The Seeding Disease
May 1, 2018
I have yet to hear one satisfactory reason to advocate for seeding an all-comers, 740-team high school basketball tournament. But this I do know: Advocates of seeding are never satisfied.
Seeding high school basketball tournaments has become the rage since the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament, still just a 68-team affair, became a billion dollar media business. Many people assume that what is used for this limited invitational college tournament is needed and appropriate for a high school tournament that involves 11 times as many teams.
The NCAA pours millions of dollars into the process of selecting and seeding its 68-team tournament, combining a variety of data-based measurements with the judgments and biases of human beings.
One of this year’s questionable selections to make the 68-team field was Syracuse ... which sent our more highly touted and seeded Michigan State Spartans back home early in the tournament.
Meanwhile, low-seeded Loyola-Chicago upset four teams on its way to the Final Four, and became the favorite of fans nationwide. Which argues for upsets. Which argues for randomness.
Which argues against seeding. Why pick the No. 1 seeds of four regions and have all four glide to the Final Four? What fun would that be?
A local sports columnist who is an outspoken advocate for seeding our state’s high school basketball tournament actually wrote a published column advocating for “more Loyolas” in the NCAA tournament, and he explained how to make that happen. Which, of course, seeding is designed to not make happen, but instead, to grease the skids for top-seeded teams.
When the NCAA Final Four brackets for San Antonio resulted in two No. 1 seeds on one side, playing in one semifinal game (Kansas and Villanova), while the other side of the bracket had a semifinal with a No. 3 seed (Michigan) and a No. 11 seed (Loyola), there was a call for more finagling ... for reseeding the semifinals so that the two No. 1 seeds wouldn’t have to play until the final game.
It was poetic justice to watch one No. 1 seed clobber the other No. 1 seed in a terrible semifinal mismatch.
The point is this: Seeding is flawed, and advocates of seeding are never satisfied. If we take a small step, they will want more steps. If we seed the top two teams of Districts, they will lobby for seeding all teams of the Districts. If we seed all teams of Districts, they will ask for seeding Regionals. And, if we seed the start of the tournament, they will want a do-over if it doesn’t work out right for the Finals.
Seeding is a distraction, and an addiction.
Official Results
August 15, 2017
We enjoy some privileges serving on the Michigan High school Athletic Association staff. However, one privilege we do not have is to ignore rules when we don’t enjoy their application.
One of the rules of Michigan school sports for very many years is that there is no protest of or appeal to the decisions of contest officials. Whether it is a traveling call in basketball, a safe/out call in baseball or softball, a five-yard illegal motion call, a 10-yard holding call, or a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct call in football with player or coach ejection, the call is final; and if the penalty calls for next-game disqualification, that is final too.
If after a contest, an official wishes he or she could take back a call, it’s too late. If after a contest, folks pressure an official to rescind the next-game disqualification, the outcome is unchanged: ejection from one contest for unsportsmanlike conduct requires suspension from the next day of competition.
The finality of high school officials’ calls has been challenged multiple times in courts across the country – twice in Michigan – and the nearly unanimous result nationwide has been that judges will not allow themselves to become super-referees, second guessing onsite contest officials.
On some higher levels of sports – e.g., college and professional – where there are dozens of cameras covering a handful of contests each week, league offices may review some decisions. But our level of sports lacks sophisticated cameras positioned at all angles, and it involves many hundreds of contests in several different sports every week. We have neither the time nor the technology at every venue to be involved in reviewing the calls of contest officials.
Last school year, there were nearly 1,000 player ejections and more than 200 coach ejections. School sports is not equipped to review 30 to 40 of these situations that arise each week; nor should we do so.
Officials see a play and make an instantaneous decision. Their calls are final; and living with the outcome is one of the valuable lessons we try to teach and learn in school-based sports.