Category: Sports

Last week, like tens of millions of Americans, I filled out brackets for the always-unpredictable NCAA basketball tournament.

So how are things going based on the seeds?

• Number 1 seed undefeated Wichita State: No longer undefeated. Also no longer playing.
• Number 2 seed Kansas: Dust in the wind.
• Number 2 seed Villanova: In Spanish, no va. (“Doesn’t go” for non-Spanish speakers.)
• Number 3 seed Duke: Poof.
• Number 3 seed Syracuse, about whose zone defense Sports Illustrated wrote approvingly: You can’t win if you can’t score. (Dayton 55, Syracuse 53.)
• Number 3 seed Creighton, whose leading scorer, Doug McDermott, was the subject of a SI cover story: In Australian, crikey.

The tournament is seeded from 1 to 16. If every higher seed won every first- and second-round game, there should be no higher seeded team than a fourth seed left. Instead, one of the South Regional semifinals will feature 11th-seed Dayton (which won its two games by four points) and 10th-seed Stanford (which won its two games by eight points). Sixth-seed Baylor, seventh-seed Connecticut, eighth-seed Kentucky and 11th-seed Tennessee are all still in the tournament.

Recall that I had four brackets, three of them based on Ken Pomeroy’s efficiency rankings. The offensive efficiency bracket has one Final Four team, Michigan State.

The defensive efficiency bracket has three of the Final Four remaining — Arizona, Louisville and Virginia — though the one that isn’t, VCU, will lose me points by not getting to the national final. (And for some reason that one didn’t register with CBSSports.com, so you’ll just have to trust what I say about that bracket.)

Remarkably, all four of my Final Four teams are left in the net efficiency bracket …

… and in my ESPN bracket — Arizona, Louisville, Virginia and Florida.

Certainly picking three number-one seeds to go to the Final Four is hardly going out on a limb, but I do think Louisville was seeded too low, which makes me still think they will get to cut down the nets in “North Texas.”

The regional semifinal round will feature at least one delicious matchup: Fourth-seed Louisville (my pick to win the national championship) against eighth-seed Kentucky (whose former coach is now Louisville’s coach) in Indianapolis. (A friend who is a Cardinals fan says the biggest winner will be the Indiana State Police. A Facebook Friend says Wichita State, whose season ended at the hands of the Wildcats, will actually end up with a perfect season once the NCAA vacates all of Kentucky’s wins for yet-to-be-disclosed NCAA rules violations.)

And, of course, Wisconsin, having done two things they’re not good at — playing at a quicker pace and coming back from a big deficit — is still in it, with a West Regional matchup against Baylor Thursday. For those who like history: West number one seed Arizona was a number one seed in 2000, until they ran into … Wisconsin.

For those whose brackets have been blown up by all the upsets, keep in mind that it could be worse. Ohio State fans endured Dayton’s ending their men’s basketball season, followed two days later by Wisconsin’s ending the Buckeyes’ men’s hockey season. As with Oregon, you can’t spell Ohio State without a 0.

A few weeks ago I chronicled the interesting alternate uniform history of the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers.

Assuming spring takes place this year (and yesterday afternoon’s weather and today’s forecast notwithstanding, I have my doubts), the Rattlers will have, reports announcer Chris Mehring, these alternate jerseys this season, arrayed from semi-conventional to not so much:

I’m not sure how conventional this is, but this is for the Military Appreciation Series July 1-3.

Camo and orange have been done before, believe it or don’t.

Normally this would be the most out-there jersey (Out there? Star Wars? Get it?), except for …

… the jersey for Salute to Cows Night June 12. Really. I’m sure you’re all moooooved by this.

First, some theme music …

… that signifies it’s time for the three weeks of March Madness. (Which actually started with the “first-round” games in Dayton, Ohio, Tuesday and Wednesday, but never mind that.)

For those who have managed to miss the brackets, here’s one for your own use:

I have tried various systems over the years. You may be familiar with the Blue Jersey Theory, which holds that a team that wears blue jerseys will defeat a non-blue team. Given that the list of traditional basketball powers includes Duke, North Carolina and UCLA, it’s not a bad theory. Indeed, number-one seeds Arizona, Florida and Virginia are all blue schools, as are number-two seeds Michigan, Villanova and Kansas. (What you do if two blues face each other? Good question. And what do you do if two not-blues face each other? Is green blue? Is purple blue? What about black?)

There’s also the Favorite, or Most Fierce, Mascot Theory, in which teams are picked because of their mascots. That in some cases is about as sophisticated as rock/paper/scissors. (What is more fierce — a badger or a wolverine?)

