One day later
All of Thursday’s playoff games in the state were postponed as a result of the weather, pushing the schedule back one day and the area and regional championship games to Monday night.
Winter weather is no friend of the high school postseason.
The Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association took the safe route Thursday morning with icy road conditions affecting most of the state.
It postponed all basketball playoffs one full day and pushed the start of Friday’s state wrestling tournaments back an hour.
“As we got weather information, traveling today, especially in a big part of the state, probably looked worse than it did yesterday,” OSSAA executive director David Jackson said on Thursday. “We weren’t anticipating that earlier in the week, but forecasts changed.
“I know a lot of administrators, even early yesterday, were really fearful of putting buses on the road today. We felt it was best to shift everything back a day.”
Changing the basketball
schedule is the biggest issue.
Instead of eight teams clinching a spot in each of next week’s Class A and Class B state tournaments by the end of Saturday, only four will have spots. The next four for each bracket will be decided Monday night.
That’s left a short week ahead of Thursday’s state quarterfinals.
It also delays the start of Class 6A and Class 5A playoffs. Instead of the girls starting Thursday, they open Friday night and the boys play Saturday. Both will play regional championships Monday, with schools hosting both genders playing at 6:30 and 8 p.m. If only one gender is being played, that game begins at 7 p.m.
But even that got tricky for Woodward. The Western Oklahoma school is hosting a Class 5A girls regional championship game and a Class B regional tournament. Class 5A will be played at 5 p.m. with the Class B doubleheader to follow.
Class 4A-2A regional tournaments open Friday and conclude Monday with the original tipoff schedule.
“Is it ideal? No,” Jackson said. “When you put the inconvenience of that against people being safe it’s no contest.”