-Gazette archives shows he then went on to Kenyon College in Ohio.

So now it's up to the readers, to inform me as to what Appleton has been up to.

Please send your e-mail responses by Monday morning.