The one rule I have applied over the years is to discount Big Ten teams because the Big Ten is overrated as a basketball conference. Big Ten teams have been the victims of some of the most unbelievable upsets over the years, including Illinois’ loss to Austin Peay (“Let’s go Peay!”) and Indiana’s loss to Cleveland State. It may be heresy to say this, but I think the quality of Big Ten coaching is worse than it used to be. Does anyone seriously think Tom Crean is a better coach than Bob(by) Knight was?

Truth be told, the only year I get the picks mostly right is when an absolutely obvious team — Kentucky in 2012, for instance — wins the national championship. In such situations, everyone picks the same national champion, so I will win no pool.

The fun part is trying to figure out where the jaw-dropping upsets will be. (To wit: 2000 after Wisconsin won its first NCAA team. I guarantee you that no one predicted Wisconsin to play in the Final Four that year.) I have picked a 15-over-2 upset, a 14-over-3 upset, and a few 13-over-4 and 12-over-5 upsets. The problem with those is (1) by nature, upsets are unpredictable, and (2) if you pick one and you’re wrong, you’ve lost not only the next round, but however many rounds the non-upset team goes.

For that reason, it’s considerably easier to pick games by round than to start from today and pick every game. If you pick a team to win the national championship that loses in the regional semifinal (as Duke did one season), well, you can kiss your entry fee goodbye.

This year features, once again, Wisconsin, as well as UW–Milwaukee. It does not include UW-Green Bay, though the Phoenix probably should have been picked, and it doesn’t include Marquette, which also failed to get a National Invitational Tournament and then declined a College Basketball Invitational berth. (As did Indiana, current employer of former Marquette coach Tom Crean.)

The Badgers are perfect under coach Bo Ryan in getting into the NCAAs, unlike the previous decades under Ryan’s predecessors. Once they’re in, well, they haven’t gotten farther than the regional final, and at that just once, 2005. They have five first-round punchouts, including last year to Ole Miss, which ended a two-season streak of getting through the regional semifinal, and a six-season streak of winning at least one tournament game.

The Badgers appear to be an early favorite, at least in the minds of some at ESPN, according to Jeff Potrykus:

If you watched Sunday night as ESPN’s analysts dissected the 2014 NCAA men’s basketball tournament field, you were left with the impression Wisconsin has a legitimate chance to reach the Final Four.

“I love Wisconsin’s draw here,” Jay Bilas said. “I think as a two seed they got a fabulous draw.”

UW, seeded No. 2 in the West Regional, opens Thursday at the Bradley Center against No. 15 American University of the Patriot League.

The winner gets either No. 7 Oregon or No. 10 BYU.

Bilas believes UW is the best defensive team of the four.

“What is the best ball-control, defensive team there?” he asked. “Wisconsin, they haven’t protected the lane as well as they have in the past. But I think they’re the best defensive team out of this group.

“Wisconsin is better offensively than they are defensively but they’re better defensively than anybody else there.”

Bilas, Jay Williams, Digger Phelps, Seth Greenberg and Dick Vitale offered their views on the 68-team field.

Of that quintet, Bilas and Williams picked UW to reach the Final Four for the first time since 2000 and the first time ever under Bo Ryan.

Bilas sees UW defeating No. 4 San Diego State in the regional final but losing to defending champion Louisville, which must fight through the loaded Midwest Regional, in the national semifinals.

“I think this is the Badgers’ year,” he said, referring to a Final Four berth. “They’ve had better teams but I like their draw.”

Bilas likes Louisville better.

“Louisville was mis-seeded in this tournament,” he said. “I think they are playing exceptional basketball right now.”

Williams believes UW will oust Arizona in the regional final. Coincidentally, No. 8 UW upset No. 1 Arizona in the second round of the 2000 NCAA tournament en route to winning the West Regional.

“I love the way this Wisconsin team passes the ball,” Williams said. “The Badgers, with their veteran guards and Frank Kaminsky down low is going to be a handful.”

Alas, UW fans, Williams sees the Badgers falling to Louisville in the national semifinals.

“Louisville is able to change pace,” he said. “They can (turn) Wisconsin over. Montrezl Harrell can be the difference in that ball game down low.”

Phelps and Vitale picked UW to reach the regional final in Anaheim.

Phelps expects sophomore guard Marcus Smart will lead No. 9 Oklahoma State past No. 1 Arizona in the third round and then past UW in the regional final.

