The Illinois High School Association (IHSA) has faced a bit of criticism after their new format update to the boys and girls state basketball tournaments.
This was the first time all four classes (1A, 2A, 3A and 4A) played in the same weekend at the same venue. The state semifinals and championship was set at Illinois State University for the girls over the past weekend.
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This meant that 16 teams played a total of 16 games during a 3-day span. Each of the 16 teams was guaranteed to play two games. Win and they go to the championship, lose and they play in the third-place game.
The kicker is that the third-place games were on the same night as the semifinal games. Meaning, that if a particular team, Civic Memorial, for example, lost their semifinal, they would have to play in the third-place game later on that night.
That’s exactly what happened to CM and head coach Mike Arbuthnot spoke about it postgame.
“It’s tough, it really is. Now you know earlier in the year at Thanksgiving tournaments we played two-in-one but after that, we never had to. Could some of these injuries be a product of that? I don’t know.”
He’s referring to when his player, junior guard Aubree Wallace, suffered a rather serious-looking knee injury during their third-place game.
Like Arbuthnot said, it is not for certain that playing two games in one day causes more injuries, but there is just no need to put players in that sort of situation, to begin with, and that is what some people are upset about.
A couple of girls from Morton High School spoke about it postgame saying that there should be no two-a-days in the state tournament and that the IHSA should rethink their format.
Arbuthnot is sure that they can tweak some things to make it better. He was disappointed that his team wasn’t able to have a shoot-around inside Redbird Arena before their games. He mentioned that it’s hard for those girls to go from a small 1,500-2,000 seat school gym and step into a massive 15,000-seat arena and act like everything is normal.
“It’s one thing that I hope that they change in the future. Because getting these kids in here the day before, even for just 30 minutes, makes a big difference.”
By no way was Arbuthnot making excuses for his team, but he has a point.
Teams weren’t able to have shoot arounds because the venue had too many games to get through, there was simply not enough time for everyone to have the court to practice.
It seemed as if the IHSA tried to cram a few too many games into one weekend.
There are solutions, however.
They can go back to what they used to do in years prior and basically cut it in half having 1A/2A teams one weekend and 3A/4A teams the next. Another option would be to extend the tournament another day either into Sunday or starting a day earlier on Wednesday. I know they want everyone to be included, but they could also do away with the third-place game entirely.
We’ll have to wait until next year to see what changes they make. The boys' tournament is set up in the same format this weekend and is being held at State Farm Center in Champaign, Illinois.
