This weekend, girls basketball teams from the North Peninsula in Neah Bay, Clallam Bay, Port Angeles and Port Townsend, will be traveling to various gyms in Tacoma, Mount Vernon and Puyallup area for their state regional round of 16 games.
Port Townsend’s trip isn’t too crazy, the Redhawks only have to travel 50 miles plus a short ferry ride to their regionals matchup at Mount Vernon High School against Nooksack Valley at 8 p.m. Friday.
Neah Bay has the longest trip of all, having to go 184 miles to its regional game at Rogers High School in Puyallup. Port Angeles must travel 106 miles to its game at Mount Tahoma in Tacoma.
The regional games are supposed to be at a neutral site, so it’s fine that the local teams have to hit the road. What’s bothersome about this is there’s plenty of venues available in Kitsap County — Bainbridge, North Kitsap, Olympic and Bremerton all have usable venues. Why does the state insist on always making the North Peninsula teams travel to Tacoma and beyond when sometimes it doesn’t seem necessary?
Neah Bay and Port Angeles are both higher seeds heading into the regionals, yet will face three- to four-hour road trips to their games. Port Angeles’ foe, Archbishop Murphy, only needs to go 60 miles down I-5, while Neah Bay’s opponent, Selkirk, is located near the Idaho/British Columbia corner of Washington and has to drive for hours no matter what. It seems fairer to the higher seeds to not make them drive quite so far. And games in Bremerton are not exactly de facto home games.
Anyway, I wish it was something the West Central District, which offers up the regional sites and has only selected locations in Tacoma, Auburn, Puyallup and Kent, never west of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, and the WIAA would look at.
Expand the Big Dance?
While we’re on the subject of things I would change, it’s starting to feel like it’s time to expand the field of the men’s NCAA basketball tournament.
I don’t know how much political will there is to expand the NCAA tournament. I Googled it and found out it’s been discussed off and on since 2010. But I don’t think there’s serious discussions about it at the moment. Time to get serious.
I was struck by a column I read a couple of weeks ago suggesting that the Washington Huskies are a “bubble team” for the tournament. They’re a bubble team at 18-9, playing in a Power Five conference such as the Pac-12 (which admittedly, is a little down this year)?
The Huskies are a lock to win more than 20 games in the Pac-12 and might not make the NCAA? Personally, I think they will make it regardless of whether they win the Pac-12 tournament, but I just keep reading that it’s not a sure thing.
And poor Seattle U. The Redhawks are quietly having an outstanding season at 19-9, but unless they win the Western Athletic Conference, they have zero chance of making the tournament.
Gonzaga is a lock for the tournament, as is Saint Mary’s, my best friend’s school. But, poor BYU, having an outstanding season at 21-8, probably gets left out of the NCAA.
And maybe I have a Bulldog in the fight, as my Fresno State team is 19-8 in the Mountain West with zero chance of making the NCAA unless it somehow beats Nevada and wins the Mountain West Conference tournament.
It used to be 20 wins was virtually automatic for making the NCAA tournament. In fact, there were usually some 16-12, 17-11 teams in the tournament out of the ACC. Now, not so much.
The reasons why?
* Everyone wins 20 games nowadays. Teams from the big conferences fatten up on cupcakes preconference to make sure they enter conference play 10-1 or 10-2. So, some ACC team goes a mediocre 9-9 in confrence, wins a conference tournament game and they’ve got their 20 wins and a No. 9 seed in the Big Dance.
* More teams than ever playing Division 1A. There’s more than 340 teams now playing Division 1A, with only 68 slots available for the tournament. That’s less than 20 percent of the teams in Division 1A. Thirty-two of those slots come from conference tournament champions, so only 36 slots are available for teams that don’t win their conference tournament.
And seriously, at least nine of those 36 slots will go just to ACC schools. At least 20 will come out of the Big 10, Big 12, Big East and SEC. That doesn’t leave much for the Seattle Us and Fresno States of the world. If you’re not in one of these conferences, you could go 28-4 and if you don’t win your conference tournament, tough luck.
By comparison, there’s roughly 40 bowl games … for only 130 Division 1A football programs. That means 61.5 percent of Division 1A schools gets to go to a bowl game. As opposed to less than 20 percent of the Division 1A basketball teams going to the NCAA tournament.
I get it that there’s more than one tournament, but let’s be honest, the NIT and CBI are just not that prestigious. And a lot of pretty good 25-win teams end up falling into the NIT and don’t get much postseason attention.
My humble proposal — You don’t have to go crazy here to begin with. Expand the tournament from 68 to 80 teams. Give 48 teams seeded one through 12 a first-round bye and have the 32 No. 13 through No. 20 seeds play a first round contest. That drops the tournament from 80 to 64 teams after the first round.
That way teams like UW and Seattle U and, yes, Fresno State have a better shot at making the tournament.
Maybe if that works out, you could expand the tournament to 96 teams later. Admittedly, that would probably kill the NIT, but let’s be honest … how many people would really notice?
