Valley coaches like teams’ spots on state brackets

PALMER — There’s more suspense leading up to the release of the 4A state tournament bracket these days.

Gone is a time where the large-schools basketball schedule was determined by cross-bracketing, and first-round matchups decided by overall finish in the region tournaments. Now that the Alaska Schools Activities Association has implemented its Winning Percentage Index and used it as its formula to rank 4A teams in Alaska, it’s the WPI that decides where state tournament teams will fall in the bracket.

And after the state’s six automatic bids are dealt, the WPI also determines which teams earn the final at-large berths to state.

Palmer head coach Jason Marvel knew his team would be in the state tournament. But until ASAA officials officially released the first-round schedule Sunday evening, Marvel sat at the edge of his seat wondering where the Moose would fall on the bracket.

Palmer could have realistically been ranked sixth through eighth in the state, following its upset of top-seeded Colony in the Northern Lights Conference Championships title game in Soldotna last Saturday.

Once Marvel finally figured out who his team would face in the first round of the state tourney, which starts March 21 in Anchorage, the Moose mentor was pleased.

Palmer earned the sixth seed in the 4A bracket, and will hit the court against third-seeded East Anchorage March 21 at 7 p.m. at the Sullivan Arena in Anchorage.

“I think it’s a great matchup for us,” Marvel said. “We lost to them by six when we lost earlier in the season. Obviously they’re different. We’re different.”

East Anchorage is the Cook Inlet Conference runner-up.

The Moose share the same side of the bracket as Colony, the team Palmer topped 63-54 in the NLC final. Colony landed the tournament’s No. 2 seed and will face Thunder Mountain in the first round.

Colony head coach Tom Berg was happy to see his team earn the No. 2 seed.

“Despite the loss, I thought with our body of work, I thought we still had a really good chance being the 2 still,” Berg said. “I think we deserved it. Certainly, we didn’t do what we wanted to do last weekend. But with the WPI, our body of work is well-represented.”

Berg also liked to see his Knights on the bottom side of the state bracket, along with Palmer, East and Thunder Mountain.

The top side features top-seeded Service facing Dimond, and fourth-seeded Lathrop meeting fifth-seeded West Anchorage.

“I think the one dominant team this season has been Service. To stay on the opposite side of them and get a chance to play on Saturday night, if things go well on Thursday and Friday, is certainly what you need to do,” Berg said.

Both Marvel and Berg said, there is a considerable amount of parity among the bulk of the field.

“Two through seven, two through eight even, on any given night, anyone can win,” Marvel said.

While Palmer has seen East, Colony did not meet Thunder Mountain during the regular season. The Falcons, the Southeast Conference Champions, are winners of 11 straight.

“I like our side of the bracket. We know East. We certainly know Palmer. But I don’t know a whole lot about Thunder Mountain. They’re one of the few teams we didn’t see,” Berg said.

Thunder Mountain has wins over two state tournament teams this year, Dimond and Lathrop.

The Knights meet the Falcons March 21 at 11:30 p.m.

The Knights and Moose wondered where they would end up on the boys bracket, but there was little suspense regarding the Wasilla girls. The undefeated Warriors knew they’d be the top seed. It was just a matter of which team would draw the two-time defending state champions in the first round.

Wasilla opens with Southeast Conference champion Juneau-Douglas March 21 at 5:15 p.m.

“The top eight teams are all pretty good,” Wasilla head coach Jeannie Hebert-Truax said of the field. “The girls have to come out ready to play, take it one game at a time.”

The Warriors played Juneau-Douglas twice in December, beating the Crimson Bears by more than 30 points in each meeting.

“We played them early in the season, but they always tend to get better as a team,” Hebert-Truax said.

Colony, which finished third in the NLC tournament, earned the fourth seed in the girls’ tournament, and will face fifth-seed West Anchorage in the first round. The Knights and Eagles did not meet in the first round.

Both Valley teams are on the top side of the girls bracket. Colony and West are scheduled to meet March 21 at 9:45 a.m.

Cook Inlet Conference champion Dimond is seeded second in the tourney, and will face Mid-Alaska Conference champion West Valley March 21 at 3:30 p.m. NLC runner-up Kodiak, the No. 3 seed, meets sixth-seeded Lathrop, the MAC runner-up, March 21 at 8 a.m.

Lathrop is a late addition to the field. Soldotna was originally announced as Kodiak’s opponent when ASAA unveiled its first-round matchups Sunday. ASAA’s information showed SoHi’s WPI a mere fraction of a percentage point ahead of Lathrop on Sunday. But on Monday, new information surfaced that two game scores were not submitted which have an impact on Lathrop’s final WPI.

The WPI takes into account not only a team’s win-loss record, but also the win-loss record of the team’s opponents.

With the new information, Lathrop’s WPI was pushed slightly ahead of Soldotna, and the Stars were left out of the 2013 field.

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.