RENTON — The boys’ and girls’ state basketball tournaments will look quite different this season.
Tournament seeding will be determined by a Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) system and the number of teams that advance from the state regional round to domed championship venues will increase from eight to 12.
The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association announced the changes in September following its monthly Executive Board meeting.
Under the most recent format, implemented in 2011, the round of 16 was played at regional sites on the first weekend. The winners then advanced to one of the championship venues — the Tacoma Dome (4A and 3A), the Yakima Valley SunDome (2A and 1A) or Spokane Arena (2B and 1B) — for an eight-team, double-elimination tournament the following Thursday through Saturday.
The new format maintains the state regional round, but only half of the regional games will be elimination contests. The 16-team field will be split into two groups for the regional round, with four non-elimination games involving seeds Nos. 1-8 and four loser-out contests involving seeds 9-16.
The winners of the higher-seeded matchups will earn byes into the quarterfinal round. The losers of the higher-seeded matchups and the winners of the lower-seeded matchups will square off in round-of-12 elimination games at championship venues the following Wednesday. The winners of those round-of-12 games then advance to the quarterfinals, where they join the teams that earned byes.
From there, the tournament carries on from Thursday through Saturday with the same eight-team, modified double-elimination format used in recent years — one loss eliminates a team from title contention and two losses eliminate a team from the tournament.
The other major change involves how teams are seeded for the state tournament.
While district tournaments will still determine which 16 teams qualify for state, those teams will now be seeded by an RPI system to determine the regional-round matchups. Washington joins Oregon and a number of other states that have already adopted an RPI system. MaxPreps will compile the rankings, which will be posted daily from Jan. 1 through the end of the regular season.
The RPI system only factors in regular-season games and will be computed with a 25-percent weight for winning percentage, 50-percent weight for opponents’ winning percentage and 25-percent weight for the winning percentage of opponents’ opponents. The formula doesn’t account for a school’s classification. All out-of-state opponents will be calculated with a .500 winning percentage.
The WIAA has formed an RPI Committee to review the formula and determine if adjustments are needed in future years. WIAA assistant executive director Cindy Adsit said that other team sports could adopt an RPI system as early as next school year, in which case the RPI Committee would be responsible for overseeing the formulas for those sports as well.
The WIAA voted on the tournament format and implementation of an RPI system after surveying superintendents, principals, athletic directors, head coaches and assistant coaches. The survey was opened in June and participants were given until mid-September to respond.
However, the Washington Interscholastic Basketball Coaches Association has released letters stating that it disapproves of both the 12-team format and how the Executive Board’s decisions were reached. The WIBCA claims that the survey’s 746 respondents — which the coaches’ association estimates as a 26-percent response rate — provided too small of a sample size.
But Adsit claims the response rate was typical. “That’s not an unusual response (rate) for surveys,” she said. “That’s actually within the range that’s acceptable.”
The WIBCA also referenced a poll conducted during the 2015-16 school year by a group of superintendents that surveyed fellow superintendents. According to the WIBCA, 81 percent of that poll’s respondents supported a format in which all 16 state tournament teams advance to a championship venue.
“(From) the feedback we’ve gotten through our surveys, the discussions we’ve had with coaches and our state bi-annual meetings, everyone wants a 16-team state tournament,” WIBCA president and Mountlake Terrace boys coach Nalin Sood said. “It’s a shame that we haven’t gone to that.”
The state tournaments had long featured a four-day, 16-team modified double-elimination format with all games played at championship venues. But in 2011, the WIAA cut in half the number of teams that advanced to championship venues and implemented the regional round of 16 as a cost-saving measure to combat declining attendance.
That change has been met with criticism ever since, particularly from the WIBCA, which has repeatedly voiced strong displeasure with the system and expressed its desire to return to the 16-team, double-elimination format. The WIBCA argues that the regional format has robbed countless players, teams and schools of a true state tournament experience that it claims only a championship venue can provide.
Marysville Pilchuck coach Bary Gould echoed that sentiment, reflecting back on his state experience as a player in high school.
“I’m 42 years old and I can still remember it… It’s just one of those things that you remember forever,” Gould said. “And so now there’s just less teams, less kids that get to do that.”
Criticism and calls for change reached their peak last season.
A primary issue was a seeding system determined by where teams finished in their district tournaments. For instance, all district tournament winners were given No. 1 seeds. Due to the discrepancy in competition level from district to district, that sometimes led to heavyweight, loser-out regional matchups that kept deserving teams from advancing to championship venues.
Earlier this year, the WIAA created a committee to study the tournament format. In addition to proposing an RPI system, the committee came up with three options that were presented at the Executive Board’s June meeting.
Option A was a 16-team single-elimination tournament spread across two weekends, with all games at championship venues. Option B was the chosen format. Option C was to keep the previous eight-team tournament. Due to cost, returning to the 16-team, double-elimination format of years past wasn’t an option.
“We’re making a little bit of progress going to a 12-team state tournament,” Sood said. “… However, we’re strongly in favor of a 16-team state tournament, just for the experience it provides for all of the stakeholders involved — the student-athletes, the fans, the parents, the casual fan and coaches.”
“Our argument is based off what we’re hearing from coaches,” Sood added. “If we heard something different or if they were in agreement with what’s going on, we’d walk away.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
