Question and Verdict:Feature 1

Some of the numbers are close to matching up. The NCAA Division I numbers 341 colleges and universities across America in its membership, while the Kansas State High School Activities Association has 361 senior high member schools.
The organizations’ postseason basketball tournaments both grant entry to a similar number of schools. The NCAA whittles down its 341 schools to 65 for its postseason tournament; the KSHSAA, its 361down to 48.
The similarities stop there. At the end of the NCAA basketball tournament, there’s one champion each for men and women; upon completion of the KSHSAA postseason, there are six champs each for boys and girls.
The NCAA Tournament is possibly the greatest sporting event in the world because it groups together 65 teams in one tournament and weeds out one champ. There are no classifications breaking up the 65 teams. There’s a first round, second round, regionals and nationals, and the teams that keep winning are bound to meet one another. At the end of the tourney, all the questions have been answered on the court.
Not so in Kansas high school basketball. In fact, not so in any high school basketball. The final state to hold a single state basketball tournament under one classification was Indiana in 1997. The Hoosiers have named four state champions each season since 1998.
It’s tempting for sports pundits to champion the application of the NCAA Tournament format to other events. What would it look like on the prep level in Kansas?
I decided to travel across Kansas to see five of the six state tournaments this March. I visited Hays, Topeka, Emporia, Salina and Hutchinson. I logged over 1,000 miles in my tan 1997 Ford Taurus (“the Bull” for you Greek buffs), inhaled multiple bags of sunflower seeds, paid several tolls, smelled both Hays and Manhattan (only college students can match bovines for aroma) and viewed Kansas’ varied real estate (not a joke, seriously).
Questions arose, stories developed and verdicts came about as I watched eight games in four days at five different state basketball tournament sites.

Site: Busch-Gross Coliseum, Hays, Wednesday, March 5
Question: With a single state tournament, would we have gotten to enjoy a story like the Greensburg High boys basketball team this postseason?

    The Greensburg High gymnasium was destroyed along with the rest of town on May 4, 2007, by the tornado of record strength. The roof caved in, the court was exposed to the outside air, the walls crumbled – the future of the Greensburg basketball program was in as much limbo as the town.
    But by fall, Greensburg High was open, and the regular sports teams were in action, though under drastically different circumstances. The gymnasium and football stadium were no longer there.
    When basketball season rolled around, a local gymnasium in Greensburg served as the high school and junior high’s practice court. Official play in the gym was not feasible, as bleachers didn’t fit and sprinkler systems weren’t installed. For practice, the junior high teams split the court for an hour after school, before the high school girls and boys teams alternated two-hour time slots during the hours 4-6 p.m. and 6-8 p.m.
    Despite inconsistent practice hours, limited court space and a lack of a true home court (Greensburg played five “home” games at Mullinville and Haviland), the entire Greensburg boys team from the previous season stuck around to complete what the team had started to do the previous season.
    Greensburg coach David White had been waiting to coach this season’s team since he returned to his hometown in 1982. After leading Dighton to two state basketball tournaments between the years 1977-81, White became a teacher and coach at his alma mater. He was a member of the staff that took the Rangers football team to the state championship game in 1986, back when 51 of the 57 boys in the school participated. But after 25 years of being an assistant or head coach with the basketball program, never had Greensburg made the state tournament.
    After last season ended with a loss to South Gray in the sub-state championship game, White was confident that with only two graduating from the Greensburg program, the Rangers would make their strongest challenge yet for a berth at state the following season.
