3/14/2025
Just a week ago we we’re gearing up for the State Championship basketball games in Tacoma, Yakima and Spokane. There were some big surprises in the semifinals and finals with some low seeds advancing deep into the tournaments
This makes it feel like the seeding committees were way off in their assessments this season but is that actually true? We measured the overall seedings for 2025 and we looked at a perfect semifinal and perfect final day. In other words a perfect score in the semifinals is 10 and you get that by simply adding the seed numbers or 1+2+3+4=10. A perfect trophy round is 21 or 1+2+3+4+5+6=21 and so a perfect score for the tournament is 31.
It appeared the seeding committees were well off the mark this year because seemingly when they missed it was a big miss. Along with the 3 double digit seeds who made it to the semifinals were another 5 double digit seeds that trophied.
Let’s address that first, was 8 double digit seeds winning trophies way out of line with other tournaments since the WIAA shifted to a seeding system in 2016-17? The answer is no. It is on the high side with 9 double digit seeds trophying in 2018-19 and 8 in 2019-2020. The lowest year was 2021-22 with just 3. Every other year was 4-6. So yes, 8 was on the higher side but it was not out of the ordinary.
What brought more attention to this year though was the lowest seed ever to trophy had previously been 16 when Orcas Island took 6th place in 2023 but that was a 20 team bracket. King’s also took 6th place as a 16 seed in 2018 and was and remains the only bottom seed ever to trophy. King’s was 16th of 16 seeds and the only true bottom seed to play on Saturday.
This year and both in the 3A girls bracket that 16 seed was broken twice. First the 17 seeded Bellevue Wolverines took 4th place after losing in the quarterfiinals to 2 seed North Thurston. Bellevue beat #4 Shorewood and then #7 Kennewick for the 4th place trophy. That record would be short lived as #19 Garfield played in the 3rd/5th place game and although North Thurston beat the Bulldogs Garfield officially became the lowest seeded team to ever win a trophy.
So let’s go through each bracket and see how they did, stat geeks will love this part.
Girls Tournaments
4A girls scored 26 points in the final 4, 16 points over the perfect score of 10, 35 points for the trophy round on Saturday or 14 points above the perfect score and 61 combined or nearly doubling the combined score. The committee missed big with #13 Glacier Peak getting into the semifinals and then placing 5th. They also missed on Sumner at #8 one of 3 #8’s that played for the State Championship. They did nail the State Champion though with the Davis Pirates. But the Pirates didn’t help the committee when they lost in the Regional which set up a 1 vs 2 seed Lake Washington in the quarterfinals so they could not have gotten the perfect 1 vs 2 in the finals.
3A girls committee struggled the most with a final 4 score of 28 and a trophy round score of 52 for a combined score of 80. The committee missed big with the 19 and 17 seeds, even if they had missed with the 10 and 11 seeds for example, that would have taken 15 points off the final score and would have been a final score of 65. Instead their two misses were the largest in seeding history which really impacted their score. But they did get the State Champs correct in seeding Central Valley #1 and just missed a perfect 1 vs 2 when 2nd seed North Thurston lost by 2 points in the semifinals to #6 Lakeside.
2A girls just missed a perfect score with 12 in the final 4 and a perfect 1-6 in the trophy round for a combined score of 33 just 2 points off the perfect 31. The got the State Champ correct in Lynden, #2 right with Ellensburg and the 3rd seed Deer Park was 3rd. #5 Archbishop Murphy was 4th, #6 Prosser 5th and #4 WF West 6th. The 2A girls committee tied for the lowest combined score of 33 with the 1B boys. 6 of the 12 tournaments had scores of 39 or less. However, the 2A girls selected the correct 1 seed and the 1B boys had it backwards with their 2 seed beat their 1. The 2A girls committee had our most accurate bracket of the tournament.
1A girls weren’t too far behind the 2A girls with a 12 in the final 4 and 23 in the final 6. That’s a 35 total just 4 points off the perfect 31. However, they did miss on on the State Champ as #2 Bellevue Christian won it with #4 King’s upsetting #1 Lynden Christian in the semi’s. L-C defeated #5 Annie Wright for 3rd place and #3 Zillah defeated the 8 seed Naches Valley for 4th place. Despite missing the State Champ, the committee ended strong with the 3rd best overall score of 35. Had #8 Naches Valley not knocked off #6 Seton Catholic in the consolation on Friday they would have had a perfect 1-6 Saturday.
