Class AA is the easiest playoff bracket to figure. Here, with some help from Ossining coach Dan Ricci, is where the teams stand — and who they have left to face:

How the seeds look at the moment — (UPDATED, 2/10, 10:27 p.m..: All teams updated through 2/10 games)
1. Lourdes (18-2)
2. Mount Vernon (17-3)
3. Scarsdale (15-5)
T4. Ossining (14-6)
T4. Carmel (14-6)
T4. Suffern (13-6)
7. John Jay-East Fishkill (13-6)
8. Arlington (13-7)
9. Ursuline (12-8)
T10. Greeley (11-9)
T10. John Jay (11-9)
T10. Yorktown (11-9)
13. New Rochelle (11-9) — one win against a non-NYS team
T14. Ramapo (10-10)
T14. Mahopac (10-10)
T14. Mamaroneck (10-10)
17. Gorton (8-11) — may have played 20 games
18. Clarkstown North (8-12)

Failed to qualify —
White Plains
Lincoln
Roosevelt
Fox Lane
Clarkstown South
Saunders
Ketcham
Poughkeepsie
North Rockland

Ineligible for postseason —
Ursuline B

So you heard my thoughts on Mount Vernon-Lourdes, which was fairly inconclusive. And you saw yesterday’s breakdown of Briarcliff-Nanuet. Is there anything better than when the top four teams square off in an 18-hour span?

All four played well enough to remain atop the rankings. The rumbling you feel is at the bottom, where more change has reshuffled the list.

1. BRIARCLIFF (15-1): No doubt the Bears remain No. 1. They appeared vulnerable for a half, but no other team in the section could’ve come back from 15 down to beat Nanuet, not with the way the Golden Knights played yesterday. Briarcliff showed incredible guts last night.

2. OUR LADY OF LOURDES (16-2): I wasn’t sure about the Warriors after they lost badly to Albertus Magnus, but they have clearly improved since then. In a few weeks, they may begin a new streak of gold balls.

3. NANUET (11-4): I’m not sure how last night will affect this team. Will it be spooked by an inability to close out Briarcliff? Or strengthened knowing it almost beat the Bears? There probably won’t be an answer to those questions for another few weeks.

4. MOUNT VERNON (13-3): The Knights have now lost three of four, but they showed several positive signs today. It would’ve been quite the win playing without a starter and with two starters missing half the game due to foul trouble. Their worry going forward is how to keep Taylor Palmer and Shanyce Stewart out of foul trouble.

5. PEARL RIVER (11-3): OK, so the Pirates are playing Magnus on Super Bowl Sunday. Are they the Cardinals or the Steelers? I guess last week’s win at home makes them the favored Steelers, but I’m not so sure.

6. ALBERTUS MAGNUS (11-2): I imagine Magnus will come out with great intensity, hoping to turn its season around. Problem is, I don’t know that Pearl River is the type of team you catch napping.

7. IRVINGTON (14-2): Tuesday, Thursday, and a week from Monday are the days. Pearl River, Nanuet and Magnus the opponents. Go 3-0 and the Bulldogs could sneak in an win the League 3-C championship.

8. TAPPAN ZEE (14-4): If you asked me at the beginning of December, this is the team I’d have least expected to see on the list. Now, the Dutchies are a mainstay. Remember, they haven’t just played well of late. There was a time they beat Nanuet handily.

9. NYACK (13-3): The Indians have played well. But how close can they hang with Nanuet on Monday? Looks like another chance to earn respect.

10. LAKELAND (11-3): Much to the chagrin of the folks in Dobbs Ferry — the Eagles made their first appearance in the Westchester/Putnam Top 5 in today’s notebooks — the Hornets pull off the leapfrog with last night’s upset of Scarsdale. Tori Jarosz isn’t even yet at 100 percent, but she completely dominated Scarsdale in the paint…with Michigan watching. That’s impressive.

On the bubble: Dobbs Ferry, Ursuline, Scarsdale, Ossining, Peekskill, Suffern.

Lourdes beat Mount Vernon 59-58 on a deep 3 by Emily Forzano with five seconds left. The win all but clinched the No. 1 seed in the Class AA playoffs for the Warriors, who, at 16-2, have just Beacon and Poughkeepsie left on its schedule. MV now has three losses and with a decent finish will be seeded No. 2.

