Pairings produce some surprises

Tue. February 21, 2012 at 10:25 p.m. | By Mike Duprez

The pairings for the high school basketball state playoffs produced some surprises. That in itself isn’t a surprise. With so many teams in the playoffs — about 77 percent of the schools — things like that can happen.

In an effort to cut down on travel, among other reasons, the N.C. High School Athletic Association went to a pod-based system for determining playoff seedings and divided the state into four sections by longitude and seeded 1-16. Seeding was to be based first on conference standing and then by overall record. For instance, Lexington got the Central Carolina Conference’s No. 1 seed as regular season champion and No. 4 in the 2-A Midwest based on having the fourth best record among No. 1 seeds in the section.

On the face of it, that seems pretty fair. But there were some quirks.

The pairings released by the NCHSAA on Saturday included regular season records, leaving out conference tournament results. Some teams won two, even three more games during conference tournaments and others lost, which would have changed winning percentages.

Salisbury and Central Davidson’s boys finished tied for second place in the CCC during the regular season. Central got the No. 2 seed for the tournament. The two teams met in the CCC semifinals. Salisbury won and seemingly that was the tiebreaker for who got the CCC’s No. 2 seed for the state playoffs. It appeared that Central was going on the road. But when the pairings came out, Central got a home game despite being the No. 3 seed out of the CCC. Before his team’s playoff game with Thomasville on Monday, Lexington coach Robert Hairston expressed surprise that Central got a home game. No doubt the longitude issue came into play as well as some teams being shuffled to other sections to balance the brackets.

That wasn’t the only surprise. The plan called for half the teams in each conference plus one to get playoff berths. That meant four from the CCC. There was also a provision for wild cards, though none in 2-A and 3-A.

When his East Davidson girls lost in the first round of the CCC tournament, Golden Eagles coach Don Corry knew his fifth-place team was done. Uniforms were turned in and the girls turned to softball and soccer practice. Corry hung out at the CCC tournament the rest of the week. So the Eagles were done, right? Well, in the words of a certain car rental commercial — not exactly.

Corry got quite a surprise Saturday when his team got a No. 16 seed and a wild card when there were no wild cards. Had he known his team was in the playoffs, Corry could have held practice all week. Instead, he got Saturday night and that was it. That wasn’t much preparation for facing a No. 1 seed. Predictably, East lost badly.

As for Hairston, he didn’t much care for playing Thomasville in the first round of the playoffs, especially after his Yellow Jackets had routed the Bulldogs 88-41 in the CCC semifinals. Talk about a trap scenario. Thomasville, 0-3 against Lexington coming into the game, had nothing to lose and nearly gained a whole bunch. The game felt like an extension of the CCC tournament.
It’s not a perfect system and probably never will be. At least they don’t subdivide the playoffs like in football. Better not say that too loudly.

Mike Duprez can be reached at 249-3981, ext. 218 or mike.duprez@the-dispatch.com.