WIAA revises format for basketball tournaments

RENTON, Wash. – The WIAA has announced that its executive board voted to implement a change in format to the boys and girls state basketball tournament, while also voting to uphold the sanctions imposed by the SeaKing District 2 board on Bellevue High School football.

The changes to the state basketball tournament will increase the number of teams at each championship site from eight to 12 for each classification. With the expansion to 12 teams, approximately 500 more students will be able to experience competing at the final site of a WIAA state basketball championship. The updated format will maintain regional games for round one, which have proven to be a great attraction for local fans. Final tournament sites will remain the same with the 1B and 2B tournament at the Spokane Arena, the 1A and 2A tournament at the Yakima Valley SunDome and the 3A and 4A tournament at the Tacoma Dome.

In addition to the format change, the WIAA will implement a rating percentage index system to seed the 16 teams that qualify for the first round of the tournament at regional sites. The State Basketball Format Committee will continue to refine the details of the system, which will not be used in the qualification to regional sites, only as a seeding tool after the qualifiers are in place. The WIAA districts will continue to control their respective qualifying tournaments to determine the 16 teams for each classification.

Both the new format and rating system will go into effect for the upcoming 2016-17 season.

Specifics of the new format are as follows:

The 16 teams per classification will play at regional sites on Friday or Saturday of week one. Four games involving the top eight seeds based on index rankings will be played with the winner advancing to the second round at the championship site with a bye while the losing team still advances to the first round at the championship site. The other four games involving seeds nine through 16 will be loser-out contests. Winners of those games will play the losers of the four games involving seeds one through eight. Round one games of week two (Wednesday) will be single elimination, and the tournament will continue with an eight-team modified double elimination format in rounds two through four (Thursday through Saturday) of week two. Six trophies will be awarded per gender per classification. A bracket example can be found at WIAA.com.

The format was voted upon by the WIAA executive board after gathering feedback from administrators and coaches around the state via an online survey and from the community. The format selected was the most popular among survey participants, and 71 percent of participants were in favor of using a rating percentage index to seed tournament teams.

Statement on Bellevue High School football sanctions

As part of the WIAA approval process regarding sanction, the WIAA executive board approved all sanctions imposed by the nine different WIAA district boards. Included in those approvals was the executive board’s decision to uphold the sanctions imposed by the SeaKing District 2 board. Per item five of the SeaKing District 2 board ruling, the WIAA executive board has directed staff to begin discussions with the Bellevue School District and Bellevue High School regarding additional concerns raised by the league in regard to alleged recruiting violations.