To put it blunt, the Indiana High School Athletic Association (IHSAA) tournament process is screwed up. As the process stands now, teams play a grueling regular season; only to have their playoff position determined by a random draw, which can lead to the possibility of two highly ranked teams playing each other in early rounds while other lower-ranked teams could possibly “sneak in” to later rounds without playing tough competition.

Basically, the regular season for IHSAA teams is the world’s largest preseason, and like preseason in pro sports, it becomes a rather meaningless exercise. Despite the major flaws in the IHSAA tournament process, it can be easily fixed.

One of the major flaws in the IHSAA system is the preset Sectional. For example, Carmel and Warren Central are in the same football Sectional. As these are the typically the top two teams in the state of Indiana, it is almost a disservice to have them play each other any other time than the State championship. While travel reasons may prevent a state match-up, there is a simple fix to make the regular season mean something. All the IHSAA needs to do is seed each individual Sectional.

Seeding the Sectional makes absolute sense. The teams are not affected travel-wise, as they still have to go to the same place. Seeding the Sectional prevents unfair first round matchups, such as a Hamilton Southeastern-North Central first round game that happened in last year’s basketball tournament. In that case, the teams with the first and third best records in the sectional played each other in the first round. It is a disfavor to both teams that worked so hard in the regular season to earn a good record, and to their fans that supported them throughout, to see their season fall apart so early.

Of course, there will always be flaws in the IHSAA playoff system. Sometimes, having two of the best teams face off in a Sectional is inevitable. However, there are reforms that can easily be made to prevent the regular season being one big preseason.

To use the basketball scenario from last year for example, under a Sectional seeding system, Hamilton Southeastern would have played Noblesville (the team with the worst record in the Sectional at that time). That way, the teams that have success in the regular season are rewarded in the postseason. Most I think most level-minded people would be in favor of this simple and logical fix. It is a necessary step to make the tournament fairer to teams.

My hope is that somebody with more power than I reads this column and strives to make the necessary changes that prevents the IHSAA’s tournament system to continually disregard teams’ regular season accomplishments. Change is needed; and it can be easily obtained.