Playoff Systems In Idaho and Washington

[konjo78]

The server crashed last night when i was posting this comment on how these systems work in these states. Both states make their own divisions of 6-8 schools that are all the same class level. So A with A, AA with AA and so on.

Both states are not as populated as PA so they run a 8 man state tournament but the 8 teams are the teams who won their respective division. Divisions are decided by division record so if you want to schedule tough non conference games or a rivalry like Tyrone-BA, BM-Richland or others you can without penalizing schools.

It also stops complaining about second match ups of teams. Sure it can happen but those teams would know it was only a non impactful playoff game. With only 1 division winner making playoffs it allows for a simpler system. Now PA could easily make this system with 16 divisions in each class.


I enjoy the systems because playoffs are shorter, teams who consistenlty are forced to play their own class and instead of a district playoff system you basically have a division regular season system, which is a much better way to determine a champion of a region.

[Birda]

Virginia just reformatted their entire system. Its now a 6 class format, divided into two regions of four conferences each. They kept their old districts (conferences really, but not all schools of the same size) for regular season but the first rounds of playoffs are the conference, then onto the region, then the last two in each region usually cross bracket for state semis. For football they use a rating and take the top16 overall from each region. Before each district was one of three classes, except for football which had been using six. There needs to be some statewide organization. PIAA is sloppy in this regard. The districts are useless. WPIAL format is best. Why are the 9 A schools in District 5 represented the same at this point in playoffs as the 30 to 40 teams in WPIAL.

[konjo78]

The PIAA has become a system where it doesn't matter where schools are places as long as a district has 1-3 teams to represent it in playoffs then thats all they care about. What happens before state playoffs is none of their concern

[Birda]

It's really an unfair system, particularly for Western smaller schools. Looking at this week's games (the PIAA's "first round), this is how many teams each team playing this week "represents" from their district, ie if they have 10 total teams and two teams still left, that's 5.

A
District 1 - 5
District 2 - 7
District 3 - 5
District 4 - 10
District 5 - 4.5
District 6 - 11.5
District 7 - 18.5
District 9 - 8
District 10 - 7
District 11 - 9

AA
District 2 - 11
District 3 - 7
District 4 - 8
District 5 - 4 (including Westinghouse)
District 6 - 8
District 7 - 17.5
District 9 - 5
District 10 - 8
District 11 - 13
District 12 - 5

In a 16-team bracket with 143 teams in A and 144 in AA, each of those 16 teams should represent about 9.

It could work pretty easily in A. Four teams from WPIAL, two from D6, two from D9, two from D10, one each from D2, D3, D4, and D5, and one between D1 and D12. Each of those teams is representing between 7 and 11.5 teams from their district.

AA is a little trickier. I have four from WPIAL, two each from D6 and D10, one between 5/8/9, and one for D12. That leaves six slots for sixteen from D4, eleven from D2, thirteen from D11, fourteen from D3, and four from D1. The math works because it's between 9 and 10 teams for each slot, it's just bracketing them together that is challenging.

[konjo78]

The stat you just showed is why the district system is so out of whack... 2 districts almost comprise a majority of A schools. I'm sure if we did this math for AAA and AAAA they are just as bad.

[Birda]

I'm no WPIAL cheerleader, but its really unfair when they have two teams left at this point with 37 A and 35 AA teams and District 3 has four teams out of 39 in AAA and 30 in AAAA

[Birda]

I finished crunching the numbers, in A I would have D3 and D5 finish a week earlier so that they only have one team at this round. The extra two to WPIAL. In AA I would have one team between 5/8/9 and one from 1/12 and give those two spots to WPIAL. In AAA I would take one from 10 and give it to 2. In 4A I think its good. Two WPIAL, two between 2/4/6/8/9/10, two each for 11 and 12 and four each for 1 and 3.

[konjo78]

Interesting birds! I applaud you on the research. I would love PIAA to break down each classification to 16 divisions and have a 16 division winner playoff. Even if some divisions are more strong than others each division winner is based off their own division record and not on a playoff point seeding system.

[Wrasslerfan]

let them have their playoff system and let ours play out as it always has no need to change it after all these years