The outcome also ended Mount Vernon’s 29-game regular-season winning streak against Section 1 opponents. The Knights’ last loss to a Section 1 team came on Feb. 9, 2007, in their regular-season finale against Scarsdale. (They are also 6-2 in playoff games over that span, their only two losses coming the championship games against White Plains.)

But enough about seedings and records. Let’s get to the game.

Mount Vernon led 10-0 to start the game and held a five point lead at the half. Two of its key players, Taylor Palmer and Tatiana Lewin, who has played great of late, both picked up two fouls in the first quarter and sat the rest of the half. (So did Taneka Whittaker for Lourdes.) The Knights were also without Lubirdia Gordon, who had a cyst removed from her right shoulder and will miss the next two weeks.

Patrice-Wallace Moore told me after that she was happy MV stayed in front despite missing those key pieces. Eventually, however, the Knights fell behind in the third quarter. Lewin picked up her fourth foul and went back to the bench, pushing Palmer to the power forward spot. With that lineup, Lourdes did a good job of negating MV’s biggest advantage (rebounding), and it gained control for the first time in the game.

The lead changed hands in the fourth quarter. (It should be noted that Lourdes missed star Kim Dweck, who missed the last couple minutes of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth with leg cramps, but returned for the final six minutes.) Mount Vernon appeared to take control for good when Sade King, its freshman point guard, made a big 3 to put the Knights up 54-49. Whittaker, who had just six points, answered with her only basket of the game, a 3 from the left corner. Rachel Crittenden later made a pair of free throws to tie the score. (She also played very strong in the paint, boxing out and grabbing rebounds. Crittenden helped “hold” Shanyce Stewart to nine rebounds today, which is quite a feat these days.)

Finally, Mount Vernon had the ball and called timeout with 21 seconds left. The score was tied 56-56 and I suspected that the Knights would take the last shot, thus giving themselves a chance to win or go to OT, and rendering a loss as an impossibility. Obviously, the ending unfolded in a worst-case scenario for them. Palmer was fouled on a drive to the hoop with 15 seconds left and made her pair of free throws, but Lourdes had a chance to hit the winning 3.

It’s an interesting scenario to be sure. I asked Wallace-Moore what she told her team during the timeout. She told the players to hold for one, but “to attack if you have an opening.” Palmer attacked. She even made her free throws. But it still didn’t work out.

If you’re from Mount Vernon, the ending was tough to handle at the moment. There is no greater dagger than losing in the final seconds — but in most cases you’d take the two-point lead with a few seconds left and trust your defense. Too bad for MV that Forzano drained a 25-footer, but some times you have to give the other team credit, too.

Were you there? I know many were. It was a big crowd for a Saturday morning. Let us know what you thought.

I’ll tell you: Lourdes will move ahead of Mount Vernon in this afternoon’s Top 10, but not far ahead. The teams are comparable, but not evenly matched. If they meet again, a lot will depend on the style of the game. Is it fast or slow? Is it called tight? Are the shots falling? (Lourdes probably has more depth and takes better care of the ball, but Mount Vernon has a more balanced lineup with everyone on the floor.)

Who do you think is the favorite? Did this change your opinion?

Stats:
Mount Vernon —
Palmer 17 points
Stewart 10 points, 9 rebounds
Carece Moore 11 points, 8 rebounds, 5 steals, 4 assists
Lewin 5 points
King 13 points, 3 3-pointers

Lourdes —
Kim Dweck 19 points
Forzano 12 points, 2 3-pointers
Crittenden 8 points
Whittaker 6 points, 1 field goal

I figured with the stakes of today’s noontime Mount Vernon-Lourdes game that I’d hold off on the Top 10. Here’s my plan: Go to the game, provide you with a breakdown once I get back to the office (and probably have some lunch) and then delve into the Top 10. Sound good?

Check back later for the juicy details…

Because I spent time last night with my very understanding wife, I didn’t see all the scores until this morning. What a night for Lakeland.

The Hornets have spent the last month or so talking about potential. They truly believed the team would thrive once Tori Jarosz returned from her back injury because the supporting cast would have developed without her. It sounded acceptable, at least in theory. But last night at Mahopac it came true. Lakeland beat Scarsdale 51-48 behind 37 points from Jarosz, who broke the program’s all-time single-game scoring record.

