Stevens: This is why the NCHSAA moved to a 'Final Four' style format for the basketball playoffs
For the first time, the N.C. High School Athletic Association will hold all basketball state semifinals and championship games at a single location.
The decision was voted on and approved by the NCHSAA Board of Directors in the spring of 2023, but it wasn't a decision that the board arrived at suddenly. This move had been years in the making.
With the semifinals and finals in one location, it will take on a "Final Four" atmosphere. State semifinals will be played Monday-Thursday with four games each day at Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum. State championships will be played Friday and Saturday, also four games each day at Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
Yes, that means some games will happen during the school day. Games on Monday-Thursday will be played in two-hour increments beginnings at 2 p.m., Friday's games will be played in 2.5-hour increments beginning at 1 p.m., and Saturday's games will also play in 2.5-hour increments but will begin at 12 p.m.
Although this isn't the norm in North Carolina, at least in basketball, it is fairly common across the country. Many state associations play state championship events during school days.
It's also not unprecedented in North Carolina. Many sports compete during the school day when it comes to state championship competition — tennis, golf, swimming & diving, track & field, and wrestling come to mind.
So, while this is new for basketball, it's not new to high school sports, not even in North Carolina. It's also something basketball coaches have talked about for years. The NCHSAA seemingly resisted it for a long time, I am guessing because of the interference with the school day, but the association's hand was forced.
How did we get here?
Let's start with a brief history lesson.
For many years, the NCHSAA basketball playoffs were broken out into three different parts. The first week included three games, and winner of the third game was the sectional champion.
The sectional champions advanced to the regional basketball tournament. That would be the equivalent of the Elite Eight in the NCAA tournament. The regional semifinals were played on Tuesday-Friday with four games played each day at two different locations in the east, and four games at two locations in the west. Teams that advanced to the regional championships played again on Saturday.
If a team won the regional championship, they had a full week off until they played for a state title the following Saturday. State championships were mostly held at the Dean E. Smith Center and Reynolds Coliseum, though there were some exceptions — such as during the COVID-19 pandemic and a handful played at Carmichael Arena.
As time went on, holding regional tournaments became more and more difficult. They were expensive, and it required a lot of sponsorship to help cover the costs. It also requires enough venues that are willing to host the five-day event.
There were also scheduling conflicts. Inevitably, there were years when winter weather happened, and because these venues are tightly scheduled, there wasn't always much flexibility for the NCHSAA to move things around.
Beginning in the 2015-2016 season, the NCHSAA was no longer able to host regional tournaments at large, neutral site venues. Instead, fourth round games were played at the higher seed and winners advanced to the regional championship, which was still held at a larger, neutral site.
That season, I covered the 4A fourth round playoff game as Millbrook visited Garner. The game was sold out long before it tipped off. When I arrived — luckily with a media credential to get me in — the line was hundreds of people deep into the parking lot of the old Garner gymnasium, which did not seat very many people compared to Minges Coliseum or Crown Coliseum, previous hosts of fourth round games.
The atmosphere inside Garner that night was amazing, and so was the game (Garner won 92-88 to advance to the regional championship), but many people who could not get a ticket to the game were upset. "Why host a fourth round game in a small high school gym?" was a common question.
For several more years, the NCHSAA continued to hold the regional championship games at larger locations. Although that continued to become more and more difficult due to logistics, cost, and venue availability. March of 2020 was the last time regional championships were played at such venues though.
The following year, with COVID-19 restrictions still in effect, the NCHSAA was not only kept out of these venues for regional championships, but also for state championships. All games were played in high school gyms.
That trend continued in 2022, and again in 2023. The NCHSAA selected high schools with larger gyms to serve as neutral sites for regional championships, even as the state championships returned to their college venues at NC State and UNC.
With capacity limitations from the pandemic long gone in 2022, many people were upset they were not able to get tickets to regional championship games. That frustration escalated dramatically in 2023 when people who purchased tickets to games were unable to gain access. The NCHSAA was accused by some social media for overselling the gyms, but the association flatly denied that accusation at the time.
NCHSAA Commissioner Que Tucker apologized at the state championship press conference the following week.
"Last Saturday was not the NCHSAA's finest hour," she said. "People got in that should not have gotten in. We don't know how that happened."
The NCHSAA had to find a fix
If you've gotten this far into this article, you've probably heard about the legislative investigation into the NCHSAA. Some of lawmakers who pushed legislation that will drastically change high school sports in North Carolina pointed to the problems with the basketball regionals as an example of the issues they believe exist within the NCHSAA.
This is one area that the NCHSAA and the legislators actually agreed on though — this could not happen again.
"We are doing some out-of-the-box thinking as it relates to how our regionals should look," Tucker said just days after the 2023 regional championship games.
That out-of-the-box thinking is what led to the creation of the new "Final Four" format.
Are there going to be hiccups this year? Probably, there usually is when someone does something for the first time. Will there people unable to attend the games because they happen during the day or because they're in Winston-Salem instead of Greenville or Fayetteville? Yes. But the NCHSAA had to come up with the best option possible. This was it.
The NCHSAA spoke to other state associations in the region about how they handle their playoffs. For example, the South Carolina High School League holds its state semifinals and finals in a very similar way.
Before the NCHSAA Board of Directors (which is made up of coaches, athletic directors, principals, and superintendents) voted on the new basketball playoff format, Tucker explained the work the NCHSAA staff did to discuss the pros and cons of the new format with other state associations. Due diligence was done. On May 3, 2023, the board voted to approve the new format.
There are likely to be many positive results that come from this move. For one, there will be one semifinal and one championship game played at a time. That means, in theory, you could watch every single semifinal and final in both boys and girls basketball. That has never been the case before, and in a state with so much basketball talent and pride, that should be very exciting.
The change in the semifinals and finals also means changes for the earlier rounds. Previously, teams had to play three games in the first week of the playoffs. For the most part, teams play two games a week during the regular season. But the week after the conference tournament, where you'd assume the best teams are playing three games, you're asking them to play three games in a five-day stretch for the first three rounds of the state playoffs.
With the new format, teams will play two games the first week of the playoffs, two games the second week, and two games the third week — assuming they make it to a state championship game. This means teams will be able to better prepare for games, they'll be able to get some rest between matchups, and hopefully we as fans will see an even better product on the floor.
Will this be the permanent fix? Only time will tell. But what was certain, the NCHSAA could not responsibly go back to holding state semifinal games at high school gyms this season.
