WIAA BASKETBALL - Plan to double state qualifiers has emerged
WIAA BASKETBALL
A proposal to drastically expand Wisconsin’s high school basketball tournaments is starting to make its way through the WIAA channels.
The plan emerged from an April 23 meeting of the Basketball Coaches Advisory Committee, consisting of four girls head coaches and four boys head coaches from around the state, and proposes doubling the number of teams that qualify for state from 20 in each gender to 40 with eight teams making it from each of the five divisions.
Doubling the tournament field would require adding an extra day to the boys and girls tournaments and would require adding sites to the quarterfinal rounds in each division before moving fully to the Resch Center in Green Bay for the girls tournament and the Kohl Center for the boys tournament.
According to information being circulated by proponents of the plan, 90.9% of the more than 430 boys and girls head coaches from around the state responded to a survey saying they favored the plan.
Tournament format
The proposed format starts with the reduction of one regional round in the opening week of each tournament. Instead of the current three rounds on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday of regional week, brackets under the proposed plan would have regional play on Tuesday and Friday only.
Sectional week would stay the same with semifinals on Thursday and finals on Saturday.
The proposal then calls for state tournament play to start the Wednesday after sectionals with quarterfinal games at three different sites. Eighteen of the 20 quarterfinal games would be played that day with two morning games, two afternoon games and two evening games at each site. The last two quarterfinals would fill the currently vacant Thursday morning slot in the state tournament schedule. The Division 5 semifinals would fill the afternoon session, followed by the Division 4 semfinals on Thursday night.
The plan puts the Division 3 semifinals on Friday morning, followed by the traditional Division 2 semifinals in the afternoon and Division 1 semifinals in the evening session.
Championship Saturday would feature no changes with the Division 5 game starting at 11 a.m., followed by the Division 4 and 3 games. Division 2 and 1 title games would stay in the evening time slot.
Among the advantages touted by the coaches committee are the chances to give teams from more areas of the state chances to get to state, showcasing more of the state’s top teams and athletes, filling the empty Thursday time slot, generating additional revenue and potentially helping create some motivation for more girls to return to the sport as participation numbers have been on a recent decline.
It’s unclear in the plan how television coverage of the simultaneous quarterfinals in the three sites would be handled.
By comparison, in Minnesota, 32 boys and 32 girls teams qualify for the state tournaments and in Iowa, 40 girls teams and 32 boys teams qualify for state.
The process
The next step for the plan is a review from the Sports Advisory Committee, which is next scheduled to meet on Monday, May 19. The committee is comprised of 14 athletic directors, seven male and seven female, elected by their peers from the seven Board of Control districts around the state. The committee could vote on the recommendation, but regardless of that outcome, the plan will also advance to the Advisory Council The council is made of 18 school district administrators from around the state –– five large school, five medium school, five small school and three at-large representatives. The group meets on Tuesday, June 24. If it approves the plan, it would go to the WIAA Board of Control the next day for a final decision. If the council rejects the plan, it does not advance to the Board of Control.
The WIAA has released winter tournament assignments for the 2025-26 school year in all sports besides basketball and wrestling. The WIAA’s website has posted a message for both sports stating “this sport’s tournament assignments will not be released until a later date due to coaches advisory proposals pending approval by the committee process: Sports Advisory, Advisory Council and Board of Control.”
