Watered down playoffs

Check out the 5A and 4A Texas state basketball playoffs. Such a large bracket.

http://www.uil.utexas.edu/athletics/brackets/basketball/boys/index.html

 

Rumpleforeskin...holy shit: I just called up the Texas bracket. when does this end? mid-July?

 

Actually, by the end of the first round of games, half the teams are gone. By the end of districts, it's more like 5/6ths.

Basketball, and most sports in Michigan, has stayed at a manageable four divisions. They try to divide up the schools equally so (at least theoretically) each school has an equal chance to win a state title. I think each division has about 170 teams these days.

In football, the playoffs started 30 years ago with four teams in each class, which resulted in dozens of 9-0 teams every year not making the playoffs. The field has been expanded and expanded and expanded, the number of football divisions increased to 8, so that now any team which wins 2/3 of its games (6/9, or 5/8) makes the playoffs.

 

I cover Oklahoma high school sports, mainly from Class B up to 4A (there's also 5A and 6A), and the playoff format actually goes like this: District; Regionals; Area and then State. While it is double-elimination up to State, once you get to state (eight teams per class), it becomes a three-day single-elimination tournament, so in essence, you can afford to lose once before you qualify for State but there's no margin for error once you make State.
I think 5A and 6A do it a bit differently; you have to win your opening-round game or else you're done for the season; then it becomes a double-elimination affair before State.

 

Here's the thing, though. Four teams from each district in 5A and 4A go, so it isn't even half of the teams in the state who make the playoffs.

In Class 1A to 3A, only three teams per district go.

Texas just has a ton of schools. Oh, and playing two games a week, the Texas basketball playoffs move pretty quick. It is the baseball and softball playoffs that take forever.

 

Correct. No matter how you slive it, it's a cluster. And A and B (the two smallest classes) are a little different in that they have some three and four-team districts so the first round losers in those are one and done as well.

 

Virginia has recently split its Class A and AA into two divisions to create more tournaments and more cash. Triple A still has one champion, but I'm sure that'll change soon enough.

 

Yep, usually it's two games in districts, two in regionals, a state quarterfinal, a state semifinal and the final.


And for others who have asked, it's all called the MHSAA State Playoff Tournament.

But Starman is right, half the teams get eliminated after the district.

 

If I remember correctly, Maryland first inaugurated its everybody makes it playoff system in 2002. My high school alma mater was 10-12 in the regular season. Six wins later, they celebrated a state championship.

 

Every team in Sconsin makes the playoffs for every sport except football.

 

Right, I failed to mention that some of the A and B districts have more than two teams, but it's standard in 2A through 4A that there's just two-team district playoffs; except one 2A girls team this year drew a bye in its district playoff and automatically advanced into the regional semis.

Another strange oddity about the Oklahoma basketball playoff system is the fact the pairings are released at least two weeks before it actually starts so you still have to play out the string in the regular season; which makes the last two-plus weeks of the regular season virtually meaningless since teams already know its postseason draw. Every team in Oklahoma also qualifies for the playoffs, regardless of whether it went 25-0 or 0-25 in the regular season.

 

As convoluted as NJ's football playoffs are, every other sport gets it right ... .500 record by a certain date (Feb. 7 for hoops this year) to qualify for the tournament.
And by the end of the Tournament of Champions on March 22, there is ONE winner.