Indiana HS Basketball Tourney running thread...

I was kind of hoping this thread could mostly avoid this debate. But, I'm sure that's still what most people think about when it comes to the Indiana tourney. It ain't 30,000 people in the Hoosier Dome, but it still draws large crowds (for the evening games) and has had its fair share of big name players and big game performances the past few years.

I, like most, never thought it should have gone class. But at the same time, it's been kind of funny to watch teams like Richmond or Columbus North (neither of whom have even won a sectional title since class play) see how those five times smaller county schools felt each March when they headed into their gyms.

 

For sake of the argument, Richmond did its fair share of losing to the little country schools before the split, too.

However, I can roll off the names of the seven small-school Final Four teams since Milan (Southridge 1984 & 85, Cloverdale 1967, Loogootee 1969 & 1975, Argos 1981, Shenandoah 1982) a lot quicker than I can roll off the names of the last six Class A champs, and I was *at* most of those Class A title games.
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The attendance at the 3A/4A finals has been marked ... however, I can remember the place being 2/3 empty for several 4A games -- Pike v. Penn in 2001, a couple of Greg Oden's titles with LN were sparsely-attended, too. It usually depends on the participants. Last year sold out because of Eric Gordon vs. E'Twaun Moore. 2000 sold out because of Zack Randolph v. Jared Jeffries/Sean May. 2006 sold out because Washington brought darned near the entire town (and will again this year) ... and cleared out before the 4A game, leaving a very, very, very, very sparse crowd to watch Greg Oden's LN team try to take down blue-blood Muncie Central.

However, Indiana's tournament was never about the State Finals. That was the promised land that very few schools ever got to dream about making. It was always about the sectional and the regional. The sectional brought together all of the schools in a given community and, with bragging rights on the line, hostilities boiled over. Usually, the order followed and the big county-seat school won, but everybody knew everyone, and that brought out everybody. You knew the team that won your local sectional, and you followed them to the regional, as the representative from your area ... and you at least kept an eye on the semistates.

If a small school managed to win, they'd be talked about in the area for generations. The people at my wife's alma mater (Cascade, a little country school near current State Finalist Brownsburg) still wax poetic about the 1965 & 1984 sectional titles ... much moreso than the three Class 2A sectionals they've won. People in my area can talk about tiny Daleville's improbable win at Anderson in 1985 -- until this year, the only sectional title in school history -- and the Sweet Sixteen teams that Alexandria produced in the early-to-mid 1990s.

Now, sectionals feature teams an hour apart that don't even play each other during the regular season, have no familiarity, no rivalry ... it's just another game. Prior to 1997, we had four schools in our county all in the same sectional, and it was *bloodthirsty.* From 2000 on, we have had exactly two games between schools from our county -- two bitter rivals whose rivalry was once based on sectional play -- in the boys state tournament. The result? Small crowds -- who show up for one game and leave. Once your school is out, you're done with the state tournament. So we've replaced a statewide tournament that was well-followed with a community tournament that nobody outside the communities watches.

It used to be that all four rounds of the tournament were on TV everywhere -- I could usually catch at least two semistates on local TV, plus the Indianapolis sectional final, plus a couple of regionals. Now, the State Finals are on a little-seen cable channel -- after being relegated to a little-seen religious channel for almost all of the class era. The other rounds of the tournament are either on little-seen cable channels or on tape delay on religious stations.

That's what Indiana lost when it went to class.

However, to me, the decision to go to class wasn't the biggest mistake -- we saw that coming. The biggest mistake was going to four classes. Indiana should've stolen Illinois' system with two classes, with the small-school class encompassing 2/3 of the state's schools. That would've kept the rivalries in the early rounds, messed with the tournament format the least, and addressed the small schools' concerns about not being able to beat the big, bad big schools.

But the decision to go to class was never about putting together the best tournament. It was a trophy grab by small-school principals who thought they could make themselves local (and regional) celebrities by bringing so-called "state championships" to their schools. What they've created is a mess of a tournament that, for some, is way too easy to get through (especially if you're a private school), has few rivalries, no following and no momentum.

BTW, Illinois screwed its tournament up by going to four classes, too. We set a really bad example for them to follow, and gave them the momentum it needed to create the same headaches we have here.

 

Three games down so far ... some BIG-TIME individual performances.

