Section 6A boys' basketball: Section seedings bring controversy

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The Ashby Arrows earned the highest seed out of area boys’ basketball teams in the Section 6A South tournament when the field was announced late last week.

The Arrows will enter the tournament this Thursday night at home against either (6) Hancock or (11) Underwood. Brandon-Evansville was seeded ninth through the QRF system at Minnesota-Scores.net. The Chargers had to play a game at (8) Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley on Monday night to try and earn a spot in the quarterfinals. Brandon-Evansville (9-14, 4-8 LEC) had already beaten the Wolverines (8-14) 69-58 in a game played on February 21.

The QRF seeding system is new this year after the Minnesota State High School League left it up to the section committees to decide whether or not they wanted to make the switch to the QRF rather than have coaches vote on the seeding. The system does not factor in head-to-head contests when seeding teams with similar records. That has led to some heated responses from around the state.

An example would be West Central Area getting the fifth seed in the subsection despite a 7-16 record through the regular season. The Chargers finished with two more wins than the Knights and beat them handily, 57-40, when they met during the regular season.

Ryan Weinzierl, the owner of Minnesota-Scores.net, has heard a lot of feedback on the QRF seeding system. His responses to a lot of questions can be seen on the home page at www.minnesota-scores.net.

6A SOUTH BOYS’ BASKETBALL

SEEDING – 1. BBE; 2. Battle Lake; 3. Ashby; 4. Henning; 5. West Central Area; 6. Hancock; 7. Wheaton-Herman-Norcross; 8. Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley; 9. Brandon-Evansville; 10. Parkers Prairie; 11. Underwood

PIGTAIL GAMES – March 5 – Underwood at Hancock, 7 p.m.; Parkers Prairie at WHN, 7 p.m.; Brandon-Evansville at CGB, 7 p.m.

QUARTERFINALS – March 8, 7 p.m. – Underwood/Hancock at Ashby; Parkers Prairie/WHN at Battle Lake; WCA at Henning; Brandon-Evansville/CGB at BBE

SEMIFINALS – March 10 – Game one at UM-Morris, 6 p.m.; Game two at UM-Morris, 7:30 p.m.

FINALS – March 13 – at UM-Morris, 8 p.m.

SECTION 6A FINAL – March 16 – at Concordia-Moorhead, 7 p.m.

Tags: ashby sports, brandon evansville sports, west central area sports, sports, boys, basketball, arrows, chargers, knights, section, 6a