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Seeding criteria for basketball playoffs released by WIAA

10/05/2021, 3:30pm CDT
By Mark Miller

The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association is being transparent -- sort of -- about its use of electronic seeding for the boys' and girls' basketball playoffs this winter.

Doing away with the previous procedure of using high school coaches to seed each regional and/or sectional, the new computer seeding will spit out teams in seed order for regionals with the girls' brackets released February 14, 2022 and the boys' released on February 21, 2022. 

Electronic seeding will be based on the following factors:

1) Own team winning percentage;

2) Opponents' winning percentage;

3) Opponents' Opponent's winning percentage;

4) Defeated Opponents' winning percentage;

5) Defeated Opponents' Opponent's winning percentage;

6) Own winning percentage vs. teams in regional/sectional grouping.

While the above criteria will be used to determine seeding, the exact formula/weight of each factor will be not be released by the WIAA. 

Many coaches expressed concern over the possible use of point differential in contests with the thinking some might run up the score on opponents in order to potentially improve their seed.

But point differential will not be among the criteria utilized by the WIAA's electronic seeding so that concern has been alleviated. 

Winning road games might be more difficult than winning on your home court, but a win is a win is a win in the adopted WIAA seeding criteria. The new formula puts a huge emphasis on winning percentage, no matter the location of a contest.

The WIAA is requiring coaches and/or athletic directors of home teams to enter final scores on the WIAA score center immediately following each contest.    

For the latest and most up to date boys' basketball news and recruiting information, follow Mark on Twitter @wisbbyearbook. Email story ideas, recruiting info, etc. to Mark by clicking here.

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