BASKETBALL: Class AA to add divisional tournament

If approved by the Montana High School Association, divisional basketball tournaments will be coming to the state’s largest classification starting in 2018.

The state’s activities directors and principals voted on Tuesday to approve a proposal to add Western AA and Eastern AA divisional basketball tournaments starting with the 2017-18 academic year, a move that has been percolating for a while.

“It’s been in the works for four or five years, maybe longer,” Glacier Activities Director Mark Dennehy said. “Just some persistence by some folks out there … who have been pushing it for some time and they kept pushing and got enough votes and convinced enough people and that’s what we’re going to do.”

Double-elimination divisional tournaments are held at the state’s lower classes and determine which teams advance to the eight-team state tournament. In Class AA in recent years, the top two finishers in each division automatically qualified for state with the third and fourth qualifiers on each side determined by a series of single-elimination play-in games.

According to Dennehy, there were two main reasons the change was adopted.

“I think, one, they thought that with a tournament you’re going to see the best teams at the end of the season and they’re going to be emerge and be the best teams for the state tournament,” he said. “And some teams out there never experience the state tournament and this gives them the chance to experience that atmosphere.”

The Flathead boys and girls, and the Glacier boys, did not qualify for the 2016 state tournament. Glacier’s boys last reached the state tournament in 2014. Neither Flathead team has experienced postseason tournament play since the Bravettes reached the 2013 tourney.

The Western AA divisional tournament would be held in Kalispell, Helena or Missoula, with Dennehy adding that ideally both the boys and girls tournaments would be held in the same town each year, albeit at different schools. Not surprisingly, he said Glacier would be thrilled to have the event at home.

“We want to be able to host,” he said. “I think it’s great for the community. Bringing more teams in here helps your hotels and your (restaurants), and we thought it’s a good thing for our community that every three years it would be coming to town.”

Dennehy is today on board with the idea of hosting divisional tournaments, though that was not always the case.

“We’ve always been against it, particularly because of where we’re at geographically,” he said. “We’re so far away from everything that having a tournament two weeks in a row (divisionals and state), that’s challenging.

“We’ve always been on the other side but (Tuesday) we were convinced let’s give it a shot and see what it looks like.”

Dennehy also cited the possible addition of a second Bozeman high school — a move that was pushed forward by the Bozeman School Board on Tuesday night — and the accompanying increase from 14 to 16 schools in Class AA as a factor.

“With more teams I think it lends itself more to a (divisional) tournament,” he said.

The change in format must be approved by the MHSA before it is officially adopted, something that is expected to happen this fall.