IHSAA decides coaches will determine all postseason basketball seeds

CEDAR RAPIDS — Iowa prep basketball is going to look a lot more like Iowa prep wrestling. At least in one aspect.

The Board of Control of the Iowa High School Athletic Association has voted to allow coaches to determine district, substate and state tournament seeds in all classes. This will be done via seeding meetings conducted the first and second weeks in February.

Coaches seeding meetings, of course, are used for every wrestling tournament, sans the state meet.

'There will be more guidance provided on the seeding protocol as we near the winter season,' IHSAA Associate Director Brett Nanninga said in a letter sent to coaches and athletics directors Wednesday afternoon. 'Please know that this should provide a greater sense of involvement on the part of coaches throughout the state. We will continue to move forward in our efforts to enhance the postseason, but, for now, this is a major step.'

What do you think of the IHSAA's new postseason basketball seeding format?

A coaches advisory committee recommended the change to the IHSAA. North Linn's Mike Hilmer was a member of that committee and said it was a proposal favored most heavily by Class 3A and 4A coaches.

The IHSAA will release 1A and 2A postseason pods the third Friday in January, with 3A and 4A pods released the following week. Coaches from each district and substate will then gather to hash out the seeds of each team, which determine postseason pairings.

All games played up to the point of the seeding meetings are to be considered, though the win-loss points criteria the IHSAA has used in previous seasons won't be employed. Who is seeded where will be strictly up to a vote of the coaches.

'We'll give it a shot,' Hilmer said. 'If it doesn't work out, we'll go back to the old way.'

Hilmer said coaches simply wanted more control in the postseason process. He was asked if he was concerned the seeding meetings might turn acrimonious, as wrestling seeding meetings have been known to at times over the years.

'To be honest, that was one of the things brought up at our meeting,' he said. 'We get along, and I don't want it to foster hard feelings between the coaches. But I actually think everything will be OK.'

State tournament pairings also will be determined via coaches vote, with participants of each class ranking the field minus their own team. The IHSAA will announce the official pairings on a show produced by the Iowa High School Sports Network.

The new system theoretically should be more equitable to schools who play in stronger conferences. For instance, seventh-seeded South O'Brien beat No. 8 Council Bluffs St. Albert for the 2016 1A championship.

Class 3A champion Cedar Rapids Xavier was a sixth seed despite playing virtually all 4A competition in the regular season. The Saints beat Dubuque Wahlert for the title, which was a fifth seed despite its predominantly 4A schedule and coming in as two-time defending champ.

'I think it's the right thing to do,' said Xavier Coach Ryan Luehrsmann. 'Our teams compete against each other. As coaches, we have the knowledge of each team's strength.'

The IHSAA's Board of Control also has decided to table a proposal that would allow schools to play games or conduct four-team tournaments between Dec. 27-30. It denied a request for schools to continue to be able to play 22 games, if the 22nd game was to help another school get to its 21-game limit.