At 5:55 p.m. Thursday, I took a call from sports correspondent Lloyd Combs, who’s in Castlewood tonight working the Region D, Division 1 girls semifinals.
“There’s not 100 people here,” he said of the scene 35 minutes before tipoff.
Used to be that for a Region D Tournament, you’d have to get there early—as in an hour or so before tipoff—or risk not finding a parking space or seat.
Not these days, which is yet another example of why basketball fans in southwest Virginia aren’t fooled by the Virginia High School League’s new divisional format for Group A basketball playoffs.
Since postseason started almost two weeks ago, I’ve covered three district tournament (Clinch Mountain girls, Lonesome Pine boys, Southwest boys) and regional quarterfinals in Abingdon and Gate City.
At only two of those events—the LPD boys, in part because of Pound’s small gym—and Gate City was the attendance and atmosphere worthy of a postseason event. At the others, particularly the Clinch Mountain girls semifinals at spacious Virginia High, it was like watching a game in a library at times.
The apologists will take the VHSL’s side and say it creates more state champions and gives schools with a smaller enrollment (like Ervinton and Twin Valley) a chance to better compete at this level. In theory, yes, in reality, not automatically.
Do you think the powerful Council teams of the mid-90s or the early 2000s needed divisional play to make their stamp on the state? Considering the 142-student school won a Group A title and reached the state semifinals three other times in seven years, I think you know the answer.
And if the Ervinton girls (and perhaps the Twin Valley boys and girls) reach the Division 1 semifinals in two weeks, it’s possible they could play schools with two or three times the enrollment. So that argument about playing schools your size is already a falsehood.
Look, the cat’s ran out of this bag permanently. Divisional playoffs are coming to Group AA as soon as next year and they’ll be in every sport within five years.
But if the last couple of weeks is any indication, prep basketball fans—at least the ones in southwest Virginia—have cast their vote for divisional playoffs.
By staying away from the gyms.