There’s a lot not to like about RPI and how it is being rolled out to seed teams in the high school state basketball tournaments — a lot.
But I’ll give the WIAA this much — it made the last few days way more entertaining.
In past seasons, teams would play in their district tournaments, winning their way into the state tournament. But once they did that, they — and all of us — had to wait around until the WIAA released the state bracket to find out which teams would be matched up in the regional round.
The WIAA kept the state bracket from being made public until all district games were played because there were concerns that if teams knew the state bracket in advance, they might decide to intentionally lose seeding games in the district tournament to improve their draw into state.
But with this new RPI system, that was impossible for a couple of reasons.
First of all, since postseason games weren’t factored into the RPI rankings, winning or losing some district games would have no impact on a team’s seeding.
But even if postseason games had been counted into the RPI, it would still be nearly impossible to attempt to manipulate the bracket because the potential seeds into state were constantly changing depending on which teams qualified for state.
Because of that, you had teams, fans and media from Southwest Washington paying attention to district tournaments being played in just about every corner of the state.
And that was cool, certainly much better than waiting around for someone at the WIAA office to pull teams out of a hat.
So while there is plenty of room for improvement in the new RPI system – we’ll talk more about that next week – in this one regard, it was an improvement over the old system.
Now let’s take a look at the matchups for local teams in next weekend’s regional round of the state tournaments.
But first, there are some things to remember about this year’s format:
First, the teams seeded No. 1 through No. 8 will play non-elimination games in the regional round. The winners of these games will get a bye into the state quarterfinals at the final state tournament sites. The losers will advance to the round of 12 games at final state tournament sites.
The games between teams seeded No. 9 to No. 16 will play elimination game this weekend, with winners advancing to the round of 12.
Secondly, in previous years, there was a rule that prevented teams from the same qualifying tournament from meeting in the first round of state. That rule no longer applies. Because of that, teams that played last week in a district tournament could meet again in the regional round of state.
In 4A boys, Kentwood beat Federal Way for the bi-district title on Saturday. Those two teams will meet again Friday in a regional game.
And lastly, because in 3A there are still some crossover games to be played Tuesday, all of the 3A boys and girls games won’t be set until those games are played. This impacts the Prairie girls.
Regional round games of the state basketball tournaments
Winners to quarterfinals/losers to round of 12
4A BOYS: (1) Union vs. (8) Enumclaw, 6 p.m. Saturday at Battle Ground HS
1A BOYS: (6) La Center vs. (3) Zillah, 6 p.m. Saturday at AC Davis HS, Yakima
4A GIRLS: (8) Camas vs. (1) Kentlake, 4 p.m. Saturday at Rogers HS, Puyallup
2A GIRLS: (6) Washougal vs. (3) White River, 2 p.m. Saturday at Rogers HS, Puyallup
1A GIRLS: (7) La Center vs. (2) Lynden Christian, 2 p.m. at Mount Vernon HS
Winners to round of 12 / losers out
2A BOYS: (12) Woodland vs. (13) Foss, 4 p.m. Saturday at Battle Ground HS
1A BOYS: (9) King’s Way Christian vs. (16) Vashon Island, 2 p.m. Saturday at Battle Ground HS
3A GIRLS: (13) Prairie vs. (12) Seattle Prep, 8 p.m. Friday at Bellevue College; OR (14) Prairie vs. (11) West Seattle, noon Saturday at Bellevue College. Match-up is determined by Tuesday crossover between Rainier Beach and Mount Spokane. If Rainier Beach wins, Prairie faces West Seattle; If Mount Spokane wins, Prairie faces Seattle Prep.
Tim Martinez is the assistant sports editor/prep coordinator for The Columbian. He can be reached at 360-735-4538, tim.martinez@columbian.com or follow his Twitter handle @360TMart.
