BOUNCE: Do we need conference tournaments? And how would you seed them?

Remember the days of the SAC Holiday Tournament? Such fond memories of days gone by.

Yes, I know it hasn’t been gone that long and that the ACAC and NECC still hit us with (sort of) mid-season tournaments. But since the demise of the SAC Tournament, for whatever reason, there seems to be a void.

Towards the end of its run, the SAC Holiday Tournament had people questioning if we even needed a league-wide event in the middle of the schedule.

We’ve always had alternatives even when the SAC was shining alongside the ACAC and NECC and still do now. The Champions of Character Classic at Grace College and the Parkview Sports Medicine Holiday Shootout have both done wonderful in helping fill the void, even if they aren’t actual tournaments but rather single-day shootouts.

But a wild gym the week before Christmas, be it at Wayne High School or the Memorial Coliseum or the old IPFW…was just different; especially those tourneys in the final years at Wayne.

But do we need these tournaments? Well, ‘need’ is subjective. We don’t need them, but should we have them? Absolutely. Even in the current incarnations of the NECC and ACAC tournaments, there is a different kind of excitement for a few days. It is a break from how your season is going – good or bad – and a chance to move the needle for your players and/or your team.

When the SAC was still going with its annual holiday event, I preferred their format. It was multiple days at the same facility. It enabled everyone in the conference to see everyone else and fans to do the same. Whether it was scouting, just watching, players seeing their friends…it was all in one centralized location and Wayne and its athletic director Gary Raber did a tremendous job of making it special in the closing years.

That is a thing that is lacking in the ACAC and NECC with games being played at schools all across the conference, with only the finals in a single location. Sure, there were some games with lackluster crowds at the SAC Holiday Tournament. That just came with the territoty of 9 a.m. weekday games. But to have everyone under one roof made sense.

In the NECC and ACAC, most schools are so far apart that you can’t catch a girls game at 6 p.m. and make it to another tournament spot for a boys game at 7:30 p.m. Having it all under one roof certainly had its perks for fans, coaches, teams, families and media alike.

That format also makes sense compared to the other local tourneys that follow the path of either a girls winning team or boys winning team. So you could have, for example, a school with a really good boys team not getting the luxury of hosting a tournament game because you’ve followed the girls winning path, even if that school’s girls team is no longer in the tournament.

One roof, multiple days. The SAC used Wayne.

The NE8 has options with Huntington North being the clear favorite.

The ACAC moves their finals around a good deal, but South Adams was great and Bluffton is a really underrated facility.

In the NECC, there are so many nice gyms to pick. I’d roll with Westview for such an event, though Garrett isn’t a bad facility either.

So, by my edict (the only one that matters, mind you), it’s clear that we should have these tournaments. They are fun and provide different looks than the regular season.

Kudos to the ACAC for doing it for soooo long and the NECC for being destination viewing too, though I don’t prefer that those two overlap on the calendar.

If you’ve read my columns before, you know I want the SAC to come back with their tournament. And don’t even get me started on how the Northeast 8, the absolute easiest league to have a tournament with, has never had one. I mean, there are eight teams, it is the easiest one to draw up a bracket for. No byes, just good ol’ regular head-to-head, win three games for a title.

Speaking of those brackets, let’s talk seeding. How do you do it? Which method is right? Which is wrong? How early do you seed the tournaments?

Below is how it was or is done and how they would likely be seeded this season if all four area leagues had in-season tournaments.

The Sagarin Ratings is probably the most fair, if you can hold off on seeding long enough to get a good enough sample size.

If the SAC Holiday Tournament still existed, it would probably take place December 27-30 this year. If you seeded it based on December 18’s Sagarin, I think you have enough data to make it work.

With the current status of the ACAC and NECC Tournaments in January, there is more than enough Sagarin data to seed pretty fairly.

THE SAC

For a long time, the SAC was seeded by the votes of coaches. This was essentially a preseason vote and most of the time, it was pretty solid. Then, shortly before it ended, the SAC Holiday Tournament became seeded by Sagarin, which had its ups and downs.

With the girls starting earlier than the boys, there was much more information to be digested on one side, while the boys was usually determined after only a couple games, which a few times led to weird seeding.

If you seeded the SAC today based on Sagarin, the boys side would be seeded in this order, with the top two teams getting byes: Wayne, Carroll, North Side, Bishop Luers, Homestead, Snider, South Side, Concordia, Dwenger, Northrop.

Literally my only complaint would be moving Dwenger up to eight, switching places with Concordia. It keeps Wayne and Carroll on opposite sides.

The girls side would look like this based on Sagarin: Snider, Homestead, Northrop, Bishop Luers, Carroll, Bishop Dwenger, Wayne, Concordia, South Side, North Side. That couldn’t be a more perfect seeding.

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THE NE8

The NE8 Tournament is a pipe dream. We’ve had holiday tournaments with a lot of NE8 teams and before that the NHC (the precursor conference). The old Huntington North/Columbia City Tournament did a good job of incorporating many of the conference teams.

