Sub-state seeding deadline passes with meaningful games still to play
If every regular season game was counted in sub-state seeding, Thursday would have been one of the biggest nights of basketball in Kansas.
Instead, many teams across the state have been left asking, “What if?” The sub-state seeding deadline passed at 10 a.m. Wednesday despite countless postponements because of inclement weather throughout the regular season. The top two girls seeds in Class 5A West met a day after the deadline.
Undefeated Maize South will enter as the No. 1 seed. The Mavericks hosted No. 2 Goddard on Thursday and won 38-36 on a last-second shot from junior Katie Wagner.
But that wasn’t the only potentially jarring result that went wayside because of the deadline. If the meeting was pushed to Friday night or Saturday, some of the state’s top seeds could have been knocked off.
A Goddard win would have sent the Lions to the No. 1 seed, and if McPherson had rescheduled its final regular season game and won it, Maize South would have likely dropped to third on defensive points allowed.
McPherson coach Chris Strathman was at Thursday’s Goddard-Maize South game. He said getting into all the possible scenarios that didn’t happen because of the early deadline can bog down the mind.
“I’d like to see them, especially when situations like this come up, move it back a bit,” he said. “There were too many variables, and there were too many variable after it was set.”
McPherson was scheduled to play Baldwin, the No. 3 seed in Class 4A East, on Feb. 16. Weather forced a postponement, and Strathman said that turned into a cancellation. When the most recent round of winter weather was forecasted to sweep through the area, Strathman said he went to work to make sure that didn’t happen again.
McPherson was scheduled to host Augusta on Tuesday. As many other schools did, the Pups moved their senior day up to Monday. They won 38-14, which helped keep them in the top three seeds.
The Kansas State High School Activites Association set the sub-state deadline date well before the season started. Teams needed to have the incentive and desire to reschedule. Maize South was split.
The Maverick girls were 19-0, would be the No. 1 seed in 5A West and would have clinched their first undefeated season in school history. The Maize South boys needed another game after suffering a loss at Eisenhower that sent them from No. 4 to No. 7 in the sub-state standings.
Instead of hosting a pair of postseason games, the Maverick boys will have to go on the road and beat No. 2 Andover Central. But the game was rescheduled a day after the deadline. The Mavs won 62-54; the win would have sent them back up to No. 5.
But sub-state tournaments start Friday. Teams needed to plan transportation, drivers, officials and everything that goes into hosting a basketball game.
Still, Goddard girls coach Kevin Hackerott said it’s impossible not to play the “What if?” game.
“There’s some coaches that have the philosophy that they aren’t going to talk about it,” he said. “We’re just the opposite. We go through all the scenarios with the kids to be up front and honest with them.
“Now the new season starts. You want to talk about crazy? None of it matters. We can’t worry about it anymore.”
This story was originally published February 22, 2019 at 1:57 AM.