Basketball Sub State

[LooseCannon]

So looking at district assignments and the current power points is frustrating in some classes, like C2.

C2
-Elmwood-Murdock is 2nd, Yutan is 5th, in the same sub. Winner plays Freeman who’s in 8th
-Arcadia-Loup City is 3rd, South Loup is 4th, Ravenna is 9th. Same sub.
-Battle Creek is 10th and Lutheran High is 12th. Same sub.

I’ve always felt districts should be seeded on February 1st. Or have a sub state format. I understand it’s based on geography. But you can’t tell me switching South Loup for Maxwell or Ravenna for Centura would be a big deal. These districts are so unbalanced.

I really liked the format the NSAA did for volleyball. It puts the states best against each other and helps gets the best teams to state.

Either that or have sub state so some of the teams in a loaded sub get another shot. This year is kind of crazy because C2 is loaded pretty much every corner of the state. From Ponca to Elmwood to Loup City to Ravenna to Cambridge etc.

 

[sportsjunkie2030]

I agree 110%, there’s been years where the 2nd best team in the state hasn’t made it due to a loaded sub. I think it’s completely unfair to classes B-D2 that their post-season is announced months before the season actually starts. A few recent teams that come to mind that got snubbed by a strong sub are: Hastings St. Cecilia in 2014, GACC In 2016 and Yutan in 2017.

 

[Llama57]

I believe some of those power points are artificially inflated by schedules as well. Especially in a couple of those subs. Just my unpopular opinion, I’m sure.
For instance, look at EM or BC’s schedule compared to some others. Some schedules loaded w/ D1 & D2 teams.

 

[Southernblood]

I would like to see the top 16 in power points designated as Sub-district hosts, with the rest filled into subs geographically by closest to hosts. Announce the subs the week before they’d start, so for boys this year in B-D2 they would get announced Feb. 12. Then have district finals between sub 1 vs sub 16, sub 2 vs sub 15, and so on.

 

[Southernblood]

And I guess since B has 32 teams I would just seed 1-32 and play it out from there.

 

[wsc-oline]

I guess I could give you the same answer we get in Football,

“Just win the games you play”

Because every old guy on the message boards knows that it’s that simple...

 

[LooseCannon]

I guess I could give you the same answer we get in Football,

“Just win the games you play”

Because every old guy on the message boards knows that it’s that simple...

It is, but you can’t tell me seeing a 13-10 team at state because of sub is great for the bracket. That 13-10 team beat a bunch of under .500 teams. Look at Southwest last year at state. Down 49-8 at half. Freaking ridiculous.

It sucks when a 22-3 team sits at home because they lost to a 24-1 team in their own sub by 1 point.

 

[wsc-oline]

It is, but you can’t tell me seeing a 13-10 team at state because of sub is great for the bracket. That 13-10 team beat a bunch of under .500 teams. Look at Southwest last year at state. Down 49-8 at half. Freaking ridiculous.

It sucks when a 22-3 team sits at home because they lost to a 24-1 team in their own sub by 1 point.

I agree

 

[Llama57]

It is, but you can’t tell me seeing a 13-10 team at state because of sub is great for the bracket. That 13-10 team beat a bunch of under .500 teams. Look at Southwest last year at state. Down 49-8 at half. Freaking ridiculous.

It sucks when a 22-3 team sits at home because they lost to a 24-1 team in their own sub by 1 point.

GACC last year would disagree

 

[Warrior10]

GACC last year would disagree

Not the scenario in question, I don't think. GACC just won their way through a pretty decent sub and district.

 

[LooseCannon]

GACC last year would disagree

GACC plays one of the toughest schedules in the state. Plus they beat a 18-4 Wallthill team to make it to state. GACC lost 23-2 O’Neill twice, 26-2 Winnebago, 23-3 Scotus, 19-4 LHNE, 17-6 Wynot, 16-7 Oakland-Craig, 19-8 Wayne. They are an outlier in the scenario.