“Oklahoma State is the team that’s going to surprise a lot of people,” Phelps said.

Vitale picked Arizona to end UW’s season in the regional final.

“I like their defense,” he said. “I think too much for Wisconsin.”

Greenberg was the only analyst who didn’t pick UW to reach the Sweet 16. He picked No. 7 Oregon to upset UW in the third round in Milwaukee.

All five analysts picked Big Ten tournament champion Michigan State, seeded No. 4 in the East, to win the title.

Call me skeptical (“You’re skeptical!” “No, I’m Steve”), but I’m not on the Badger bandwagon. The last time UW played in Milwaukee, 2004, the Badgers lost to third-seed Pittsburgh at the supposedly friendly Bradley Center. (Truth is, UW plays there only once every other year, against Marquette.) More to the point, I see Saturday opponent Oregon giving Wisconsin problems with its tempo, which is a problem when UW is not a good defensive team by usual Dick Bennett/Bo Ryan standards. Which is too bad, since this team is an order of magnitude better on offense than usually seen with Slow Bo.

Having said all this, I remind Badger fans that we are in an era of unprecedented Badger basketball success. The regular NCAA appointments started in 1994 under Stu Jackson, and picked up in earnest when Dick Bennett arrived in 1997. Before Jackson, the Badgers last played in the NCAA in 1947. My parents were in grade school at the time. In my five years at UW, the Badgers got to .500 exactly once. We thought that might be enough to get an NIT berth. It didn’t happen.

A couple years ago, I did a bracket based on Ken Pomeroy‘s efficiency rankings. Efficiency is an interesting concept, because it tries to create, through statistics whether team A might beat team B based on something other than offensive points per game and defensive points per game.

This year, I decided to do three of those — first based only on offensive efficiency …

… which has what would be a remarkable result — Creighton defeating Kansas to win the national championship.

Another bracket is based on defensive efficiency …

… with Arizona defeating Virginia Commonwealth (coached by Oregon native Shaka Smart) winning the national title.

Bracket number three is where the most efficient team — offensive efficiency minus defensive efficiency — wins.

This bracket has fourth-seed Louisville winning the national championship over Florida. This is not out of the realm of reality, given that at least the CBS Sports selection show experts thought the Cardinals got a ridiculously low seed.

Truth be told, I’m not sure I buy any of those brackets, even though I’m interested in the efficiency concept. It’s true that Wisconsin isn’t exactly a stellar defensive team under Ryan’s usual standards, but do you really think 15th-seed American is going to beat them? Creighton has, as Sports Illustrated will tell you, one player of note — Doug McDermott (son of coach Greg), currently averaging 26.9 points per game. I’m not sure very many NCAA tournament games are won by one player, unless McDermott has Danny Manning-style performances every night, when you know whoever the Bluejays play will be working overtime figuring out how to stop McDermott.

I started to do a bracket that took each team’s offensive and defensive efficiency and figured offense vs. defense for each team, but it came up with 16th-seed Weber State beating number-one-seed Arizona, and stopped. Some year a 16th seed will defeat a number one seed, but not this year.

The problem is that statistics as they currently exist are better explainers than predictors. They can show how a team did over an entire season or a stretch of games. They can’t really predict what happens if the star player gets into foul trouble, or the team suddenly goes cold from the field, or someone gets hurt. Statistics cannot predict intangibles, and intangibles often win games between relatively even teams.

What wins in the NCAAs, I’d argue, is coaching. Which is why I’m picking Louisville, despite its fourth seed, to win another national title over Florida, whose coach Billy Donovan has won two national titles, which is as many as Louisville coach Rick Pitino (former coach of player Donovan).

Seeing as how state tournament basketball is on the mind this week …

One thing that will always generate arguments is how any state tournament is arranged. If you have one tournament for all regardless of size, it will be seen as unfair that schools have to compete with schools 10 to 20 times their enrollment. How teams get in will be argued ad infinitum. Should teams be lined up in some random order, or should they be arranged based on record?

The state basketball tournament was just one class for its first nearly 60 years (except just before World War II). The movie “Hoosiers” was about a tiny high school taking on a big urban high school in the Indiana state championship — something that usually didn’t happen because larger schools would knock out the small school on the way to state. That’s why Reedsville and Dodgeville are fondly remembered by long-time Wisconsin high school basketball fans, because they were Wisconsin’s “Hickory.”

