Attention Basketball Coaches,
The NCHSAA Board of Directors approved a change in the one-year pilot program seeding process in December that took effect immediately. The change adds a single step to the seeding process. Teams will also qualify based on their 20-game record based on the Board of Directors decision in December due to the effects of Hurricane Matthew.
This year teams will receive two seeds, one for their position in the East or West region overall and another for their position within their sub-region (East, Mideast, Midwest, West).
The seed a team receives for their position within the region determines hosting priority for each game played during the first four rounds of the tournament. This seed is a number, 1 through 32. First through fourth round games are played at the site of the higher seed.
The seed a team receives within their sub-region determines which team they are paired with during the cross-bracketing phase of the seeding process. The seed a team receives within their sub-region is noted by the letter(s) representing their sub-region and a number, 1 through 16 (i.e. E1 or MW 16).
Adjusted One-Year Pilot Program for Seeding (Changes to 4.1.17(b) and 4.1.18)
4.1.17 – Playoff Berths/Qualification:
(a) All teams that finish first (1st) in the conference regular season or are the conference tournament champions, automatically qualify. In a split conference a team must finish first in their part of the split or be the conference tournament champion to automatically qualify.
(1) Split conferences cannot have separate tournaments, and the regular season conference champion must participate in the conference tournament.
(b) All other teams must qualify based upon the best 20-game record from the non-automatic qualifiers, they will be broken by:
(1) All Head-to-Head Competition:
(i) The non-conference game(s) that are dropped for seeding purposes may still be used in breaking a tie
(2) Conference Winning Percentage
(3) Draw
(c) All classifications will field a full complement of 64 teams with the exception of tennis, wrestling and lacrosse.
(d) If ties exist for the final at-large berth(s) qualifiers, they will be broken by:
(1) All Head-to-Head Competition:
(i) The non-conference game(s) that aree dropped for seeding purposes may still be used in breaking a tie.
(2) Conference Winning Percentage
(3) Draw
4.1.18 – Seeding:
Regional seed assignment
(a) Once the qualifying teams are determined, they will be divided into two groups (i.e. East, West) based on longitude of each school.
(b) Seed all first place, regular season conference champions by 20-game winning percentage followed by;
(c) Conference tournament champion by 20-game winning percentage followed by;
(d) All other qualifying teams by 20-game winning percentage.
(1) All ties for seeding in (a), (b) or (c) will be broken by:
(i) All Head-to-Head Competition:
Note: The non-conference game(s) that are dropped for seeding purposes may still be used in breaking a tie.
Note: All teams involved in the tie must have played each other.
(ii) 24-game record
(iii) MaxPreps Ranking (last available ranking at the time of the seeding)
(iv) Draw
Sub-regional seed assignment
(e) Once the qualifying teams are determined, they will be divided into four (4) groups, (i.e. East, Mideast, Midwest, West) based upon the longitude of each school.
(f) Seed teams in the sub-region in the order that they were seeded within the region.
4.1.19 – Bracketing:
(a) Once the seeding process is complete, the pairings will be made with teams from the East paired with teams from the Mideast and teams from the Midwest paired with teams from the West.
(b) A bracketing template for each sport will be posted on the NCHSAA website.