 

[HuskDaddy]

It is, but you can’t tell me seeing a 13-10 team at state because of sub is great for the bracket. That 13-10 team beat a bunch of under .500 teams. Look at Southwest last year at state. Down 49-8 at half. Freaking ridiculous.

It sucks when a 22-3 team sits at home because they lost to a 24-1 team in their own sub by 1 point.

"Southwest had to upset people in their subdistrict to get to state but screw them they had a bad record so their late season push was all garbage to me" -northeastNebraska
To me the Western districts are like the Summit League or the Missouri Valley Conference getting in the NCAA but teams like Va Tech or UCLA not getting in. Just win baby win and you won't have to worry about it.

 

[wsc-oline]

The argument is not that teams with bad records shouldn't be allowed in, it is just to spread out good teams rather than force them to eliminate one another just because of geographic location...

 

[HuskDaddy]

Why not just have the winner of each sub play in a substate deal based on power points instead of just assigning the top sixteen and building subs around them. Like, I get the idea but what if your area is just jam packed like you say how would you build a geographic pool around that mess. Just a logistical flaw I think, neither way is going to be perfect but I don't want it to be a total mess. Every sport there are districts that are better than others, no matter if you do your serpentine or not just because the degree of "talent" can fluctuate so much from year to year. Yes you will get an anomaly like a .583 (Southwest HS) team making it once in a while or get a 21-2 Crawford who played Sioux County seven times but hopefully in Eastern Nebraska's perfect world, they would get weeded out by the stronger teams. I like the substate idea but there will be flaws that nobody will be able to fix....EVER. The reason we have message boards like this is to complain about how teenagers win state titles right?

 

[sportsjunkie2030]

"Southwest had to upset people in their subdistrict to get to state but screw them they had a bad record so their late season push was all garbage to me" -northeastNebraska
To me the Western districts are like the Summit League or the Missouri Valley Conference getting in the NCAA but teams like Va Tech or UCLA not getting in. Just win baby win and you won't have to worry about it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but east/central Nebraska schools have ruled Nebraska HS hoops for the past decade. The athleticism and talent pool is a lot deeper in this part of the state. Last year in C-2, Southwest couldn't even keep within 35 points of Hastings St. Cecilia. In D-1, 8-seed GACC toppled 1-seed Dundy County-Stratton by 10 points, and it wasn't even that close.

I'm not trying to discredit all the time and effort the Western part of the state puts in, but rather stating the obvious. Sub-state would eliminate the "pretenders" no matter what part of the state they're on, and would give us a way more competitive state tournament.

 

[just_average32]

Zero reason to not use sub state or serpentine all district assignments like Class A. Any opposition to the thought is selfish and tells me you're the inferior .500 team seeded in a geographic district with other inferior .500 teams, and you're afraid of fair competition. The "just win baby" guy wants to tell everyone else to win because his team gets put in districts that don't have three to four 20+ win teams in. Nobody is saying teams with poor records shouldn't get in. They would still have the opportunity and probably will make it in every once in a while. The thought is don't penalize good teams for being geographically located near each other and knock each other out while other districts have a pillow fight to make it to state.

If you're against the proposed change, then why even have power points or seeds? Draw names out of hat for sub-districts (of course they have to be as geographically close as possible), draw names out of hat for district final (they still need to be near each other), and then draw the names out of the hat at state for each round. Hell, maybe one team should play on a hoop that is 8 ft tall instead of 10 ft, but since their bench is closer, they get to play on it the whole game. Just win baby.

 

[LooseCannon]

Why not just have the winner of each sub play in a substate deal based on power points instead of just assigning the top sixteen and building subs around them. Like, I get the idea but what if your area is just jam packed like you say how would you build a geographic pool around that mess. Just a logistical flaw I think, neither way is going to be perfect but I don't want it to be a total mess. Every sport there are districts that are better than others, no matter if you do your serpentine or not just because the degree of "talent" can fluctuate so much from year to year. Yes you will get an anomaly like a .583 (Southwest HS) team making it once in a while or get a 21-2 Crawford who played Sioux County seven times but hopefully in Eastern Nebraska's perfect world, they would get weeded out by the stronger teams. I like the substate idea but there will be flaws that nobody will be able to fix....EVER. The reason we have message boards like this is to complain about how teenagers win state titles right?