If you look at the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association’s state tournament records, you will see some odd team records — that a school was 1-2 at state one particular year. That’s because the state tournament used to include winners’ and losers’ brackets. Every participant apparently was guaranteed two games in some years. It’s not clear when the loser’s bracket was eliminated and the tournament played as a single-elimination format from subregional to state, but that was addition by subtraction, because the won-or-done format makes the postseason so great and so heartbreaking.

The tournament went to two classes in 1973, three classes in 1975, and four divisions in 1991. When classes started to be added, the largest class — first Class A, then Division 1 — had eight teams, whereas the other classes or divisions had four teams each. This changed when Division 5 was added; now, all five divisions have four state participants, after a one-year experiment with Division I “super-sectionals” (a game played between the sectional final and the start of state) an idea that should have been dropped before it was introduced.

The Wisconsin State Journal held a debate between two sportswriters, the Racine Journal–Times’ Gery Woelful and the State Journal’s Rob Hernandez, on the merits of the five-division final four:

First, Woelful:

Once again, WIAA’s inept decision to reduce the number of Division 1 schools in the state tournament from eight to four is rearing its ugly head. Just like last year’s tournament, schools in the basketball-rich Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha area are getting short-changed.

Last year, there were five teams in the Horlick Sectional that were ranked in the Associated Press state poll, including three of the top seven. Only one advanced to state.

This year, it’s even worse. There were four teams among the AP’s top 10 Division 1 teams assigned to the West Allis Central Sectional and two others that received votes. Brookfield Central is No. 1; Milwaukee King is fourth; Case is ninth; Milwaukee Hamilton is 10th, and Park and Milwaukee Riverside each received one point in the voting by a statewide media panel.

It is an absolute farce that either Brookfield Central or Milwaukee King — again, the Nos. 1 and 4 teams in the AP state poll and the Nos. 1 and 2 teams in the WisSports.net state poll — won’t even reach the sectional final as they’ll play each other Thursday night in a sectional semifinal.

Like last year, there isn’t another sectional in the state that remotely boasts so many exceptional teams — and yet just one of them will go to Madison for the state tournament.

If the WIAA truly cared about giving the prep basketball fans throughout the state the best and most entertaining state tournament, it would never have reduced the number of D-1 schools in the state tournament in 2011 just to establish an unnecessary fifth division.

Hernandez counters:

The WIAA’s courageous decision to right a wrong and give what once were small, overmatched Division 1 schools a fighting chance to get to the state boys basketball tournament as newly minted Division 2 schools has restored some excitement to the WIAA’s most-followed tournament. Did you see some of the results of Saturday’s Division 2 regional championships?

Mount Horeb outlasted Monona Grove in two overtimes. Sauk Prairie won a double overtime battle with Reedsburg. La Crosse Central also needed a pair of extra sessions to pull away from Mississippi Valley Conference rival Holmen.

Of the 16 games played in Division 2 on Saturday night, five of them needed at least one overtime to determine a winner. Of the other 11, seven were decided by fewer than 10 points.

More importantly, five of the 16 Division 2 winners Saturday night (Rhinelander, Greendale, Milwaukee Tech, Milwaukee Pius XI and La Crosse Central) were Division 1 teams in 2010 — the final year of the four-division WIAA tournament series, when eight teams comprised the largest division. Two other regional champions (Sauk Prairie and Shawano) had been Division 1 teams at some point during the final years of the four-division format.

Of those seven, only two — Pius in 2005 and Rhinelander in 2001 — ever made trips to state as Division 1 schools after 1995. That tells me the WIAA’s control of enrollment ranges in place the last three years are working. …

When I started paying attention to high school basketball, Class A consisted of schools of 800 or more in enrollment, with Class B 400 to 800, and Class C smaller than 400. That changed to where Class A was the 128 biggest schools, with B and C splitting the rest. That modification meant that every Class A school would have the same number of games to get to state — regional semifinals and finals, followed by sectional semifinals and finals — because Class A was supposed to represent about half of statewide student enrollment (which is not the same thing as half of the number of high schools). Some Class C schools needed six games — two subregionals, two regionals and two sectionals — jammed into 11 days to go to state.

With any postseason format, of course, there will be schools that benefit and schools that don’t. Twice during the 1980s I saw Monona Grove — the smallest team in what then was the Badger Conference — get routinely hammered in the conference season, only to face schools its own size in the Class B postseason and go farther than one would have expected.