    But then came the tornado. White, who lives one mile north of town, didn’t lose his house, but his granary and vehicles blew away, his barn was torn off its foundation, and his two combines and pickup truck were completely destroyed. He’s still burning broken trees and picking up debris.
    Yet White’s house was outside of town, outside of the tornado’s direct path. His way of life in Greensburg was salvagable, but what about his players?
    “They made a commitment just to be here,” White, looking back, said of his players, the day before they headed up to Hays for Greensburg’s first state tournament appearance since 1978. “We were concerned we might lose a few kids, but they all came back – all eight.”
    Greensburg didn’t start the season well in their opener against Cunningham. By the opening minutes of the second quarter, they were down 24-2. The season in which Greensburg was supposed to make a run at the state tournament after coming so close the previous year looked bleak. White called timeout.
    “I asked them, ‘Are you going to let ‘em shoot or play defense?’ Then my son got a technical, and if you do that you don’t play the rest of the game on my team. But we came back and got the lead, though we lost a close one.”
    The team had proved it had heart, however – once again, as none of them had been forced to stay in town in the first place. Greensburg came back from the Cunningham loss and put together a strong season, entering postseason play at regionals with 15 wins. Though they lost the regional title game to South Central by three, they pulled out two incredible upsets at sub-state to earn a berth at state. After losing to Macksville by 25 during the regular season, they beat them 53-51 in the first round of sub-state. Then in the sub-state final, junior guard Andrew Seiler, a 5-5 feisty guard, caught a half-court in-bounds pass from the baseline, drove to the three-point line and sunk a game-winner to beat Moscow 49-47. That’s how underdog bids for the state tournament are made.
    White’s son Zach, a sophomore at Kansas University, made the trip across the state from Lawrence to Hays to see Greensburg’s first-round game at state against the 1A tournament’s top seed, Crest. At Busch-Gross Coliseum he sat in the stands with a horde of Greensburg faithful, all members of the town who decided to stay. His high school buddy, Alex Reinecke, a freshman at Kansas State, sat beside him. Both had played hoops together for Greensburg during the years when the Rangers just missed out on state.
As they tried to understand what the team and town had accomplished over the months they had been absent, they became curious about the Greensburg opponent.
“Have you ever heard of these guys?” Reinecke inquired of White. This was a common sentiment even of tournament workers in the hospitality room at Busch-Gross. No one had ever heard of Crest, even the people who had been watching the tournament for decades.
“I guess that’s how it is, though. You hear of them, and then they go off the radar,” said Reinecke, finishing his thought.
Greensburg may have been that unknown team, a status that’s not uncommon in the 104-school Class 1A, if not for the tornado last May. After all, it was their first tournament appearance in 30 years and only their second in 60.
Their tournament ended quickly and decisively with a 56-30 blowout loss to No. 1-seeded Crest, and it may be a while before they get to go back. But no one can take away the players, coaches and fans’ memories of their school’s unlikely trip to the state tournament.
Greensburg fans stayed in their seats till the final buzzer, just before which, White turned to his seniors already retired to the bench. He told them they were going back in one last time. The Greensburg fans, who had been deafening in their support in the first half, had quieted down as the reality of the end of their run set in. But they came back in full force with a standing ovation for the exiting seniors – players who toiled through an entire season without a home court and yet figured a way to win four postseason games to earn a trip to state they’ll never forget.
The basketball team is one more example of Greensburg proving its talent for moving forward.