They can keep the sub district format now, but the winners of the 12 subs move on, and the next highest power point teams get 4 spots for sub state. (Personally I’d rather see 10 districts.)

Seed them by power points, play at a neutral site. Say they did it this way and the highest power point teams won their sub. Sub state would look like as of today. (* teams didn’t win sub)

#1 Ponca
#16 Ainsworth

#2 ALC
#15 NPSP

#3 Elmwood-Murdock
#14 Bridgeport

#4 Yutan*
#13 Dundy

#5 South Loup*
#12 LHNE*

#6 Hastings St. Cecilia
#11 Ravenna*

#7 BRLD
#10 Centennial

#8 Freeman
#9 Battle Creek

 

[HighPlainsCoach]

What, really, is the purpose of high school sports? Is it really THAT important to have kids miss more school, more travel expense, more financial burdens for families, just to keep one school, every other year or something from being butt-hurt by not losing their first game at state? Every team already has a chance to win their way to State, ON THE COURT. And since that wasn't "fair enough" we allow TWO wild-cards. Look at the mess they've made with D wrestling. Cambrdige going to Oakland-Craig for districts? In the sake of "fairness"? Idiotic, impo.

 

[nenebskers]

Both sides of the arguement make good points. While I agree that in a perfect world a "serpentine" format would be ideal I also feel that we need to be realistic and having a #16 seed vs a #1 seed may not always make sense. I would be in favor of a more balanced approach, one that could satisfy both sides of the arguement. Maybe instead of insuring that the top 16 are all in differant subdistricts maybe just insure that the top 8 are. Logistically this would be much more possible and would limit some of the extreme travel possibilities.

 

[just_average32]

What, really, is the purpose of high school sports? Is it really THAT important to have kids miss more school, more travel expense, more financial burdens for families, just to keep one school, every other year or something from being butt-hurt by not losing their first game at state? Every team already has a chance to win their way to State, ON THE COURT. And since that wasn't "fair enough" we allow TWO wild-cards. Look at the mess they've made with D wrestling. Cambrdige going to Oakland-Craig for districts? In the sake of "fairness"? Idiotic, impo.

Yes. For the sake of fairness. We use high school sports to teach qualities like fairness, competitive, and sportsmanship.
To me, it's idiotic to deny someone a fair chance to go to state for the sake of convenience of location. It's not going to break a family's bank, destroy a child's education, and bankrupt a school district that is west of Grand Island to drive 4 hours east instead of driving 4 hours north or west. I'm sorry if this makes the people out west "butt-hurt." It works both ways, Arcadia-Loup City is going out to Bridgeport for their wrestling districts. Everyone is still winning their way to state. Everything will be okay. If a team out west is good enough, they will still win their way to state.
If you just used sub-state format, that would only be one game where you'd send people all over the state (which I think is kind of fun, since some of those teams don't ever play). Sub-state would be way better than the current system.

 

[HuskDaddy]

I feel like this thread went right where we all wanted it to go

 

[LooseCannon]

Yes. For the sake of fairness. We use high school sports to teach qualities like fairness, competitive, and sportsmanship.
To me, it's idiotic to deny someone a fair chance to go to state for the sake of convenience of location. It's not going to break a family's bank, destroy a child's education, and bankrupt a school district that is west of Grand Island to drive 4 hours east instead of driving 4 hours north or west. I'm sorry if this makes the people out west "butt-hurt." It works both ways, Arcadia-Loup City is going out to Bridgeport for their wrestling districts. Everyone is still winning their way to state. Everything will be okay. If a team out west is good enough, they will still win their way to state.
If you just used sub-state format, that would only be one game where you'd send people all over the state (which I think is kind of fun, since some of those teams don't ever play). Sub-state would be way better than the current system.

Exactly. Excellent points. It adds more drama and excitement to district play.

