If you're any sort of basketball fan, you know that once a year teams are sitting on pins and needles trying to figure out who and where (or if) they'll be playing the NCAA Tournament. Not for North Carolina High School Basketball.

The number of teams from each conference are predetermined before the season even starts - at the beginning of the school year. How so? Well, it's pretty simple, take the number of teams in any given conference, divide it by two and add one. If there is an odd number of teams in the conference, drop the .5. For example, if a conference has 8-teams in it, they will send 5-teams to the state tournament. Or, if a conference has 7-teams in it, they will send 4 teams to the state tournament.

Is that fair? No, but it's not going to change. Instead, let's make it more fair for the good teams in strong conferences. There is a perfect example from this past season in the Green Hope Falcons.

Green Hope came out of the very strong Tri-8 Conference, and got the fourth and final seed in their bracket. On the first day of the tournament, Green Hope went to No. 1 Terry Sanford where they dominated from start to finish. Two days later, the team traveled to Wilmington where they beat Laney. Then, two days after that, the Falcons traveled back to Wilmington where they lost to Hoggard by four points.Over a five day period, the Falcons traveled 592 miles, 302 of which were on a school bus, the rest on a charter bus.

Don't try and tell me that the traveling didn't have something to do with the quality of play we saw from Green Hope against Hoggard, because you'll be making yourself look arrogant. I'm not trying to make excuses, but traveling Monday, Wednesday and Friday, going to school, doing homework, and everything else high school students have to do, didn't fit together very nicely.

So, here's my proposal.

When a lower ranked team defeats a higher ranked team, they pick up the higher seed. So, Green Hope would have been the number one seed after beating Terry Sanford on Monday Night, meaning they would have earned a home game on Wednesday Night against Laney.This may seem like a ridiculous complaint to many of you, but where you are seeded has serious implications on how well your team performs. If you're the fourth ranked team, you have virtually no hope at a home playoff game.

I could also see a system similar to the NCAA system. Have eight separate locations for each region (east & west), two for each sectional. On Monday Night, you would have two games, then the winner of those two games would meet at the same place on Wednesday Night to determine who will play in the Sectional Championship on Friday Night. The Sectional Championship would be predetermined at a location.Regional Finals and the State Championship are already played this way. For the Eastern Regional, teams play at East Carolina University and J.H. Rose High School in Greenville, North Carolina. The State Championship for 1A and 3A are played at Reynolds Coliseum, and the 2A and 4A Championships are played at the Dean Dome.

The NCHSAA needs to do some rearrangement in the way they conduct their state playoffs for basketball. Improving the equality will make for a better tournament atmosphere, just like we are experiencing for NCAA Basketball right now.