Time To Reevaluate

The MHSAA should do something about the state basketball tourney draw.

The way it is now, seems unfair and incredibly random in a lot of ways.

First, we need to seed, at least after the districts. There just shouldn't be a region like there is in the girls Class A bracket at Farmington where the state's No. 1 , No. 2 and No. 3 teams are all in the mix, with only one getting the right to head onto the quarterfinals.

Don't we want as many of the state's Top 5-to-Top 10 squads going as deep as possible and then squaring off in the Elite 8, Final Four or State Final?

Why should teams that are average or with under .500 records have easy routes out of the district and sometimes out of the regional, while other superpower clubs must fight tooth-and-nail just to snare a single trophy (see boys Saginaw v. Arthur Hill first-round clash)?

I'm not sure why we do it this way. It seems logical to pick playoff pairings right before the tourney starts, alas football, but the MHSAA delves out its district assignment in the summer, a good six months before we really have any clue what will be what and who will be who.

As things are right now, it seems that luck has more to do with it than it should – where a specific team is sent for tournament play practically and sometimes literally means more than how that team did during its season.

Maybe, everyone shouldn't qualify (also alas the state's prep gridiron world) and you have to be over .500 just to get in (an idea I would consider).

Whatever the answer is to get things fixed, Burney will tell you it's not this.