Verdict: Though a sectional or regional win in a single state tournament over Dodge City or Garden City, the state’s two biggest schools out West, would have been even better theatre, Greensburg’s clutch postseason wins over favored teams of equal size, Macksville and Moscow, are still very impressive. Greensburg basketball wouldn’t have made a run to state without small-school classifications.

Sites: Kansas Expocentre, Topeka, Thursday, March 6; White Auditorium, Emporia, Friday, March 7; Bicentennial Center, Salina, Saturday, March 8
Question: The top girls basketball teams in Class 6A, 5A and 4A were equitable this season. Even if we decided that the smallest schools in Class 3A, 2A and 1A couldn’t compete with the biggest schools in the state, would a single state tournament weeding out the best team among the top three classes be worthwhile?

Ranked as one of the state’s top teams all season, the Bishop Carroll girls basketball team was expected to make a run for the state title in Class 5A. Alongside two-time defending Class 6A state champ Wichita Heights, Andover Central of Class 4A and Goddard in Class 6A, Carroll formed a group of local teams from three different classes that stood out as four of the top teams in all of Kansas.
Carroll juniors Abby Fawcett and Julia Marshall are special players. In their first-round matchup against St. Thomas Aquinas in the 5A state tournament, Fawcett, Marshall and Carroll thrived. Marshall – who possesses a rare combination of size, strength and quickness at 5-9 – was unstoppable driving to the hoop. And Fawcett, both in transition and the half-court, is an outstanding option on the perimeter when the drive isn’t open. She’ll knock down 21-foot three-pointers or hit runners through the lane.
Up 38-35 on Aquinas in the early going of the second half, Marshall drove right and dished to Fawcett for a 22-foot trey. A minute later, Fawcett, stepping back off the dribble, hit another three-pointer. Carroll went up nine and didn’t look back. When Fawcett and Marshall were clicking, Carroll could play with anyone in the state. Their title-game loss to McPherson didn’t change that fact.
The following day, Heights, a team that beat Carroll twice, and Goddard, which lost at Carroll in the regular season, met in the semifinals of the Class 6A state tournament. It was a classic matchup.
Early in the second half, Heights was converting on the the same defensive concepts which had gotten them there: pressure and anticipation. In the early going of the second half, Heights freshman sensation Mary Sims anticipated a Goddard pass from the wing to sophomore forward Samantha Soyez in the high post. Sims took the steal for a coast-to-coast layup.
The steals quit coming, though. It was strange to watch Heights let the game slip away in the fourth quarter. The best fourth-quarter team in the state all season long, Heights was unable to force its usual amount of turnovers for points in transition. Goddard took care of the ball and took advantage of their superior size.
Lindsey Keller, Goddard’s all-state presence in the post, had a dominant performaance with 20 points and 18 rebounds. Heights’ stellar pressure defense wore down, and Goddard earned a shot at its first girls basketball state title in school history with a 53-49 win.
As good a matchup and as physically and mentally exhausting as the Goddard-Heights game was, each had another game to play the next day, which thickened the plot. Which is the best girls basketball team in the state? Goddard lost to underdog Lawrence by two in the state final, and Olathe South trounced Heights 89-46 in the consolation game. (It should be noted that one of the state’s best players, Amanda Orloske of Heights, missed the state tournament with a torn ACL.)
Neither Heights, Goddard, nor Carroll, three of the most highly touted teams in the state all year, won its class’ state title. And even Andover Central nearly let the Class 4A title slip away.
Andover Central senior forward Bailey Gee was the state’s most impressive player. In the 4A title game she scored 22 points, including all three of Central’s points in overtime to win the game over Holton 41-39, and it wasn’t even an overwhelming performance by Gee. Nor was the title game against Holton the Jaguars’ best game of the season, as they shot 1 of 22 from three-point range. Yet they still pulled it out.
With her team scoreless for more than three minutes of overtime, Gee caught a lob pass from senior teammate Brittney Chamberlin. On a play that Andover Central knew by rote, Chamberlin received a pass at the top of the key from the wing and dumped it down to Gee who had perfectly timed the seal-off of her defender on the low block. Central went up 40-39, and Gee added a free throw with :22.6 remaining for the win.
Ever since the completion of the Newton mid-season girls tournament, when Andover Central held a double-digit lead over Bishop Carroll to the final buzzer, the Jaguars had been in the conversation about the best girls team in the state. As the 5-11 Gee speedily ran the court throughout the game against Carroll and sophomore point guard Tiffany Bias hit jumpshots off the dribble, it was clear Andover Central’s classification in 4A had no bearing on their status as one of the state’s best.
They may have been the best team in the state – better than Lawrence, Goddard, Heights, Olathe South, McPherson or Carroll. But we’ll never see that tournament.

Verdict: A tournament that included Andover Central of 4A, McPherson and Bishop Carroll of 5A, and Lawrence, Goddard, Wichita Heights and Olathe South of 6A could have settled which was the best girls basketball team in the state of Kansas in 2008. Nevertheless, the wealth of outstanding girls basketball this season was memorable.

Sites: White Auditorium, Emporia, Friday, March 7; Sports Arena, Hutchinson, Saturday, March 8
Question: Is the Wichita Southeast-Wichita East matchup truly the measuring stick for boys basketball in the state of Kansas?

