02-22-15
COMMENTARY BY JACK BULLOCK
As most of you who follow my website know, be you friend or foe, I seldom get on here and do commentary.

I usually leave that to the newspaper guys and the chat room inhabitants.

However once in a while I need to speak up.

The topic of today is the boy's state basketball tournament that begins today.

All the brackets are lined up, ready for teams to proceed to a gym (sometimes) near them and begin play.

But there is a major problem, caused mostly because four-class basketball has turned this tournament into a geographical nightmare in which many teams will need passports to cross into enemy lines as they try to reach Peoria.

One team, who has came south recently since the change in 2007-08, will make a further trip south to the Supersectional (SIU) than it will if it makes it to state.

It is 126-miles from Nokomis to Carbondale, but only 112-miles to Peoria.

At least one ABV team (Pana) will travel 99-miles one way to a regional in Marshall.

The winner of that regional at Marshall, if it is the second-seeded hosts, will go 136-miles one-way to its sectional in Benton on a school night.

Lawrenceville to Benton is no picnic, either.

If top-seed Pinckneyville at the Chester Regional takes home that hardware, its reward is a trip to East Alton-Wood River.

If things play out, Pinckneyville could see SIRR Mississippi Division rival Nashville in the sectional final, but instead of playing them close to home (the teams are 18-miles apart) they will each drive over an hour away to play this contest. Pinckneyville to EA-WR is 84-miles, Nashville is 66-miles.

There are other examples around the state. But these strike close to home.

How do we fix this obvious flaw in the system???

We go back to the sectional complex.

This was used before and it worked. Like most systems, there are some bugs. But some common sense could work out.

I was bored tonight.

The Oscars don't interest me in the least and the Illini stunk it up so I thought I would throw something together.

I used the deep south sectionals (two in 1A, two in 2A) that feed into SIU Arena for the double-header Supersectional coming up in three weeks.

I used a simple formula with a simple bracket, seeded the top 16-teams in each of the sectionals and used a 32-team single elimination bracket.

I didn't put game times or dates on it, it will all play out in the same amount of days and the way I have it set up there will be less travel.

Whether you agree with the seeding's I put together is inconsequential.
If this works out, the IHSA could put together a committee of coaches, administrators and media.

I, of course, would volunteer my services and wave my normal consultation fee.

This is just an example of how this could be drawn up and put in place.

And I didn't even mention the fact that many of the regionals are loaded while some are very weak.

There will be many quality teams that will go home early this season while lesser teams will be able to keep playing simply because they are playing in a less talented regional.

Click here to read more.

Either way, enjoy this year's tournament.

As always, the view expressed by me are just that, my opinions.