2B girls missed significantly when their #1 seed Rainier was knocked out on Wednesday. They scored 19 in the semifinals and 32 in the final 6 for a 51 total or 20 points over the perfect 31 score. Now to be fair, the committee ranked Rainier #1 and then it was revealed afterward that the Mountaineers point guard and one of their best players suffered a season ending injury. This totally changed the outcome of this tournament. But we’ll say they also missed on NW Christian (Colbert) giving them the 8 seed and was one of 3 8 seeds to play for a Championship and the only 8 seed to win it all in an OT game over #2 Adna. They also missed on #10 Liberty who knocked off the 7, 6 and 3 seeds losing only to #8 NWC who won it all and claimed the 4th place trophy. So a combination of the Rainier injury and underestimating the Crusaders and Liberty hurt the 2B committee. They did have the 2, 3, 4 and 5 seeds all playing on Saturday so they weren’t that far off of their final seedings.
1B girls just missed a perfect final 4 with the 1, 2, 3 and 5 seeds advancing. But they did miss on a double digit team with #10 Oakesdale advancing to Saturday giving them a final score of 40 or 9 points over the 31. Oakesdale would win the 4th place trophy against another slight miss in #8 Pateros. They did nail the State Champ in Neah Bay and the 1, 2 and 3 seeds were all playing on Saturday so pretty accurate in the end.
Girls Overview
Overall the girls seeding committees had 4 State Champs correct, 4 of the 6 had the seeds 1 and 2 in the final 6 in 4 tournaments, 4 of the 6 seeds playing on Saturday in 4 tournaments and the 2A tournament had 1-6 playing for trophies. They had 5 double digit seeds trophy out of a total of 36. Our result is it wasn’t their best year but it certainly wasn’t anything out of balance through 8 years of the seeding system.
Boys Tournaments
4A boys were a little off in the semifinals with a total of 18 having 8 seed Puyallup and 6 seeded West Valley get in the final 4. However, an upset of #2 Auburn and #5 Camas’s slight upset over Richland both in the regionals ended up forcing the 3 seed vs 5 seed in one quarterfinal and 1 vs 2 in another both in the upper bracket. Those upsets disrupted the committee’s selection from the start. However, in the final 6 the committee scored a 27 with seeds 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6 all in the trophy round with the 8 seed getting into the Championship match-up. They did have the State Champ Gonzaga Prep picked correctly and basically had the right teams just slightly misaligned in the end. The final combined score was 45
3A boys also got off to a rough start with #1 Rainier Beach and #4 Bellevue both losing their regional which scrambled the seeds as they moved through the bracket. In they end they barely missed a perfect final 4 with the 1, 2, 3 and 5 seeds competing for an 11 score, just 1 over the perfect 10. On the final day they had a strong showing with 5 seed Edmonds-Woodway playing Beach for the Title and even though the Vikings had to play an extra game they were the Champions so the committee got the top pick correct. #2 and #3 seeds, Mt Spokane and Garfield playing for 3rd with the Bulldogs getting the win. The final 6 score was 26 a little bit off with the 7 and 8 seeds advancing to play for 4th. Their combined score was 37 just 6 over a perfect bracket.
2A boys had the highest point total for all the boys tournaments and 3rd highest overall. And it was just one of those things. Lynden came in as the 3 time defending Champions and were 25-1 for the season when 10 seed Prosser stunned the heavy favorites in the quarterfinals and then the Lions didn’t show up on Friday and were beaten by the 11 seed Columbia River in a loser out consolation game on Friday and didn’t even make it to Saturday. I’m not sure anyone had anyone else ranked #1 but this is one of those brackets that showcase the beauty of high school sports. With the 1 seed completely out and getting beat by the 10 and 11 who both advanced to Saturday was going to blow up this bracket. The final 4 score was 20, double the perfect 10 and the trophy day score was 39, 18 more than the perfect score for a 59 total. The 2a boys did get the 2, 3 and 5 seeds on Saturday but it was a rough go with the upsets but they were legitimate upsets.
1A boys registered one of only 2 perfect semifinals scores of 10. 1 seed Annie Wright played 4 seed Zillah with the 2 seeded Royal taking on 3rd seeded Lynden Christian. The 1A slipped slightly on trophy day with 7 seed Meridian taking on 9 seed Chelan for a 26. Those 2 teams upset the 5 and 6 seeds otherwise the 1A’s were very close to a perfect bracket. They picked the right State Champ in Annie Wright, the top 4 seeds were in and the final combined score was 36, the 4th lowest score in all 12 tournaments.
