5/11/16

The WIAA has been under a constant barrage of complaints from the State’s Basketball Coaches association after changing the State Basketball Tournament format from 16 to 8 teams playing in the large facility like the Tacoma Dome, Sun Dome and Spokane Arena. The reason for the change was cost of renting the facilities over 20+ days with 16 teams. The 8 team format cut that down to 9 days over 1 weekend.

There also has been a lot of complaining about the seeding process even though the schools (which are WIAA members) have demanded that travel be included in determining early match-ups and that teams from the same district not face each other in the 1st round made for some match-ups you would normally expect to see later in tournaments such as these.

The WIAA, despite what many want to think, listened to all the concerns and created a committee to look into a new system to push the 16 teams back into the large facilities while fixing the seeding system and have a true #1 seed down to 16. Greg Lee from NW Preps Now has the details on how this tournament would unfold and more in his excellent story that you can read by clicking here.