When the four-division format began in 1991, divisions 1 and 2 had roughly the same number of schools each, and divisions 3 and 4 had roughly the same (but more than 1 or 2) number of schools each. That resulted in the oddity that some Division 1 schools could get to state having played just three pre-state games. What fixed that was the inclusion, starting in 2000, of private schools from the former Wisconsin Independent Schools Athletic Association. Letting in the private schools meant that the divisions were increased in size from the bottom, because most private schools are considerably smaller than their public-school neighbors. (More about private schools later.) Interestingly given the trend of decreasing high-school-age population, especially in rural areas, the number of Wisconsin high schools has actually increased. The trend of small school districts merging really hasn’t gone beyond the wave in the ’50s and ’60s. (I can think of three in the past 25 years — two are Blair-Taylor and River Ridge, which was the former West Grant and Bloomington. Ondassagon closed, though they went out with a bang by sending their last girls basketball team to state.) Some religious schools have opened, other religious schools now have sports programs, and the growth of Milwaukee charter schools means nearly every year features at least one team you’ve never heard of in the brackets.

The teams that generally don’t fare well are those at the bottom of their division. Prentice’s girls basketball team won the 1992 Division 4 title, only to be bumped up to Division 3 one year later, to lose to Cuba City. While I was covering the winning Cubans’ festivities, Mrs. Presteblog was listening to Prentice coach Joe Foytek say that “Cuba City doesn’t belong in Division 3, and neither do we.” In contrast, when Ripon won two state football titles in three years, the Tigers’ players, coaches and fans were relieved that they were one of the bigger Division 4 schools instead of one of the smallest Division 3 schools.

In the next to last year before the four-division basketball tournament, I announced a regional final between the top two boys’ basketball teams in Class C, number one ranked Bloomington and number two ranked Iowa–Grant. I–G was about twice the enrollment of Bloomington, and I–G won. (The regional final was in I–G’s gym, which undoubtedly also helped.) Going to four divisions didn’t help Prentice, because enrollments change — not only your schools’ head count, but everyone else’s.

The four-division format was intended to address the complaints of the smallest schools by giving them their own division. At the same time, though, the smallest Division 1 schools complained that they had almost no chance to go to state because they too were playing schools twice their own size in the playoffs. That was dealt with to some extent by going to five divisions, though as you’ve already read, some still don’t think the right teams (read: Milwaukee teams) are getting to state.

The truth is that the more deserving teams, based on their regular season performances, are probably getting to state now than in the past. Seeding teams by regional or half-sectional, with higher seeds hosting through the regional finals, means that tournament upsets are less likely, though certainly not impossible, particularly when conference rivals meet for the third time in the postseason. Going to neutral-site sectional games is also more fair. (Madison La Follette may not have gotten to state had its epic sectional semifinal against crosstown rival Madison West been played at West, or somewhere else.)

Woelful’s comments about not enough Milwaukee teams going to state — despite the presence at state of Whitefish Bay Dominican in Division 4, Brown Deer in Division 3, Wisconsin Lutheran and Greendale in Division 2, and Germantown, Milwaukee King and Mukwonago in Division 1 — bring up a motivation for going from four divisions to five. One reason the WIAA went to five divisions was to stop the trend of decreasing state attendance. You’ll never get a WIAA official to admit this, but Milwaukee teams do not draw well at state. Madison-area schools do draw well at state, but Lodi in Division 3 is the only school remotely close to Madison at state. So if you read about a drop in state attendance, that’s why.

Here’s another potential reason, something I can’t believe the WIAA didn’t consider. The old format featured 16 games — seven (four quarterfinals, two semifinals and one championship game) in Division 1 and three each (two semifinals and one championship) in the other three divisions, in eight sessions — Thursday and Friday morning, afternoon and evening, and Saturday afternoon and evening. Going to five divisions eliminates one game, but more importantly one session (Thursday morning), which means, since tickets are sold for two games per session, one fewer opportunity to sell tickets, concessions and WIAA swag. (The divisions 5 through 3 championships are Saturday during the day, and the division 2 and 1 title games are Saturday night.)

It seems to me that if the WIAA is concerned about revenue, the WIAA needs to re-expand Division 1 to eight teams. That most likely would mean adding two Wednesday sessions, expanding the tournament to four days, and adding four teams’ fans (and their wallets) to the Madison mix. Another possibility would be going, somehow, to three sessions on Wednesday and four sessions on Friday, which probably would mean starting at 8 a.m. and ending around midnight, similar to the night NCAA basketball tournament games held in the Eastern time zone.

The other possibility that comes to mind is a week-long state tournament similar to Iowa, whose state tournament has four eight-team divisions. State started Monday and ends Saturday, with third-place and championship games today and Saturday. (However, only semifinal and final games are live on TV, on a network that could be described as statewide in name only. I’m not sure you could get the WIAA TV network to agree to carry 24 games and dump their prime-time schedules for two entire weeks.)