    Wichita Southeast’s Class 6A state title this March extended the City League’s reputation as the best in the state. Since Carl Taylor won his first state title as coach at Southeast in 1999, the Buffs have won a total of three titles, while their rival East has won two. These two teams have stuck out in Class 6A over the past decade.
The perennial matchups of the two best programs in the state’s best league have a reputation as de facto state title games. With their records over the past 10 years, why not?
    The 2007 postseason had left a tarnish on the two teams’ reputations. Ranked as two of the top teams in the state all season, neither East nor Southeast made it out of sub-state, succumbing to less talented, but better organized and more disciplined opponents.
In 2008 – even as the two squads split breathtaking overtime games head-to-head in the regular season – the whisper in the stands and on press row was ‘What about when it counts?’
    Adonis Gantt wasn’t on Southeast coach Carl Taylor’s ‘good list’ at the beginning of the season. The 5-10 point guard, who is slick and quick and will play NCAA Division I basketball at Georgia Southern next year, wasn’t even in the starting lineup in the second game of the season at home against Kapaun Mount Carmel. Even when he did go in, Taylor kept him on a short leash.
    Three months later, Gantt was at the wheel, leading Southeast into its third matchup with East, this time in the Class 6A state semifinal for a berth in the title game. As usual, Gantt went on a rampage up and down the court, driving to his right, leaping high and glancing the ball off the backboard for layups – before ending his free-fall at the baseline.
    The third edition of the matchup at state was a reversal of the first two in the regular season. East built double-digit leads in the first two meetings, only to see the Buffs come back and force overtime. At state, Southeast was the team with the double-digit lead, leading 48-36 after three quarters.
The Aces stayed close for one reason: Jawanza Poland. Like Gantt, Poland was another outstanding player who had started several games on the bench during the regular season. He picked the ideal game to shine for East, as their star post player Garrius Holloman, who averaged 17 points per game during the season, had his most difficult outing of the year, scoring just one field goal. Even his five-footers seemed to encounter saran wrap at the rim. But Poland knocked down three-pointers, drove into the middle of the lane to hit leaners and stuffed thunderous dunk shots, including one to tie the game at 54 with just over a minute remaining.
    However, Poland fouled out on the next possession, Southeast hit their free throws, and sealed a 61-56 win. After appearing inferior to East head-to-head in their regular-season matchups, Southeast had peaked at the right time.
    Southeast’s 88-67 romp over Lawrence in the 6A title game was anticlimactic. The East-Southeast game was the real championship. It fulfilled the hype. They were the two best. Right?
    Two teams in Topeka which also won state championships would beg to differ. Highland Park marched its way to the Class 5A boys title with three convincing wins, including a 25-point smashing of cinderella Bishop Carroll, which made a title run even without standout sophomore Blake Bell in the post. (Bell injured his hand before the tournament.) It was Highland Park’s second straight title and third in five years. In the final, they crushed a Carroll team that split with East and Southeast during the regular season. Was 5A Highland Park the top boys team in the state, and not 6A Southeast?
    The plot thickens even more when considering Highland Park’s only loss of the season – to Class 4A Topeka Hayden, which strolled to the 4A title. So maybe Hayden was the best team in the state.
    Before the postseason began, state newspapers’ final regular season rankings disagreed on which boys team was the best in the state. The Topeka Capital-Journal put 4A Hayden at No. 1 in its Super 10 rankings, 5A Highland Park No. 2 and 6A Southeast No. 4. But the Wichita Eagle had Hayden all the way down at No. 7 in its overall rankings, with Highland Park No. 1 and Southeast No. 2.
    A single state tournament including Hayden, Highland Park and Southeast could have settled the debate on the court.
    But with a single state tournament, we likely wouldn’t have seen the story of the Trinity Academy boys basketball program unfold. Trinity opened its doors in 1994, conducting school at Central Community Church in west Wichita before moving into its current building near K-96 on the northeast side of town. Trinity’s sports programs did not compete in state competition until the school’s fifth year in existence, 1998-99. In its infancy, the basketball program at Trinity practiced and played home games in the Central Community gymnasium, which had a carpeted playing surface. As a substitute for bleachers, they set up white folding chairs on the sideline for fans. Years later, they would be in an entirely different posture.
    The boys basketball program’s first season in 1994-95 ended with a humiliating loss to Sunrise Academy at the hands of a 70-point outing by legendary Christian school player Chance Lindley. That season, eighth graders played junior varsity at Trinity and the varsity struggled to stay in games.
But thirteen years and four coaches later, Trinity was at the Hutch Sports Arena playing in the Class 3A state title game. Four years after David Swank took over from Bob Beckler, who was in his second tenure as coach after being the program’s first back in 1994, Trinity was poised to become the best team in their class. A year after dropping a close game to eventual 3A champ Wichita Collegiate in the sub-state final, Trinity was in the state final against Nemaha Valley.
    In a game of stagnant offense, Trinity led Nemaha Valley 16-15 at halftime. The teams remained locked up through the third quarter, as Trinity trailed 28-27 in the closing seconds. But Cole Graddy, their all-state shooter, caught an in-bounds pass from the baseline at the top of the key in the third quarter’s closing seconds and launched a 24-footer, sinking it to give Trinity the lead for good.
    Josh Funk, an unheralded contributor all season, opened the fourth quarter with a three-pointer and drive-and-dish to Scott Henderson for a layup, putting Trinity up 35-28. The Knights didn’t look back, finding a flow in the fourth quarter and rolling to a 55-39 win.
    The young school celebrated its first state basketball title in its first appearance in the state tournament. And though Trinity did defeat Kapaun Mount Carmel of Class 5A decidedly at El Dorado’s mid-season tournament, it’s doubtful they would have made their title run if there had been a single state tournament in place of the class system.
Would March have been as interesting without Trinity’s state title story?

Verdict: A state tournament which included 6A Wichita Southeast, 4A Topeka Hayden, 5A Topeka Highland Park and others could have determined the state’s best team. But what if a single state tournament squelched the annual stories that come out of smaller schools like Greensburg and Trinity?

The answer: The state doesn’t have to sanction a state tournament between schools of different classes for it to happen. Couldn’t they allow their member schools to participate in a private, invitational playoff after the official KSHSAA state tournaments, if the schools are interested in doing so on their own? And the proceeds could go to...?