Fixing The WIAA Basketball Tournaments

 How can we fix both the boys and girls basketball tournaments? Well, I'm glad you asked -- even if you didn't.

Watched some of the very entertaining tournaments. Was especially taken by that 4OT game between Neenah (in a state-high 30th trip to the tourney) and Hartland Arrowhead. A shame either team had to lose.  Arrowhead posted a 99-95 win, combing with Neenah to set a state tournament scoring record with 194 points. The previous record? Set back in 1967 in the Class A quarterfinals when Milwaukee Lincoln topped La Crosse Central 109-71. Lincoln (25-1) would beat Wausau (23-2) for the championship 61-56.

But back to fixing the state tournaments. Growing up in rural Wisconsin, attending a small high school (only one class of enrollment back then, soon to expand to three and, ultimately, to the five now) -- well, it was an us against them mentality in high school sports.

Now for rural schools it's an us against THEM situation. Or rather, public schools jockeying for position against private schools that can recruit the best area talent and stack the deck. In the boys tournament, eight of the 20 competing teams were private schools, with six of those in the smaller divisions (D-5, D-4 and D-3). And with the exception of Mineral Point winning in D-4, every other champion crowned represented a private school.

The numbers weren't quite as bad in the girls tourney, where only five of the 20 teams was a private school, and only one (Madison Edgewood, beating Appleton Xavier) claimed a title.

Just how fair is that for the small, rural schools of Wisconsin to go against schools that can recruit? Take a team from the neck of the woods where I grew up, Almond-Bancroft, making its first ever trip to the state tournament. This might well be the best collection of area athletes they will ever assemble, while Madison Abundant Life will be able to recruit from Madison and Dane County.

My solution? While the divisions are based on enrollment, I would bump the private schools up one division when it comes to playoffs. Leveling the playing field, so to speak, for small rural schools and giving them a better chance to at least make it to Madison (and Green Bay, for the girls tourney).

While we're at it, let's expand the D-1 back to eight teams from four and make it more interesting the the Big Guys. Winning three games in three days is tough to do. Hell, playing a 4-Overtime game on Friday night, then turning around and playing Saturday night, had to be very challenging for Arrowhead. It showed in their loss to Milwaukee Marquette.

Speaking of making it interesting, the WIAA did just that for eventual D-2 champion Wisconsin Lutheran, didn't it? Shipping some schools over to the Madison Sectional, the WIAA split up conference foes Wisconsin Lutheran and Pewaukee. Both met in the title game, with Lutheran winning, but certainly giving them a little bit better path to Madison.

Former LSU coach Dale Brown, who succeeded Press Maravich in 1972 and led the Tigers for 25 years, once reportedly charted every shot Maravich took in college and found that had there been a 3-point line, Maravich would have averaged 57 points per game.

So another publisher has bought Sports Illustrated and intends to continue with the print magazine. Happy to hear it, but how much the subscription for six issues or so will be remains to be seen.