With this season not yet finished, many people are already excited about the possibilities for next year with the Mt. Lebanon boys' basketball team.

How could they not be, with top guns Evan Pierce, Paul Lang, Deion Turman and Luke Hagy all scheduled to be back for the Blue Devils after gaining valuable experience this season?

With what the Blue Devils have accomplished already this season -- sharing the Section 4-AAAA title with Peters Township and reaching Saturday's WPIAL Class AAAA title game before losing to those same Indians -- plenty of people are excited about the present.

But, in all of this, the masses seem to forget about the recent past, which makes what coach Joey David and this group of Blue Devils is doing (and what they could do next year) even more impressive.

Seemingly lost in all of this is that Mt. Lebanon was 8-15 last season, finishing last in the section with a 2-10 record. The Blue Devils' lone section wins last season came against Bethel Park and Upper St. Clair just after the New Year and the squad closed the section season with six consecutive defeats.

So when looking at the turnaround, one would be hard-pressed to find a coach who has constructed a better one-year about-face this season than David has done with these Blue Devils.

Much was made going into the WPIAL Class A boys' championship game between Sewickley Academy and Serra Catholic about the suspension that had to be served in the contest by Serra junior guard Rob Heatherington, who was ejected for fighting from a semifinal contest against Neshannock.

Arguably Serra's best perimeter defender, undoubtedly Heatherington would have drawn at least part of the assignment on Sewickley Academy junior standout Tom Droney. As it was, Droney scored 40 points with Heatherington relegated to street clothes.

So, when Droney was asked in a postgame media gathering if Heatherington's absence made a difference, he chose his words oh-so carefully, offering a very non-committal response.

"They could say that, but I don't really want to comment on it," Droney said. "Rob is a heck of a player. And I don't know what difference it would have made. I just kind of would rather stay away from that question."

Upon further review, maybe the Class AAAA boys' game, locally, has received a bit of a bad rap in regard to its perceived offensive inadequacies this season.

Sure, there are a lot of people who head to a gym and want to see an exhibition where the teams go up and down the floor, and the combined score is somewhere around 125 points or higher.

Many times, when fans went to WPIAL Class AAAA games this season, they didn't see games like that.

Take for example the recent WPIAL semifinal between North Hills and Mt. Lebanon. The Blue Devils won, 36-35.

Or there was that huge regular-season matchup between Peters and Mt. Lebanon, which the Blue Devils won, 34-32.

Shaler Area and Pine-Richland played a 44-38 game this season.

There was also a Seneca Valley and Pine-Richland game that ended, 47-33, earlier this season and Fox Chapel had a 39-37 win against Peters Township, then three days later beat McKeesport, 46-44.

The list of low-scoring games in the Class AAAA ranks goes on and on.

Some (even me) were quick to dismiss this as a sign of bad basketball.

But maybe, just maybe, it should be looked at like this: At least these Class AAAA teams play some defense.

While watching the WPIAL Class A championship game on Friday, a colleague and a Division I assistant coach sitting nearby both made good points. In essence, while both were impressed that Droney scored 40 points and Serra's T.J. Heatherington netted 37 in the title game that had a combined 128 points, and then the nightcap won by Hampton against Highlands featured a combined 143 points, there was little resistance, defensively, until the ball was dribbled deep into enemy territory.

That is to say, offenses often would simply be given 75 feet of free real estate, and ball-handlers were never hounded until they reached the free throw line or so. One would think it is logical to assume it is made exponentially easier to rack up a big point total when there isn't much pressure on the basketball in the backcourt.

In recent Class AAAA games that has not been the case, as it is routine how much more pressure is applied to the ball-handler.

Look at teams such as Peters Township, Mt. Lebanon, Central Catholic, Seneca Valley and North Hills and one common thread pervades -- they all put tons of pressure on the basketball just about from end to end.

There seems to be more of a premium put on defense at the Class AAAA level. That doesn't make it bad basketball; it just makes it lower scoring.