So much for Monday’s worrisome debut.

I had been unwilling to throw the Hornets in the mix as a Class A contender. Who knew how good they were? Well…now we do. Put them in.

You can find the rest of last night’s scores here. Among the items of interest:

— John Jay downed Mahopac 61-58 and will meet Lakeland tonight at 4 in the championship game. Mahopac and Scarsdale meet at noon in the consolation.
— Nyack beat Spring Valley 56-47 and moved one step closer to sealing League 2-South. The Indians remains unbeaten while SV and TZee both have two losses. Nyack faces each of the Rockland rivals once more. A win in either of the two games will give the Indians the outright league title.
— Kudos to Jessica Negron of Saunders, one of the better players you’ve probably never heard of. Negron scored two baskets in the final two minutes to send the Blue Devils’ game with Yonkers into OT, then scored a whopping 12 of her 28 in OT of a 49-37 win.
— I heard from a jazzed-up Keio coach Stan Hamlet after his game last night. It was a thriller. The Unicorns beat Port Chester 45-44 at the buzzer on a layup by Kana Sato.
— Tappan Zee beat Brewster 51-46, but give it up for the Bears. They (like Lakeland) proved the Rockland teams must beware in the early rounds of the Class A playoffs.
— Hen Hud beat Pelham 48-44 last night. It may not seem like much to many of you, but the Sailors’ young coach Benny Martucci has done a solid job trying to build that program. Hen Hud is strictly a volleyball school and the basketball team lost a few important returning players before last season, including a handful of starters who decided to stick with volleyball full-time. Now, the Sailors have won 10 games and Fiona Callagy and Megan Jacobs have developed into a nice tandem.

No, we didn’t shoot tonight’s game on Mogulus, but you can get a good idea of what happened in the video posted on our website. It gives you an idea of how Nanuet built its lead – and how Briarcliff came back.

Our photographer Peter Carr did a terrific job capturing the action. The 3-pointer Taylor Pescetti made about halfway through the video put Briarcliff ahead to stay, breaking a 59-59 tie. The ensuing steal and layup by Maggie Blair put the Bears up by five and made it a two possession game with two minutes to play.

Wow. What an incredible game tonight at Nanuet. There’s just no other way to term it.

Briarcliff won 74-64, but at no point I remember in the last five seasons has a score said so little about the game in question. It indicates the favorite won by a solid 10 points. What it fails to reveal, however, is this: 1) how Nanuet completely dominated the game for 22 minutes, and 2) that Briarcliff proved just how much a team learns by winning a state championship.

The evening was best summed up in this quick exchange with Maggie Blair. I said, “Well, that was fun, huh?” She said quickly: “No. Well, the end was, but not the beginning.”

Of course, Nanuet made it so, running past, around and through the defending Class B state champs. The scorching-hot Golden Knights looked like the faster, fitter and sharper team, torching Briarcliff for 43 first-half points en route to a 43-29 lead.

Lauren Kahn — her aggressiveness, athleticism and playmaking — were a major factor, but so was Christine Brezovsky, who converted the open looks. She scored 16 points for the game, and had 13 of them in the first half. Don Hamlin later told me that “we weren’t paying attention to our assignments,” and I have a feeling Brezovsky was the one he meant in particular.

Nanuet only extended its lead in the third quarter. The Golden Knights went up 48-33 on a 3-pointer by Nikki Saponaro early in the third. They were still up 51-37 after Brezovsky nailed a 3 with 3:40 to play in the quarter. Right then, Briarcliff began to show the mettle of a champion. But the Bears said their push started at halftime.

“Walking out of the gym at the half, we looked at the scoreboard and we knew that wasn’t us,” Brianna Reid said. “We had to step it up.”

They did, Reid in particular. Briarcliff first cut its deficit to 51-45 on Blair’s putback at the buzzer. The Bears then really became dangerous on the opening possessions of fourth. Reid hit back-to-back 3’s, then finally tied the score 53-all off a feed from Blair with 6:24 to play.

