State Playoff Selection

Washington state, before this year...

16 teams per classification (8 teams for 8-man).

Berths are allocated based on #of schools in a district. Our district has a lot of schools, so we normally get 6 berths per year. In some classifications, districts combine, so if your district gets 2 and mine gets 3, we put all our teams together and get 5 berths. Most people consider the district level game "making state" so it's a way to get more teams to make that claim.

We went to seeding committees for the 16 teams in 2018. Each committee has 7-8 coaches/AD's, one or two media member and then a common set of metrics that they look at. The first year I thought we got a worse seed than we should have, last year I thought we'd be seeded 4th and ended up 2nd, so I'm more of a fan than not right now.

In Arizona, playoffs are determined by a powerpoints formula. Some classes allow the region champ an automatic berth and some don't. For example this year in 5A a region champ was excluded from the playoffs because they didn't finish in the top 16 in the powerpoints. This past year things got more interesting with the start of the Open Division State Champion. The top 8 overall teams in 4A-6A competed for the Open title. This was done to have all of the "destination" schools and there 10-15 D1 commits compete in the same tournament. It added a lot of excitement to the 4A-6A tournaments.

In Connecticut the top 8 teams in each of the 4 classes get in. It is based off of a point system. The top eight teams in each division will be selected using a point system as follows:
Four classes of competition will be used with the point system.
Division LL / Division L / Division M / Division S

a. A school will receive 100 points for defeating a school in its own division;
90 points for defeating a school in one lower division;
80 points for defeating a school in two lower divisions;
70 points foe defeating a school in three lower divisions;
110 points for defeating a school in one higher division;
120 points foe defeating a school in two higher divisions;
130 points for defeating a school in three higher divisions.

b. A school defeating a league opponent of a lower division will not be subject to the structure as outlined in
paragraph a., but will receive 100 points.

The following is used only if a game is played against an out-of-state team at the out-of-state team’s site.
The out-of-state team must be a member of their state high school association.
A school will receive 50 points for tying a school in its own division;
45 points for tying a school in one lower division;
40 points for tying a school in two lower divisions;
35 points for tying a school in three lower divisions;
55 points for tying a school in one higher division;
60 points for tying a school in two higher divisions;
65 points for tying a school in three higher divisions.

d. A school will receive 10 points for each victory and 5 points for each tie earned by any opponent it has defeated.

e. A school will receive 5 points for each victory and 2.5 points for each tie earned by an opponent it has tied. A
school will not receive any bonus points for a tie where they were the opponent.

In Iowa, we have five classes:

4A--40 teams and the biggest schools
3A--54 teams
2A--54 teams
1A--54 teams
A--60 teams

4A is doing something different this year with placements and schedules and I'm not sure how to explain it, honestly. 3A and lower are broken into districts. 3A, 2A, and 1A are 9 districts of 6 teams and A is 10 districts of 6 teams. District champtions automatically make the playoffs and an RPI formula determines the remaining teams.

16 total teams make the playoffs in each class, other than I'm not sure how many make the playoffs in 4A.

PA: We have 6 classes now, state is broken up by Districts think there are 12 now. Each district has their own championship payoff then the winners advance to the inner-district playoffs for the state title. The thing is each district is based on geography and nothing else really. So some districts have no 6A teams or maybe just 2 5A teams and 20 2A teams etc so it's a lot harder to make it in some districts than others. In our class and district every team made the playoffs, you can also opt out of the playoffs in ours which we did after wining just 1 last year and they don't re-seed so some teams get byes and others don't.

It's a crazy system that you almost have to live here to truly understand.

Thank you all for the information.That is a huge help! Part of our state committee and constantly looking for a better more accurate way. Grew up in PA, Coached in Indiana and VA. Some of you posted your points/ Specifics of the selection process. For those who didn't could you be more specific? Currently where I am, We've had a points system for years and felt that was too easy to manipulate. It was not difficult to manipulate the schedule to put you in contention for a spot. For example, one year Team A went undefeated playing mostly bottom feeders and mostly lower division teams and only one with a winning record (5-4) because of our points system they ended up as a 2 seed. The 1st team out played 5 of the top 6 Beating the 1 seed, losing to #3 in 3OT's and losing to #4 15-8 and was up 8-7 with 2 to go. Needless to say #3 beats #2 42-0 with a running clock the whole 2nd half.

More recently we went to still using the points as a data point and a coaches poll to help us narrow the field and then the selection committee announces the parings. Of course there are those who feel we are leaving someone out. The last couple spots are always contentious. Just trying to make the process more seamless and not reward "Strategic Scheduling"

All are in and a completely random sectional draw. It’s madness and I love it.

Nothing like seeing a 1 seed type team have to travel to a hostile environment to play a 2 seed type team.

Some hate it but I coached middle of the pack schools in conferences with loaded powerhouses, who pretended we were all on the same level in terms of support and participation so I liked to see them get a bad draw.

Been screwed by it too, but in general I like it.

I know this may sound a bit "pain in the butt", however, it may make things easier to comprehend if when using words like "region, district, conference, classification, etc." it was somewhat defined.

I am betting classification probably has the most universal usage : grouping of schools based on enrollment. After that though, the terms used in PA might be different than in LA.

Prior to the Public/Private playoff split in Louisiana, I would argue the system was very solid and probably "better" than most of the ones I read here. I realize that any type of playoff system is dictated by factors such as population and geography.

Louisiana was divided into 5 classifications based on enrollment. With about 60 in each class (They tried to do it as evenly as possible, but I do think they made a few adjustments in case of obvious disparity) Each class was broken up into 9-10 districts, which are done geographically. So Distric 9-2A might be 5-6 schools in the 2A classification all in Southeast area of Louisiana.  Teams play a set district schedule, and try and schedule as many non district games as needed to fill in a 10 game schedule. 

Playoffs are 5 rounds (32 teams). Louisiana has changed this a bit over the last couple of decades-
1) District champs and District runner ups got automatic bid. Remaining slots in 32 are filled in by power point formula. I honestly can't remember how they did the seeding exactly, but originally it was somewhat geographic. Then I THINK it moved to pulling the district champs, ranking them by power points and then placing them to fill up as many of the 16 seeds (first round home game) as possible, and then ranking the remaining teams and filling in the bracket from that. Then it went to just straight power point seeding, and I think only District Champs were "protected" (meaning they get in even if they aren't in the top 32).

NOW... the set up is the same with regards to classes and districts, BUT once the playoffs arrive Schools deemed "select" (private schools and a few public schools with select admissions) compete in separate brackets. There are not enough teams for 2 32 team brackets for each class, so the select bracket has 4 classes, and even then the brackets are 16 teams with some teams getting bye weeks (and playing only 3 games to win state).Essentially almost every select team in some classes make the playoffs. The non select fill out their 32 team bracket (again, the vast majority of teams make the playoffs).   

One additional issue wth Louisiana is that due to complaints about travel, I believe some districts are as small as 4 teams, meaning 3 district games.   I think Louisiana's system worked best when most districts were about 8 teams, so you played 7 district games and 3 non district. 

To go with my posts in Iowa, as stated "classes" are groupings by enrollment. "Districts" are then state-assigned groupings within that classification. All district opponents are in the same class, for further explanation. Schools get some say in who they play for the four non-district games and those games could be against schools of different classes.

In re-reading that, I hope I didn't actually complicate it, lol!