2013 IHSAA State Tournament Talk

[slapperdad]

OK, I'm going to let you in on a little secret, Softball is not a big enough deal on North Meridian to raise a blip on the radar screen. I'm not going to say the IHSAA doesn't care about Softball, but they really don't care about Softball. Their bread is buttered with Football and Men's Basketball. Where they currently have Sagarin Ratings. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but the IHSAA, and Bobby Cox is on the record as stating, is committed to the blind draw in ALL sports. Now if they're that committed to it in Football and Men's BB, where pretty much all of their revenue is generated, that's the way it's going to be.

The other thing to keep in mind, the IHSAA doesn't receive any revenue from the sectionals. IF, there's anything left after paying all the bills the participating teams split it. Their revenue is generated from the regional, SS, and Final's rounds, where seeding is pretty much irrelevant, or at the very least not talked about. How many times have you heard people talking about the SS winner will be determined in the opening game or the afternoon game, yet no one talks about seeding it.

Our sectional would be easy to seed, since it's basically our conference less two teams, and we have a conference tournament two weeks prior to the sectional. Other sectionals may not be that way. You live in a metro area (Nobelsville) where everyone plays everyone else. In rural areas that may not be the case. Then you'd be looking at common opponents and that's a horrible gauge of how good a Softball team is. We beat X, who beat Y, therefore we're better than Z. While we fail to mention that X had a choir concert that night and brought their JV team.

Personally, as someone who's dealt with the IHSAA from multiple angles for the last 35 years, I'd be the last person in the world to defend a lot of what they do. I'm not sure where I stand on the blind draw thing. But it is what it is, you're going to have beat the perceived big dog in the sectional at some point, as a coach it doesn't matter to me whether it's the first game or the last. We play whoever they tell us to play and when they tells us to play them, I don't care. And before you ask, in my tenure, we've never been a favorite, and we've drawn one of the favorites every year I've been here, this year is no exception. We'll play them in game one for the third time this season, hopefully we'll get to play them tonight for the second time.

[brevercomb]

I feel that the IHSAA should have a seeding system in place for all HS sports, and yes I would support seeding the Regionals and SS. If the IHSAA can figure out class basketball (that's a can of worms that shouldn't be opened) then they can figure out seeding if they cared to do so. Obviously, this topic doesn't affect their revenue stream so it won't be addressed any time soon.

So who is playing well right now? Who are the teams that will make some noise in the tournament?

[LeftyHitter]

While I agree that there could and probably should be something done, as Slapper said it's never going to change in our lifetime. If it works for boys basketball, then it has to work for everyone else, right? While we live in the age of the internet, we still can't get 30-40% of coaches to post scores on the icgsa site and >50% don't post info to VarVee. On top of that, there is a great disparity in schedules in a lot of cases within the same sectional. This is even further amplified at the smaller schools. This year there does seem to be alot of early top team matchups in 4A, all of the ones mentioned above plus Chesterton-Crown Point in Sectional 2 with Portage being in the same side of the bracket, while the teams on the other side of the bracket all are under .500. As they say, you've got to beat 'em at some point to get to the end. This is my last year of having a dog in the fight, so it is what it is.

[slapperdad]

Lefty, you hit on a couple of good points:
Varvee, I've reported, I haven't reported. In the grand scheme of things I don't see that it makes a whole lot of difference. I've reported to Maxpreps as well. I have three issues with Varvee in general:
1. The stats are not accurate, we played a game a few days ago against a team that has a stud pitcher. Our book says we have 5 hits and they have 5 errors. They report their stats that we had 2 hits and they had 7 errors. I'm not saying who's right or who's wrong, but it's highly subjective. I don't keep our book and I don't mess with our book. I often times disagree with our book, but since I have a dog in the fight, I stay away from the book. There was a coach who's no longer with us who everyone knew he cooked the book to make his DD look good. She'd go 1-4 against you, and the stats would show her as 3-4. At some point you throw your hands up and just what's the point?
2. Varvee is less than user friendly. I have asked, and been patiently waiting for an automated entry from iScore or GameChanger. They keep telling me it's coming,........ If you've ever entered stats there, it can be a PITA, especially if you have multiple games to enter. Plus there is every opportunity to fat finger it.
3. Time is an issue for many of us. I have a full time job, I coach, I don't have 47 assistants like many of these teams have. I don't have a guy that takes care of every little task. It falls on me. This time of year I am spent, I took a pizza home last night, sat it on the bar, sat down on the couch and was asleep before I knew it. My wife woke me up to go to bed about 10:00, by that time my son and his drunk friends (who are home from college) already found said pizza and I was left out in the cold.

We do report our scores to ICGSA. I would venture to guess there are a great number of coaches out there who don't even know the ICGSA exists.

[T1UP4ME]

I like it when the stats are wrong on a 1-0 game.

[southernINfan]

My daughter plays at Charlestown. We should meet Salem in 3A sectional 30 at Salem. Should be a very good game. Salem beat us 3-1 on Wednesday. Both teams are pretty good. I expect another tough, low scoring game. I think they are the 2 favorites to win that sectional.

[fastec27]

Any scores from last night?

[LeftyHitter]

If you go to the IHSAA site and look at the brackets, they are updated with all of last night's winners on the next line of the bracket and the score of the game.

No major upsets that I saw, but Munster beat Lake Central 4-0 and Crown Point beat Chesterton 2-0 in a couple of the aforementioned top team matchups.

[softballvet]

Very simple remedy really ... Make the Sectionals double elimination. You can still have the blind draw, but the better team will have a second chance to win sectionals if paired early with a similarly strong team. Also, it would make it more exciting and be more similar to the way it is done in college softball (theirs are double elim). You can even charge more at the gate with an extra game and more money in concessions. The outcome is that there is more of a fair representation of the more competitive/deserving teams coming out of each sectional.

[Turn two]

Very simple remedy really ... Make the Sectionals double elimination. You can still have the blind draw, but the better team will have a second chance to win sectionals if paired early with a similarly strong team. Also, it would make it more exciting and be more similar to the way it is done in college softball (theirs are double elim). You can even charge more at the gate with an extra game and more money in concessions. The outcome is that there is more of a fair representation of the more competitive/deserving teams coming out of each sectional.

I would take that one step further, combining regionals and semi-state making it a double elim as well. Then have the finals be best of three series played at multiple sites.

Do the same for Boys baseball. But as Slapper said earlier, Baseball/Softball doesn't crank the tractor at the IHSAA.