2B boys had the other perfect semifinal of seeds 1-4. They were also the only tournament to seed the top 4 exactly correct. 1 seed Columbia (Burbank) won the Championship beating 2 seed Freeman. 3rd seeded Reardan knocked off the 4 seed Colfax. Colfax did end up with the 5th place trophy despite both teams losing in the semifinals. The WIAA awards trophies in the consolations as 3rd or 5th in the 3rd place game and 4th or 6th in the 4th place game. This appears to be a holdover from the days of awarding trophies to 8th place and a different tournament format. It’s just never been changed. The 2B committee suffered a couple of minor upsets in the consolations with the 8, 10, 11 and 12 seeds all qualifying for the shot at 4th place. #8 NW Christian (Colbert) defeated #11 Okanogan for 4th place. The final score was 39 with the bigger seeds sneaking in the consolations.
1B boys were the 2nd low score of 33 joining the 2A girls as the top brackets created by the tournament committees. The committe just missed on the final 4 with a score of 12. #5 Neah Bay upset #3 Willapa Valley in the quarters as the only miss. But on Saturday they were perfect with seeds 1-6 all playing for trophies. They did miss on the state champ with #2 Lummi Nation defeating #1 A-C-H. 4 seed Desales beat the 5 Neah Bay for 3rd and 6 seed Tulalip Heritage knocked off the 3 W-V. The combined score was 33.
Boys Overview
The boys tournaments did not have the big seed misses as much as the girls tournaments overall. The big speed bump is one the committee could do nothing about and that was the stunning loss by top seed Lynden not once but twice. The 2A boys were the only boys tournament where their #1 seed did not play on Saturday joining the 2B girls as the only tournaments with out the #1 trophying.
There were some upsets but 5 of the 6 committees correctly picked their State Champion and 4 of the 6 had their top 3 seeds all playing on Saturday. This was a pretty good year for the boys committees.
Tournament Measurement Numbers
Here are the overall numbers, 9 of 12 tournaments had their 1 seed win it all or a 75% clip. 3 tournaments had 1 vs 2 in their final or 25%. 8 of 12 had the 1 and 2 seeds in the top 6 at 67%, 1 tournament had the top 3 seeds perfect, 1st, 2nd and 3rd and that was the 2A girls. But 7 of 12 had their top 3 playing on Saturday at 58%. There were 6 teams with a 7 or higher seed out of 48 playing in the semifinals for just 13% and 17 seeds 7 or higher that trophied out of 72 for a 17% rate.
In our scoring system the girls combined scores equaled 300 for an average score of 50. The boys total was 249 for an average score of 41.5. Combine all 12 tournaments and the average committee score was 45.75. 8 committee’s were under the average.
Committee Final Scores
A perfect score was 31 and the average score was 45.75 points.
1st 2A Girls 33 points but they also got the State Champ correct as their 1 seed.
2nd 1B Boys 33 points the 1B’s 2 seed beat their 1 seed for the Championship so the tie-breaker goes to the 2A girls.
3rd 1A Girls 35 points
4th 1A Boys 36 points
5th 3A Boys 37 points
6th 2B Boys 39 points
7th 1B Girls 40 points
8th 4A Boys 45 points
9th 2B Girls 51 points
10th 2A Boys 59 points
11th 4A Girls 61 points
12th 3A Girls 80 points
Conclusion
Had there not have been 2 teams that set State records as the lowest seed to ever win a trophy in any sport we think questions of how well the seeding committees did would not have even come up. Was it their best year? No, but it wasn’t anything to be alarmed about and no doubt the bigger misses will be evaluated by those committees to underestand if they missed something in the evaluation process or if it was as simple as sometimes the better team on paper loses.
In our view, the goal is not to select 1-6 exactly correct but to have them in the mix when it counts most. 75% of the tournaments got #1 correct. 58% or 7 tournaments had the top 3 playing on Saturday. This was a solid year for the seeding committees in the end. They were right much more than wrong and some of those wrong’s were out of their control. Injuries and a team simply not playing like everyone thought they would are two quick examples.
Additionally, we hope there are never perfect brackets. And those who want to re-seed after each round we say kick rocks. That would be the absolute worst thing to happen to state tournaments. #1 Rainier Beach, no one thought they would be beat but they ended up getting beat in the Regional and then reeled off 4 straight to complete what everyone thought they would anyway.
Every game counts and an upset can turn a bracket upside down in a hurry and that’s why we love it. Teams pulling off an upset should be rewarded not penalized. How does it make sense for #10 Prosser to beat #1 Lynden and then you re-seed the tournament and now they have to beat the #2 team? We say that’s nonsense and if you are truly the 2 team it doesn’t matter who you play next, you’re supposed to beat everyone left.
The seeding committees have a tough job and yes they are going to make a wrong call here and there but in the end, they’re pretty darn accurate. So the final answer to the title of this story is, no they did not miss the mark. Well done, again.
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