If you seeded the NE8 today based on Sagarin, the boys side would be seeded in this order: East Noble, Columbia City, Bellmont, Leo, DeKalb, New Haven, Norwell, Huntington North.

Ok, so this one is the most problematic. East Noble doesn’t have enough data because of a 10-day layoff, but I’m probably only dropping them to the No. 4 seed. From there, I am perfectly fine with the rest of the top four because Columbia City has the most marquee win while Bellmont and Leo have just been solid and would be on the same side of the bracket to fight it out for the true No. 2 seed anyway.

The next four could go a lot of ways, but I would probably only flip Norwell to No. 6 and New Haven to No. 7 as Norwell has competed well but I think DeKalb has better overall wins.

The girls side would look like this based on Sagarin: Columbia City, Norwell, Bellmont, Huntington North, East Noble, Leo, DeKalb, New Haven.

The only two arguments here would be with Columbia City and Norwell swapping and East Noble and Huntington North doing the same.

Here is why I am ok with this draw: East Noble has had more success, while Huntington has played the more difficult schedule. It’s tougher to make that argument for CC/Norwell, but wins over Snider, Valpo and HSE are huge for Columbia City, despite the loss to Norwell. Then again, the Knights beat CC so, in a way, they have a degree of separation from those wins.

I would still swap the two powers, but that is the best thing about Sagarin, it’s a debate we don’t need to have. Either way, they are still the top two seeds and likely primed for a finals showdown, right?

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THE NECC

I am not a fan of the random draw. Much like the postseason, you risk not having your very best matchup at the end. Imagine if the NCAA did this and you end up with the best two teams playing in the Round of 64 in March Madness. It’s just not logical.

Even more peculiar is that the NECC announces its pairings WELL before the tournament. At any point in the last 8 months, you could have known that draw.

One of the tough things about this tournament is an 12 team bracket just looks weird, so seeding is more important because of the multiple byes.

If the NECC used Sagarin, this is what the boys side would look like as of today: Westview, Central Noble, Fairfield, Lakeland, West Noble, Angola, Fremont, Churubusco, Garrett, Eastside, Prairie Heights.

Again, not awful, even if we want to make moves. You can make the argument for Fairfield over Central Noble and I’d also claim Fremont over Angola and Garrett over ‘Busco. But there are still logical arguments to keep it as it is. One or two spots like this often doesn’t change a tournament. See below for the comparison of the actual tournament vs. how Sagarin would seed it:

So in reality, the top is much more stacked with Westview, Lakeland and Fairfield all on one side with Westview and Lakeland against each other. And while Sagarin would seed Lakeland No. 4, there are times this season you’d have considered these the two best teams on the boys side so you don’t want to see Westview and Lakeland against each other immediately. Also, the NECC’s format is strange to me because it doesn’t use traditional byes. The bottom half of this bracket has Sagarin-seeded teams No. 2, 5, 6, 9, 10 and 12, so it is certainly the much easier path.

This is what the girls side would look like with the Sagarin: Eastside, Fairfield, Central Noble, Fremont, Angola, Churubusco, Prairie Heights, Garrett, Westview, West Noble, Lakeland.

I don’t hate this one at all. Eastside and Fairfield, as of this writing, are both 10-1 and despite the eye test saying Fairfield is No. 1, Eastside has a strength of schedule 64 places higher, so I get this move for sure. I’d also move Garrett over Prairie Heights, but then I’m cool with this. See below for the comparison of the actual tournament vs. how Sagarin would seed it:

The bracket with Sagarin play isn’t completely offset from the actual one. Only change is Fairfield/Fremont line up in reality where in Sagarin Fairfield has to deal with Central Noble before the finals. But considering that the Falcons and Eastside are interchangeable in many ways, I don’t see the issue with them kind of flipping spots here. There are 4-5 teams on the NECC girls side who’d you consider could contend in this tournament right now and either way you go, one side has two and the other has three. NECC’s random draw for girls does actually work for me, but again that is completely just luck.

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THE ACAC

The ACAC uses a random draw to seed its January tournament as well. The results of that draw are still a mystery, which I think is a far better way of doing things than the NECC. Teams shouldn’t have the ability to prepare mentally for what lies ahead. That said, I am still not a fan of the random draw.

If the ACAC used Sagarin, the boys would be seeded as such, with the top seed receiving a bye: Adams Central, Jay County, Woodlan, Heritage, Bluffton, Southern Wells, South Adams.

With the exception of Southern Wells and South Adams likely swapping, that seeding looks pretty spot on.

The girls of the ACAC would look like this, again the top seed gets a bye: Jay County, Bluffton, Woodlan, Adams Central, South Adams, Heritage, Southern Wells.

Well, it makes sense to end this Sagarin seeding pitch with a perfect bracket, doesn’t it?

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In the end, it is simple in my eyes. Give me four conference tournaments, seed them with Sagarin rating in early December (or about 10 days from the tournament starting) and you have yourself a winning formula. Oh, and please play each conference in one gym and not the same week as each other. We all want to see the most basketball we can.

Now that I have said my conference tournament peace for this season, I feel a lot better. Don’t you?

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