WIAA Sets Up Its Five Division Format for Basketball

The WIAA announced its final breakdown of its new five division format for the WIAA tournament. Eau Claire Immanuel will be in Division 5 which includes all schools that are under 200 students in enrollment. Here is the WIAA setup. The Immanuel girls will be in Regional A of Sectional 3 which includes the following teams:

Regional A
Alma/Pepin
Cochrane-Fountain City
Eau Claire Immanuel Lutheran
Elmwood
Gilmanton
Independence
McDonell Central
Plum City

The coaches will be allowed to vote as to whether or not to seed by the Regional or by the half-sectional. Should it be by the half-sectional, Regional B schools will be involved which include:

Regional B
Brookwood
Cashton
Hillsboro
Lincoln
Royall
Wonewoc-Center


John Casper of the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram writes the following in his blog:

WIAA sets divisions for basketball

Posted: Thursday, September 2, 2010 1:05 pm

By John Casper Jr. Leader-Telegram staff

The WIAA announced today that the basketball divisions for the upcoming state tournaments have been finalized. This is the first year that Wisconsin will crown a state champion in five divisions.

Schools were given the opportunity to opt up a division from where their enrollment might place them. Only three took the WIAA up on the offer. The Milwaukee Washington boys team will jump from Division 2 to Division 1, while on the girls side Nicolet and Milwaukee Pius will jump from Division 2 to Division 1.

Tip of the hat to them. I wish more schools (cough, Racine St. Catherine's, cough) would have done the same.

I haven't had a chance to pour through the brackets yet, but some quick observations:

*The road for a Division 1 team from this area to go to state will go through UW-Stevens Point. The D1 field no longer has eight representatives at the state touranment, only four, but the WIAA set up a Super Tuesday format after the sectional finals. The D1 sectional winner in this area will play a sectional winner from the east side of the state to go to Madison.

*Quite a few schools basically dropped a division. Rice Lake stayed in Division 2 and Ladysmith stayed in Division 3 but many others dropped down. The big division in this area used to be D3, but now it looks like it'll be D4, which is where many of the Cloverbelt teams are placed.

*Coaches will have the option of voting to seed the sectional half or just the regional groupings. I'm hoping coaches opt to seed the sectional half. And I'm guessing many will, including the girls Division 4 regional that includes Colfax, Fall Creek, Regis and Osseo-Fairchild.

To view the brackets, go to the WIAA website.