Meanwhile, the Wisconsin State Journal’s Art Kabelkowsky reports:

A petition to add a multiplier to private school enrollments for the purpose of division classification has been signed on by at least 10 percent of the WIAA membership, setting the stage for a vote on the issue at the April 16 annual meeting — the one time and place where constitutional amendments can be approved.

The Board of Control approved the petition Tuesday to present the proposed constitutional amendment to its membership at the annual meeting.

The petition calls for the actual enrollment number of every WIAA-member private, religious or independent school to be multiplied by 1.65. The resulting number would be considered that school’s official WIAA enrollment for placement into enrollment-based divisions for postseason play.

The enrollment multiplier would shift several private schools into higher divisions (and some public schools into lower divisions) across the entire spectrum of sports — from football to basketball to track and field and more.

For instance, it appears if the 1.65 enrollment multiplier had been applied to this year’s five-division basketball postseason:

• Three Division 2 schools (Milwaukee Pius XI, Green Bay Notre Dame and Wisconsin Lutheran) would move up to Division 1.

• Five schools (Madison Edgewood, Appleton Fox Valley Lutheran, Milwaukee St. Thomas More, Watertown Luther Prep and all-girls Milwaukee St. Joan Antida) would move up from Division 3 to Division 2.

• Fifteen private schools would jump from Division 4 to Division 3, and a similar number would move up from Division 5 to Division 4.

Changes would appear to be even more prevalent in the seven-division football playoff series.

Public- and private-school representatives have been debating the possibility of introducing an enrollment multiplier since the WIAA first began to discuss admitting the members of the former Wisconsin Independent Schools Athletic Association.

WISAA schools first were absorbed into the WIAA membership in the 2000-2001 school year. No enrollment multiplier has been applied — although schools have had the opportunity to “opt up” into a higher enrollment division for particular sports.

Notice that state has seven Milwaukee schools? Well, state has five private schools — Green Bay’s NEW Lutheran and Sheboygan Area Lutheran in Division 5, Whitefish Bay Dominican in Division 4, and Wisconsin Lutheran in Division 2 — and could have three private-school state champions. Once upon a time, about 10 percent of the state’s high schools were private, so having one-fourth of the state field be from private schools offends some observers’ sense of proportionality.

The issue, of course, has to do with the small private schools from large areas — not just NEW Lutheran or Dominican, but Burlington Catholic Central (which draws from a much larger area than Burlington), and schools still in the state girls field heading into Saturday’s sectional finals, including Green Bay Notre Dame and Milwaukee Pius XI in Division 2; Kettle Moraine Lutheran in Division 3; Eau Claire Regis, Onalaska Luther, Fond du Lac Springs (which beat Oshkosh Lourdes Thursday) and Dominican (which beat Racine Prairie Thursday) in Division 4; and Wisconsin Rapids Assumption (which beat Wausau Newman Thursday) and Milwaukee Heritage Christian in Division 5. Each of those schools is from a community with Division 1 or Division 2 schools (Fond du Lac High School and Wisconsin Rapids Lincoln are two of the biggest high schools in the state), and thus a huge potential enrollment base, playing against schools from areas of the state in keeping with their small enrollments. On the other hand, the number of private schools that do well in athletics is considerably smaller than the number of private schools, and trying to handicap the former will result in crushing at least some of the latter when schools that really don’t belong together end up playing each other in an early-round game.

If you notice a similarity between the how-many-schools-at-state argument, the how-big-should-the-divisions-be argument and the public-vs.-private-at-state argument, you are an observant reader. It should bother even the most enthusiastic high school basketball fan that the question of who belongs at state is a question whose answer depends on whom you ask and that person’s definition of the word “fair.” Life is not fair in even a general sense, and there is no way to make a high school sports postseason “fair” because of the obvious mutually exclusive goals.

Obsessing about who should go to state also loses sight of the fact that, as an educational experience (which high school sports is supposed to be), the journey is more important than the destination. Getting to state requires winning four or five consecutive games, with no slip-ups and no bad nights. At the risk of offending my 1979-83 self, who was not happy the two years La Follette missed state and the year La Follette lost in the state semifinal, the objective should be to get to state, regardless of how you decide who goes to state. To win state is a great goal, but if you think your season is a failure because you didn’t win state, you’re probably going to experience a lot of disappointment in your life.