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We’re heading down the home stretch of basketball season, with both Andrews and Murphy teams, and most of the Smoky Mountain Conference, hitting the halfway point. On Saturday, Feb. 19, the playoff draw will be announced.
The process will be the same as the fall, except for one small caveat. At the N.C. High School Athletic Association Board of Directors meeting in December, the board approved a “leapfrog” provision that will be in effect for the upcoming winter sports playoffs.
The leapfrog rule states that though teams that finish lower than other teams in their conference can still be seeded higher because of their respective RPIs, they cannot qualify for the playoffs before teams that finish higher in their conference. If that sounds like gibberish, let’s run through a hypothetical situation.
Say Andrews finished ahead of Murphy in conference play, but the Bulldogs had a higher RPI. Under the old rules, Murphy would just qualify for the playoffs. Under the new provision, Murphy would have to wait for Andrews to qualify and can’t “leapfrog” the Wildcats. They would still get the higher seed, but would have to wait for Andrews to qualify to be included.
It didn’t really matter for 1A football since every team that wanted to continue playing advanced to the postseason, and it wouldn’t have made an impact for Smoky Mountain Conference volleyball, either. Basketball could be different, but we’ll see. It will probably have a bigger impact in the bigger classifications, where a 3A or 4A school could pad their win total with non-conference games against smaller schools before falling back to Earth in conference play.
The provision continues to drive home the point that conference games are the most important. Teams that win their conference or finish no lower than third or have a .500 or better record in a split 1A/2A conference, are placed on the top seeding lines and get a guaranteed first-round playoff game. As a result, teams may not be
able to qualify for the
playoffs if teams finishing above them aren’t also in the field.
What difference this will make is still mostly hypothetical, though at this point a bigger concern is once again making a change to the playoff seeding process. Growing up in Maryland, I didn’t realize until moving here that the NCHSAA constantly seems to change how the playoffs work.
In talking with area coaches and athletes, there’s still confusion about how the seeding works since it’s changed so often. Adding a new wrinkle isn’t going to make that any easier.
Maybe I’ve just written about something that won’t matter. If you’re a team left out of the playoffs because of the new leapfrog rule, you probably don’t deserve to be in the playoffs anyway. If a team wins enough games, they likely won’t have anything to worry about.
Because that’s the way sports works. Win, and the rest usually takes care of itself.
Justin Fitzgerald is sports writer for the Cherokee Scout. Contact him at 837-5122, Ext. 18; or email sports@cherokeescout.com.