 

[HighPlainsCoach]

Yes. For the sake of fairness. We use high school sports to teach qualities like fairness, competitive, and sportsmanship.
To me, it's idiotic to deny someone a fair chance to go to state for the sake of convenience of location. It's not going to break a family's bank, destroy a child's education, and bankrupt a school district that is west of Grand Island to drive 4 hours east instead of driving 4 hours north or west. I'm sorry if this makes the people out west "butt-hurt." It works both ways, Arcadia-Loup City is going out to Bridgeport for their wrestling districts. Everyone is still winning their way to state. Everything will be okay. If a team out west is good enough, they will still win their way to state.
If you just used sub-state format, that would only be one game where you'd send people all over the state (which I think is kind of fun, since some of those teams don't ever play). Sub-state would be way better than the current system.

I think implying that EVERY team having a chance to win their way to state as somehow "unfair" lacks even a shred of logic. And, I'm not sure what Loup City's wrestling district has to do with anything. That district is, sensibly geographically based. They just happen to be the furthest east. "Fairness" seems to imply that Fort Calhoun should have to go to Bridgeport. Or Chadron to Falls City. It's not an East/West thing. It's about common sense. Maybe we should only play if every team is completely healthy? Or video review of every close call? The list of snowflake wishes can be endless... No championship caliber team, in my memory has ever been left home. (Which would be a great debate topic in it's own right.)

 

[sportsjunkie2030]

I think implying that EVERY team having a chance to win their way to state as somehow "unfair" lacks even a shred of logic. And, I'm not sure what Loup City's wrestling district has to do with anything. That district is, sensibly geographically based. They just happen to be the furthest east. "Fairness" seems to imply that Fort Calhoun should have to go to Bridgeport. Or Chadron to Falls City. It's not an East/West thing. It's about common sense. Maybe we should only play if every team is completely healthy? Or video review of every close call? The list of snowflake wishes can be endless... No championship caliber team, in my memory has ever been left home. (Which would be a great debate topic in it's own right.)

Just curious HighPlainsCoach, you’d be perfectly fine with 3 of the top 5 teams being in the same sub-district, and only one of them gets to go based on geographical reasons? But then an average team walks through their sub-par sub-district because of......geographical reasons? Come on.

 

[HighPlainsCoach]

Just curious HighPlainsCoach, you’d be perfectly fine with 3 of the top 5 teams being in the same sub-district, and only one of them gets to go based on geographical reasons? But then an average team walks through their sub-par sub-district because of......geographical reasons? Come on.

Absolutely. No different, in my mind, than having the misfortune of having to compete against an all time great. No different than having the 2nd best team ever, the same year as the goat is in my class. Sometimes you just draw the short end of the stick. If 3 of the "top 5" are left home, whose beating the other 2? Win, you're in. It isn't fair. Life isn't fair. Don't overcomplicate things. You are going to get your best 3-4 teams to state. Likely the best 6-7. That's good enough to me. This "horrific injustice" just doesn't merit so much inconvenience and massively altering a system that, by and large, works pretty well. All that we can ask is that a system be EQUITABLE. 6 teams play their way in. 2, due to geographic quirks, get in as wild card. Is it fair that one of those 2 can now win state, beating a team that has beaten them, say 3 times? "Fairness" should never be a factor because nothing is. Our system now, is equitable. That's enough for me.

 

[just_average32]

Absolutely. No different, in my mind, than having the misfortune of having to compete against an all time great. No different than having the 2nd best team ever, the same year as the goat is in my class. Sometimes you just draw the short end of the stick. If 3 of the "top 5" are left home, whose beating the other 2? Win, you're in. It isn't fair. Life isn't fair. Don't overcomplicate things. You are going to get your best 3-4 teams to state. Likely the best 6-7. That's good enough to me. This "horrific injustice" just doesn't merit so much inconvenience and massively altering a system that, by and large, works pretty well. All that we can ask is that a system be EQUITABLE. 6 teams play their way in. 2, due to geographic quirks, get in as wild card. Is it fair that one of those 2 can now win state, beating a team that has beaten them, say 3 times? "Fairness" should never be a factor because nothing is. Our system now, is equitable. That's enough for me.

