Girls’ basketball: Southern Section’s state playoff inequities exposed again

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Brea Olinda is the state’s top-rated Division II school playing in the Southern Section playoffs. If the state tournament were to begin today, the Ladycats would be the top-seeded team in the Southern California Regionals.

But here’s the deal: The way the state playoffs are set up, Brea is hardly a shoo-in for the state playoffs if it doesn’t win the Southern Section Division I-AA title. And the problem is that the section sets up in playoff divisions based on strength of league, not by enrollment.

In Divisions II through V, the section receives four automatic state berths. The pecking order is section champion, runner-up, semifinalists.

Going into section playoff games Saturday, there are three top-seeded teams still alive for the state Division II playoffs: Redondo (Division I-A), Ayala (II-A), and Colony (III-A). Another team, third-seeded University (IV-A), has reached the semifinals already. Should those four teams win their championships, it would exclude Brea from playing for a state title for which it would be favored.

If Brea were to get past Ventura on Saturday in a quarterfinal -- no easy task -- and lose in the semifinals, any combination of four schools reaching the finals in the lower divisions would KO Brea’s hopes to return to the state title game.

Here’s a quote: ‘What bothers me is four Division II teams are going to state and we won’t be one of them. My old team is a Division II team, and they play nobody, and they’re going to win. ... They just have to show up.’

The speaker was Troy Coach Roger Anderson. He coached Colony last year, and should be intimately aware of who is a more qualified state representative. His team, Troy, lost Wednesday to Santa Margarita, 46-43, in the second round of Division I-AA.

The creation of the Division I-AA super class has created inequities aimed at the very schools it really should protect. The format, used for the second year, should have been changed after last season when the same situation arose. Yes, school administrators would have had to move at light speed to get it done, but they are supposed to be competent and insightful enough to do so.

Automatic berths for winners of weaker divisions lessen the integrity of the state playoffs. It’s still a great honor to win a section title, but guaranteed advancement for a weaker team works against the very ideal of the state tournament. There should be at-large berths.

A change must be made.

-- Martin Henderson