3A: Washington 84, Fort Wayne Harding 60
UNC recruit Tyler Zeller of Washington cemented his Mr. Basketball credentials by scoring 43 points on 14-of-22 shooting from the floor, 15-of-18 from the line. He also had 16 rebounds. Teammate/low-post running mate Seth Coy had 20 points and 16 rebounds. Washington shot 57% from the floor. It's Washington's second 3A championship (they won 3 years ago when big brother Luke Zeller hit a half-court shot at the buzzer in OT). His 43 points is a 3A finals record. The 16 rebounds are not ... Muncie South's Gary Hall had 26 boards in a 1999 game against Plainfield. Washington has won five overall postseason championships -- 3 real state championships in 1930, 1941 & 1942, and now two 3A championships.

2A: Fort Wayne Luers 69, Winchester 67
Hard to believe Luers sophomore DeShaun Thomas might be outclassed, but he was in an individual battle. Thomas assists on the go-ahead basket with a minute and a half to go, and then Luers ices it (kind of) from the line. Winchester appears to tie it when big guy Brock Morrison scores & draws a foul with 1:00 to play, but he is called for traveling (replays clearly show he didn't) ... Luers gets the upper hand from there, although Morrison has a shot to tie the game on the final possession, and it rims out. Thomas, who is purportedly headed to Ohio State, though he changes his mind every other minute, has 20 points, five rebounds and three blocks. Winchester junior Tyler Koch puts up a 2A title-game record 37 points, Winchester has been the 2A runner-up three times, and the last two have been in excruciating fashion -- losing in 2OT last year and in the final minute this year. It's Luers' first boys basketball postseason title (it once won 4 straight girls titles and has won 7 football titles, but had never even won a boys basketball sectional until Thomas showed up last year).

1A: Triton 50, Indianapolis Lutheran 42
Pretty nondescript game. Triton takes an early lead, Triton wins 1st boys postseason title.

4A game between Brownsburg and Marion coming up soon. Brownsburg has Miami-Ohio signee Julian Mavunga, a big center, and wing Gordon Hayward (Butler). Marion is led by N.C. State signee Julius Mays, but its starting point guard got suspended this week.

 

The problem, too, is that small towns that built big gyms are screwed because they aren't making any sectional money. In 2001, I talked to the Southridge AD in a visit to Huntingburg, famous for a 6,000-seat gym in a 5,000-person town. He said for single-class ball, the sectional there was like a family reunion, because every school in the county was there, and everyone stuck around for every game just to hang out and chitchat. After class ball, teams had to travel up to two hours for the 2A sectional, meaning that if your team lost, you went home. That's assuming you traveled there, because those windy, hilly two-lane southern Indiana roads are treacherous, and a lot of people didn't want to make the trip.

 

4A final is crazy ...

Tight, see-saw game most of the way, dominated by Marion's Julius Mays & Brownsburg's post Julian Mavunga.

Brownsburg leads by 2 in the closing seconds. Mays is chased, hits fellow N.C. State recruit Scott Wood for a contested 3 with 2.1 seconds left.

Marion leads 39-38. Looks like things are won (and they're running out on the floor ... thankfully, this isn't Oklahoma, so no crazy official calls a T).

After *four* timeouts, Brownsburg fires the ball the length of the floor to 6-9 post Mavunga. Marion guy tries to tip it, fumbles it right into the hands of Brownsburg's Gordon Hayward (Butler recruit), who hits a 6-footer at the buzzer.

Brownsburg 40, Marion 39. Brownsburg's first title in basketball (it won two in football in the mid-1980s and has recently become a state baseball powerhouse).

It might not rank up there with Luke Zeller's half-court shot from three years ago, Stacey Toran's 75-footer to beat Marion or Scott Skiles' shot from the corner in 1982, but this will be in the next tier of memorable State Finals finishes, for sure.

Mavunga had 17 points ... all of Hayward's 10 points were scored in the second half. Mays had 21 points. Marion's next leading scorer was a blast from the past ... Jay Edwards Jr., whose dad led Marion to three state titles and was the Big Ten Player of the Year at Indiana in the 1980s.

 

Jay Edwards Jr.?

Holy crap.

 

Congrats to the Mrs. Bubbler's alma mater.

I no longer have the only state title in the house. However, I will forever be the only one in the house who has state titles at my alma mater in two different states: Lawrence North and go reigning Wisconsin 4A champ Wauwatosa East.

Both won their respective state titles during my senior year in '89, so I couldn't go wrong.

 

The Bonzi Wells days? One of my buddies smoked with Bonzi back when he was at Ball State.

 

Pre-Bonzi, but not too long before that.

 

Dan Palombizzio?

 

Nope. Later. Think of the Bill Gillis era, right after Ball State's NCAA salad days. I can't even remember what player it allegedly was that got it, he was from Chicago if memory serves. I know it came from one of the student managers or the GA via him.