It’s turned out to be tough a season for the Person High School boys’ and girls’ basketball teams.

Entering the final week of regular-season play, the boys were alone in last place in the Piedmont Athletic Conference with a 2-10 mark, while the girls were mired in the cellar as well, winless at 0-12.

Barring an amazing turn of events at next week’s conference tournaments, the playoffs don’t appear to be on the horizon for either squad this winter, but there is reason for future optimism, most notably in the case of the boys.

In fairness to first-year head coach Charles Dacus and his Rockets, the 2007-08 campaign got off to a less-than-auspicious start when 13-year head man Ronnie Russell officially announced his retirement from teaching, and, consequently, had to vacate the position just after the season-opening Courier-Times Thanksgiving Classic had taken place in November.

Still, the team got off to a promising start overall, going 7-4 in its first 11 games, including a win in its conference opener at Chapel Hill.

Since then, however, Person has struggled to score victories, winning just twice in its last 10 outings (as of Tuesday) and compiling an 0-6 league record at the friendly confines of Rocket Gymnasium.

Person has one final opportunity to earn a PAC-6 home victory in this Friday’s Senior Night contest against Hillside, a team it defeated in overtime three weeks ago at the Hornets’ gym.

Losing nine starters from last year’s team that went 20-7 overall, finished 10-4 in the conference, and made the second round of the Division 4A playoffs, didn’t help matters either.

Tack on to that the fact that three Rocket starters have been permanently lost since the New Year due to off-the-court issues and it’s not hard to figure out why this season has been a struggle.

That said, Person has been pretty competitive, as six of its conference losses have been by eight points or less. The Rockets also had a chance to upset second-place East Chapel Hill before succumbing, 58-55, back on Jan. 29, and were in a position to take out league-leading Southern Durham last Friday before being edged by a 48-43 count — both were road games.

Finally, this year’s roster is full of players from the 2006-07 junior varsity team that finished 21-2, a potential sign that the story could be a lot different in 2008-09 as the team matures. Add to that the promising talent on the current JV squad and there’s enhanced reason for optimism.

On the other side, the Person girls have not experienced a winning season since current head coach Melinda Goodson was suiting up for them back in the 1990s.

It’s been a rough ride for the girls this season since rolling to a 61-25 rout of Gretna in the consolation round of the Halifax Holiday tourney in late December.

Entering Tuesday’s game against Jordan, the Rockets had lost 10 in a row and were struggling to compete in the powerful PAC-6.

The future promise rests with the majority of this year’s roster, which will be returning next season with a year of varsity experience under its belt and having gone up against some of the best competition in the state (undefeated Hillside and Northern Durham).

The Rockets will lose just two players to graduation and will likely acquire some of the personnel from this year’s junior varsity team, which, despite sporting just eight players, has performed well by going 8-8 overall and 6-6 in conference play.

*****

Since I’m a New England native and a Patriots fans, I’ll just say that the Giants thoroughly deserved to win Super Bowl XLII. They seemed to want it more and completely outplayed the Pats in the trenches, on both sides of the ball.

Only on their first and second-to-last possessions did the Patriots put together sustained drives. And I think the second one was more a matter of the New York defense being worn down.

Though, admittedly, seeing your team go 18-0 only to lose in the Super Bowl was hard to swallow. But three recent Super Bowl titles made the defeat a lot easier to take.

One last observation: What is it about quarterbacks automatically being named the MVP in the Super Bowl? It doesn’t happen every year, but it’s often the case.

Eli Manning played well but I thought the true MVPs of the game were the members of Giant defensive line, namely Michael Strahan, Osi Umenyiora and Justin Tuck. All told, the G-Men sacked Tom Brady five times and pressured him all day.

Yes, Manning directed the game-winning march, but he was nearly intercepted twice on that drive, and probably should have been when Patriot defensive back Asante Samuel let a sure pick slip through his grasp.