Life is unfair when you have an off shooting night, or a bad call from a ref that costs you the win. That's when you say life isn't fair. Not setting up districts fairly due to geographic concerns is just plain lazy. "Good enough" shouldn't be the answer. "As good as possible" should be. There's a logical solution, that may cost an extra $30 in gas, and a minor inconvenience to drive further than normal for one game. Sub-state is a logical and meet halfway solution that places one day of inconvenience that we can put on a saturday for travel purposes. It works great in volleyball But just because some mediocre team in a mediocre district would have a tougher chance to win their way to state, you're against it. To me, that lacks a shred of logic.

side note: i brought up arcadia-loup city's district in wrestling because you brought cambridge being placed in oakland-craig's district with roughly the same drive time. The point is someone is still driving 4 hours, but because it is done in the thought of fairness to every competitor, you're against it. To me fairness and logic go together, for you logic and geography are the only ones that make sense.

 

[sportsjunkie2030]

Absolutely. No different, in my mind, than having the misfortune of having to compete against an all time great. No different than having the 2nd best team ever, the same year as the goat is in my class. Sometimes you just draw the short end of the stick. If 3 of the "top 5" are left home, whose beating the other 2? Win, you're in. It isn't fair. Life isn't fair. Don't overcomplicate things. You are going to get your best 3-4 teams to state. Likely the best 6-7. That's good enough to me. This "horrific injustice" just doesn't merit so much inconvenience and massively altering a system that, by and large, works pretty well. All that we can ask is that a system be EQUITABLE. 6 teams play their way in. 2, due to geographic quirks, get in as wild card. Is it fair that one of those 2 can now win state, beating a team that has beaten them, say 3 times? "Fairness" should never be a factor because nothing is. Our system now, is equitable. That's enough for me.

I guess We agree to disagree then. I just think if there’s a way to improve postseason play competition, it needs to be done. To me, sub-State is the answer

 

[LooseCannon]

Absolutely. No different, in my mind, than having the misfortune of having to compete against an all time great. No different than having the 2nd best team ever, the same year as the goat is in my class. Sometimes you just draw the short end of the stick. If 3 of the "top 5" are left home, whose beating the other 2? Win, you're in. It isn't fair. Life isn't fair. Don't overcomplicate things. You are going to get your best 3-4 teams to state. Likely the best 6-7. That's good enough to me.

And that’s the problem. It would be less complicated with change.

You are complacent with a ****** system. I can’t believe member schools vote to keep it the same because “it’s good enough for them.”

 

[highschoolfootballnut]

And that’s the problem. It would be less complicated with change.

You are complacent with a ****** system. I can’t believe member schools vote to keep it the same because “it’s good enough for them.”

District play is out dated and needs to go, at the end of the regular season use wildcard points to seed the tournament 1 to 32 and play at neutral site first two rounds This gives any who matters a shot and does away with crappy districts and great districts.

 

[clktwr]

I believe that there is a middle ground that could easily be found here. Leave the district assignments just as they are. Don't seed based upon a serpentine system of the like. Just leave it like it is. Now take the 6 district winners, add the next highest in wild card points, and get to 16. Seed the 16 according to wild card points, and the 8 winners move on. This is not perfect, but it would only add travel and expense for 16 teams in each class. The problem with the serpentine assignment system is that it potentially effects every school in the Class.

For me, it isn't about "fair". It is about rewarding a team that based upon pure luck of the draw. It is about penalizing a team based upon pure luck of the draw. There are 12 months of hard work that go into a single season in any given sport. There are club sports, summer lifting, individual skills camps, and the list goes on.

My daughter's Jr. year of softball, the #1, #2, and #4 teams were all in the same district. These teams were all penalized by pure luck of the draw. All 3 could have easily won 4 of the other 5 districts.

 

[BigBlue70]

Speaking of softball look at Class B last fall. York, Seward, Crete in the same district. Crete got hot and won the district otherwise they would have been left at home, and oh by the way they won state too. The three finished 1,2, and 4 at state. Luck of the draw is right