WHEELING – The West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission Board of Directors has changed the postseason format for boys and girls basketball, set to take effect as early as next season.
The WVSSAC is implementing a new format that eliminates section tournaments in order to combine each region's two sections into one regional tournament. There will be two finals for him in each region, and two winners from each of the four regions will advance to the state championship in Charleston.
The format change “received the unanimous recommendation of both the men's and women's basketball coaches advisory committees prior to approval by the WVSSAC Board of Directors,” and includes all four classes, according to a WVSSAC Thursday press release.
Teams participating in each regional tournament will be seeded by a vote of coaches. Depending on the number of schools in a region, higher-seeded schools may receive a bye in the first round.
According to a WVSSAC press release, if two teams are tied during the voting process, the following criteria will be used to break the tie: First, the head-to-head result, then the total number of wins above classification, and if neither, if the criterion is a tie-break, then the total number of wins becomes the tie-breaker. If both teams have the same number of wins, a coin toss is the last resort to break a tie.
The top seeded school for each game in the regional tournament will be the host.
Teams that advance from each regional tournament will be reseeded for the state championship.
Local coaches weighed in on the change, with Wheeling Park girls basketball coach Ryan Young and others quickly understanding from first-hand experience how it would affect the playoff picture.
“I think there are definitely pros and cons,” Young said. “As far as the pros go, we can avoid playing Morgantown five times like we have the last four years.
“In my opinion, a tournament is a tournament and if you lose you shouldn't move on. We're in that situation and we have to play Morgantown downstate and they play us downstate as well. If you look back to a couple of years ago where we had to play, we beat them in sectionals, but we both ended up making it to the state finals, and then they beat us. That way you can avoid that scenario, and I like that.”
Under the current old sectional system, both teams related to the winning team in each section would advance regardless of whether they won or lost, with the winner of each section playing against the loser of the other. This format change will make the tournament single-elimination en route to Charleston.
“I think the intention was that if you had two very good teams in one section and one of them won and one of them lost, you could lose one game and still keep going, which was a good one at the time.” Wheeling Central boys head coach Mel Stevens said. “It gives a really good team a chance to go on the road and beat teams from other sections and still take two really good teams all the way to Charleston. But I think it's a good change. ”
Coaches also pointed out how the newly adopted postseason format would change the regular season, even if the revenue remains the same.
“When you play against the top teams in your area, I think there’s more pressure on the game because if you win that game, you have a chance to host a win-or-go-home game,” Young said. Ta. “If we lose those games, we'll probably play an extra game and then play one of the top two seeds. It definitely changes things and I think it's a good move overall. think.”
“Aside from adding a few more teams to the team that we may have to play during the season, we have to win games,” Stevens said. “The regional situation is still pretty much the same. We have to win regional games to advance to Charleston.”
The SSAC's adoption of expanded regional tournaments instead of sectional tournaments that lead to two regional games would also help simplify things for each school and its fan base.
“I can't tell you how many times over the years people have asked me, 'Okay, who are we going to play, which is the elimination game, what happens if we win?'” Young said. “Now all the confusion will be cleared up and we'll have a six-team tournament and the top two will qualify. That will make it a little easier for everyone to understand. Overall, I think it's more about the pros and cons. I think there are a lot of them.”
The new system would allow teams to enter regional tournaments through voting seeding, which could lead to resentment and opposition from fans.
“I think they're heading in the right direction, but I don't think they're perfect yet,” Stevens said. “I think it's going to be about seeding a little bit. I've thought it's worked out pretty well in the past, but there have been times where the seeding has been a little questionable and it still can be when we get to Charleston. I think that’s the nature of the beast.”
Young and Stevens generally viewed the changes positively, but believed the current system was still not ideal.
“I’m still in favor of ranking the whole state and doing it that way,” Young said. “I know regional representation is always an issue. I think this is a step in the right direction because it takes away his mulligan game, which I didn't really like.”
“I don't know if we're going to get this far, but if we get to the Final 16, I think we should get seeded and play like football,” Stevens said. “I don't understand why they're so concerned about regional representation in basketball when they don't really do that in soccer. If they really want the best eight teams in Charleston, they'll have to seed them once they get to 16 teams. We're going to get them and play from there instead of going the regional route. I don't know if we're going to get that far, but that's the point we need to get to if we really want to have the best team there. I think that.”