The teams traded points, Nanuet refusing to give up in the face of a once unfathomable run. Eventually, however, Briarcliff’s ability and willingness to take and make big shots won out. Reid. Her sister, Savina (both celebrating their 16th birthdays.) Taylor Pescetti. And Blair, of course, who did less of the scoring but seemed to be at either the start or finish of every big play in the fourth quarter. (The Bears also made four 3’s and shot 13 for 17 from the FT line in the fourth.)

Afterward, I asked Hamlin about Reid (Brianna), who has had similar moments of late-game grandeur. Earlier this season she scored all of her points in the fourth quarter to beat Ossining. And just last weekend she hit a basket with two seconds left to tie the game against Kennedy (Bronx).

“She has no conscience,” Hamlin said, “which is a good thing.”

Nanuet was obviously saddened by the loss but it can’t be disappointed with the effort. For almost three quarters, the Golden Knights were the better team.

Carlos Fidalgo said they’d move past the loss beginning with tomorrow morning’s 8 a.m. practice.

“We know that if everything works out for us this year that we’re going to see them again,” Fidalgo said. “That’s not us being cocky. We just know that if we want to win the section we’re going to have to go through them.”

Two quick updates – Nyack beat Spring Valley by 9.
Nanuet leads Briarcliff by 8 after 1.

Its not over with 5 minutes left but Nanuet has squandered a 15 point second half lead. It is now up two but Briarcliff is at the line.

Briarcliff pulls out a 74-64 win, outscoring Nanuet 41-16 in the final 10 minutes. Nanuet led 51-45 after three quarters and 43-29 at the half.

The Briarcliff-Nanuet game will be played at 6:15 p.m. tomorrow night, rather than 4:30. The JV and varsity games were flipped.

Thanks to Nanuet coach Carlos Fidalgo for the update.

Well, the much-rumored realignment for next season passed yesterday, 59-16. That means it’ll be a very strange looking Section 1 beginning this fall.

My diligent colleague Harold Gutmann had a story on all the proposed changes, which are slated to be discussed this week at an executive meeting in Binghamton. It came to be because of cost-cutting measures taking by the section and the NYSPHSAA. Section 1’s two reps at the meeting are executive director Jennifer Simmons and Bronxville AD Karen Peterson.

There are several proposals that would impact competition next school year, so I suggest you check out the story.

I have listed the new conferences below. All the new leagues will be determined from the conferences below on a sport-by-sport basis. Power leagues for sports like hockey and lacrosse are a thing of the past. (The only sport untouched was football.) Simmons said the change will cut transportation costs for the schools and improve the athlete’s quality of life.

Other proposals include: limiting sports with five classes to four and forbidding travel to non-bordering states. So, yes, you would only have four Section 1 and state champions instead of five, and, yes, teams like Ossining and Carmel would no longer be allowed to play at Disney World in the winter.

As far as the new leagues, here, just so you understand what this would mean, is one rumored league I’ve heard floated about for quite some time: Irvington, Dobbs, Sleepy, Solomon Schechter, Hamilton, Woodlands and Hastings. That’s an example of what is to follow.

Conference I
John Jay-East Fishkill, R.C. Ketcham, Arlington, Beacon, Poughkeepsie, Yorktown, Lakeland, Panas, Carmel, Mahopac, Lincoln Hall, Kennedy, North Salem, Dover, Pawling, Brewster, Peekskill, Ossining, Hen Hud, Haldane, Croton-Harmon, Putnam Valley, Our Lady of Lourdes

Conference II
Yonkers, Gorton, Lincoln, Saunders, Roosevelt, White Plains, Scarsdale, Mamaroneck, New Rochelle, Mount Vernon, Ursuline, Irvington, Hastings, Dobbs Ferry, Ardsley, Woodlands, Sleepy Hollow, Solomon Schechter, Pelham, Bronxville, Tuckahoe, Eastchester, Edgemont, Leake & Watts, Palisades, Riverside, Greenburgh, MLK, Children’s Village, Clark Academy

Conference III
Greeley, Fox Lane, John Jay, Somers, Byram Hills, Port CHester, Blind Brook, Rye, Harrison, Keio, Rye Neck, Briarcliff, Valhalla, Westlake, Pleasantville, Hamilton, Hawthorne Cedar Knolls

Conference IV
Albertus, Clarkstown North, Clarkstown South, Nanuet, Nyack, North Rockland, Pearl River, Ramapo, Spring Valley, Suffern, Tappan Zee