Jim Walker

jim.walker@irontontribune.com

 

The computer era has reached the high school basketball tournament.

Many districts throughout Ohio have been conducting their sectional tournament voting online and the Southeast District joined the party this year.

Two weeks ago the girls’ coaches began their voting process that concluded last Sunday while the boys’ coaches started their process last Monday with the results posted this past Sunday.

The online voting is the first step toward a super sectional in which all teams in the district will be seeded one through 30 or however many teams in the district. Games would then be played at various sites instead of three predetermined sites.

This year, coaches went online and posted their team biography from 12:01 a.m. on Sunday until 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday. Coaches would list their record, quality wins and losses, and any other information pertinent to their team.

From 12:01 a.m. Thursday until 11:59 p.m. on Friday coaches would cast their votes. The final totals were compiled and the coaches met on Sunday to get a print out of the voting by each school and the pairings.

Two of the problems with the seeding are coaches not looking each other face-to-face when voting and the voting has a point system.

The girls’ coach whose team had a losing record but voted herself a No. 1 seed in order to get more points and a higher seed, thus avoiding a game against a team her team had lost to twice this season.

While that unethical act should be handled by school administrators, the district will need to take steps to correct that issue and help avoid it in the future.

Overall, the idea of seeding all the district teams will help the better teams to advance.

In the past, the best teams in the district have been at the Jackson High School sectional and one good team will eliminate another while at another sectional there are teams who are inferior to the teams at the Jackson sectional who get to advance because of the lack of quality teams.