Indiana HS Basketball Tourney running thread...

All the while, the rich high schools are pouring buckets of cash into football stadium upgrades.

If it's not a corner having been turned, I'm not sure what is.

 

Dakich also did color for the radio broadcast of the state finals games. He was going nuts when I was listening to the 3A game when that kid went off for 40 points and like 11 in the final minute of regulation.

 

I graduated in the early 1990s, and was (and am) a staunch supporter of single-class. However, the one thing I hear is "well, you went to a big school, so of course you would be for it."

The big school I went to won a grand total of 4 sectionals and 2 regionals in the 80+ years of single-class tournaments. In Class 4A, it has been (along with Lawrence North), *THE* premier big-school power in the state. 9 sectionals, 4 regionals, 4 State Finals appearances, 3 titles and two Mr. Basketballs in 12 years.

If selfishness were a consideration, why the heck wouldn't I be "for" class basketball? It *helped* my old school and its neighbors by making the tournament easier for us (sectional & regional aren't any different, but whoever survives them, they only have to win 2 games to hoist the big trophy, rather than 4).

I now coach basketball in Indiana. If I could go back to the old way, I would. Thankfully, our sectional has a "tournament atmosphere," in large part because it usually features two or three of the top teams in our class (a couple of which usually bring some really big crowds) and our kids get to experience the feeling of playing in front of a huge, passionate crowd. But they don't get the experience of playing neighborhood rivals in the sectional -- they're playing teams from a couple of counties away in some cases.

At the same time, the kids I coach don't know any different -- the oldest ones were watching Barney, the youngest were in diapers, in 1997. To them, the sectional is about playing teams from four counties away and about advancing in the tournament, not about getting a crack at your county rivals for a year's worth of bragging rights (and as a side note, a shot at the regional).

I've been to quite a few tourney games that were duds in terms of crowd size, atmosphere and intensity -- including State Finals games. But I've also been to a lot of games (especially regional & semistate games) that have had a lot of energy and life to them -- just like the old days. However, the old days aren't coming back. There were a lot of warts about the old tournament, but it was *ours.* There are a lot of problems with the new tournament, and we still consider it foreign (and probably always will), but it's not going away and the format/structure aren't changing, so we have to live with it. We'll eventually get used to it and move on. In about 50 years.

 

I've never experienced a single-class tournament. I also hold no great allegiances to my high school, despite the fact that I played two sports (football for four, track & field for three). So I suppose a lot of Hoosiers would tell me to STFU.
But, really, who gives a damn? We had a girls' basketball team advance to the state finals this year. They were a good team all year, but rarely great. They played their best basketball at the right time, and advanced to Lucas Oil. First time in school history the team had made it that far. This is great, right? No, a newside coworker who has been on the edge of tears when describing the anger he has for the IHSAA says, it is not. It is neat. It's nice. Now, if this 3A team had played and defeated the 4A school 20 miles away (which advanced to the first round of the regionals), that would be something they would remember forever.
I just can't rationalize that sort of thinking.
I am just always reminded of a football coach at my last job. Guy had been around for 20-something years, and was extremely well-respected across the state. I asked him once what he thought of the state handing out eight state football titles, instead of the four it had since he was a boy. He said he didn't care, and actually liked it. His reasoning was that 400 kids (eight more teams, 50 to a team on average) got to experience state finals week. He had done it two times, and knew how special it was. He was never going to do anything to deny a kid that experience.
Maybe a single class title system would be perfect. Maybe Milan would happen more than once in 80 years. But high school sports are about the kids, not the goobers in the stands. I am not going to stand in the way of those kids having some fun, and experiencing the week of the state finals.

 

Time for a bump?
Bloomington South is still undefeated and headed to the Seymour Regional. North Central looks like it could walk through the Hinkle Regional. And we get to see South take on Indy's best team by far.
Will Deshaun Thomas pass Damon Bailey? Will Cody Zeller bring his team back to Conseco?
And Hoosiers is on WGN. It's winning time.

 

I hope that regional ends up being paired with the 3A one I'm broadcasting next week so I can see it, but I can't see South getting beat. They are absolutely loaded, and have become the destination of choice for IU recruits. Bloomington South's path through the regional just got a lot lighter with Martinsville (3-16 in the regular season) winning its sectional and New Albany beating Jeffersonville.

In all likelihood, the state champ is coming out of the south again. It's hard to see anybody from the two northern regionals pushing either Bloomington South or North Central.

No ... Thomas will have to average 39 ppg to get there, and even against a watered-down 2A field, that will be difficult as the tournament gets deeper. Second item: I doubt it ... Zeller's Washington team should walk through its regional this week, but at Shelbyville, Mt. Vernon has 3 Div. I players in its starting lineup and is playing really well (especially defensively) and Danville has 6-10 Purdue recruit Travis Carroll and hasn't been touched all year. Winner of MV-Danville on Saturday night goes to Conseco.

The 1998 rewrite ... "and David took out a stone, and slung it, and slayed another kid who was exactly the same size as him."

 

He let you get out after three hours?

I did a series on the 10-year anniversary of class basketball several years ago. Plump called me back about 10 minutes after I called him, and we were on the phone for a couple of hours. Great interview.

 

I saw Washington earlier this season and was really impressed. Zeller has made the leap and is now a force, not just a gangly mess of potential. Pittman has come on strong and that gives them a 6-foot-6 compliment to Zeller, one that is OK with setting screens and getting the big guy open. And a bunch of tough guards who are not going to back down from a fight.
I have not seen Mount Vernon or Danville, though the former defeating Bloomington South in a summer league game certainly says something. But I would not be surprised at all to see Washington get another title.

 

Go Sullivan!

 

Kansas doesn't understand this thread at all*.

* - Kansas first split classes in the 1920's. There have been six classes since 1979 and people bitch about there being too much of a difference between the largest and smallest schools in Class 4A. And then next year, from what I've heard, Class 1A will be split into two divisions because it just takes too damn long for 101 schools to get through post-season play and the schools who are down to 35 students feel like its unfair to be in the same class as those with 95.