The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Super districts returning this season
Super Districts are back for Northeast Ohio basketball for boys and girls tournaments.
The “blended district” idea was tried a few seasons ago, and the Northeast Ohio District Athletic Board has decided to return to the format for this season because of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Instead of pre-assigning schools to a particular district, all schools in each division will be seeded, and then allowed to choose which of several brackets they would like play in, in the order they’re seeded.
Division I, for example, in Northeast Ohio has 71 boys teams. These will be split into “East” (37 teams) and “West” (34 teams) pods, with each pod containing three districts.
The 37 D-I teams in the East pod will be seeded by coaches vote, from 1-37. Each school, in the order seeded, will be able to choose one of the three districts that pod has to play in, producing brackets of 12, 12, and 13 teams.
The 34 D-I boys teams in the
West pod will likewise be seeded then choose brackets accordingly.
The district winners will then feed into designated regional tournaments.
Divisions II, III, and IV will follow suit, each containing two pods and varying numbers of districts and total teams seeded.
Area coaches, by and large, seem to approve of the change in format.
Mentor coach Bob Krizancic is a proponent of the idea, particularly the way it aligns with the format used by the Columbus and Cincinnati-area schools.
“This is the way they do it in the Columbus and Cincinnati-Dayton areas, and this will make Northeast Ohio uniform with them,” said Krizancic. “We have more D-I schools in Northeast Ohio than they do, so that’s why we have to break it into six districts feeding into different regionals. Down there, they have four districts and that’s their region.”
For this season, in line with COVID-19 protocols, higher seeds will host each game through the district final, rather than playing the district-level games at a district site as in the past.
Brush Coach Chet Mason said it reminds him of the way the tournament was run in his high school playing days at Cleveland South, and noted the added importance of earning a high seed.
“It’s interesting,” Mason said. “When I was in high school, it was similar. With higher seeds being at home all the way through (the district final), it’s really critical to try to get that No. 1 seed.”
Beachwood coach David Krasnow, whose Bison are one of the area’s top teams this season, will compete in Division III in the postseason. Krasnow has scheduled a February regular season meeting between Beachwood and D-III state title contender Lutheran East as a measuring-stick type game, but would like to avoid the Falcons as long as possible in March.
“I think this gives us the opportunity to avoid (Lutheran East) as long as we can,” Krasnow said. “In that respect, I like it. I don’t know if there’s a perfect way to do it.”
There’s always plenty of intrigue when it comes time to vote for seeds. Online voting will begin on Jan. 28 for the girls tournaments, and Feb. 4 for the boys.
“I don’t really have an opinion on it either way,” Perry coach Al Iacofano said. “We schedule a few of the Youngstown-area teams each season, so we have a little familiarity with them. I do wonder a little bit how teams will do their due diligence in evaluating other schools for seeding purposes, particularly with no mandatory score reporting.”
Others are taking a go-with-the-flow approach.
“I think it will be pretty interesting, and as with everything else this year, it’s something different that we’ll have to adjust to,” Harvey coach Dave Wojciechowski said. “We will roll with it, and I’m looking forward to it.”