Bowie High School boys' basketball coach Cedric Holbrook spent Monday afternoon helping shovel his mother out of her house in Bowie. Gwynn Park coach Mike Glick had time to play with his three children in the snow.

Such was life this week for Prince George's County high school basketball coaches and teams after one of the biggest snow storms in Maryland history wiped out any basketball games for the foreseeable future.

The games scheduled for last Friday were postponed when the snow storm started to move into the area. The storm dropped 30 inches of snow in some areas, which was enough to cancel all the games scheduled for Tuesday night. With forecasts calling for another storm beginning Tuesday afternoon, the rest of this week's games were in jeopardy, and county athletic officials had not yet determined makeup dates as of press time.

For a team like the Gwynn Park boys (14-3 overall, 10-3 in the County 3A/2A/1A League), who had won four consecutive games entering the week, the break in play seemingly comes at a bad time. But Glick said he told his team not to worry about the situation since there is nothing anyone can do about it.

"I have lived in the area my whole life and I have never seen anything like this," Glick said. "Everyone is in the same position, so no one is getting any advantage from this. I told the guys to shovel snow, do some pushups or do some type of cardio work to stay in shape. We knew on Thursday [Feb. 4] that it could be a long time before we played another game."

The time off may be a good thing for some teams. Bowie has been banged up for most of the season with starters Jared Carithers, Randall Castleberry and Kyle Jordan missing time with injuries. Bowie lost three in a row without its three hurt starters, but the Bulldogs were starting to get healthy for the stretch run.

The Bulldogs (13-4 overall, 11-3 County 4A League) had won four in a row, including a 50-44 decision over Charles H. Flowers on Feb. 4, before the storm hit.

"We had been erratic at times, so I think this time off is good because it gives the players a chance to re-energize for the stretch run," Holbrook said. "Now the guys get to be off their feet and resting, which is a good thing. The only negative is we can't practice until we get back to school, which might not happen until next week."

If all the games scheduled for this week are cancelled, that puts Prince George's County in a difficult situation. All of the boys teams have five games remaining, but only have a week to get them in before the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association draws the brackets for the regional tournaments on Feb. 21.

That could be a tough situation in the County 4A League, where five teams are within one game of each other. Only the top four teams in the league, based on overall records, will receive first-round byes for the 4A South Region tournament.

Some of the coaches said they hoped the MPSSAA would consider pushing the seeding draw back a couple of days, but that's not going to happen.

MPSSAA Executive Director Ned Sparks said the dates for the seeding draw and the start of the state's regional tournaments will not be changed. He also said it would be up to the individual counties to determine what the schedules would look like for the final week of the regular season.

"Once the time runs out for the regular season, we will seed for the tournament," Sparks said. "All the counties are going to be in the situation where they have to drop some games. I am sure they will figure something out."

Regardless of what happens to this week's schedule, Oxon Hill coach Richard Little is convinced that the day students return to school, they will be playing that night. That would be a welcomed sight for Little and the Clippers (11-4 overall, 11-2 County 4A League), who had won 10 consecutive games before the storm hit.

"We need to keep playing because we had developed a nice momentum," Little said. "There really is no way to prepare for this because there is nothing you can do. We are going to watch some film and look at some things we can do better that will help us the next time we take the court."