Martinez: A few tweaks could create better basketball state tournament

But maybe a simple tweak of the schedule might open up some possibilities.

Before we dive into that tweak, let’s first review the current state basketball playoff format, because to the uninitiated it can be confusing.

On Sunday, seeding committees at each classification seeded every state-playoff participant — 1 to 16 for 4A, 2A, 1A and 2B tournaments and 1 to 20 from 3A and 1B tournaments.

For the 16-team fields, teams seeded 1 to 8 will play games this weekend in which the winners will advance to state quarterfinals on Thursday, March 6 at the final state site. The loser of these games will advance to the Round-of-12 games on Wednesday, March 5 at the Hardwood Classic site.

Teams seeded 9 to 16 will play loser-out games this weekend with the winner advancing to the Round-of-12. Those Round-of-12 games are also loser-out games.

Once teams reach the quarterfinals, teams are assured of playing until at least Friday at the final state site.

For the 20-team fields, those start Tuesday with Round-of-20 games in which teams seed 13 to 20 will play to determine opponents for teams seeded 9, 10, 11 and 12 for this weekend’s loser-out games. From there, they follow the same format at the 16-team fields.

I’ve always had two qualms with this format.

For one, it is possible to lose a state-playoff game and still win a state championship.

That just feels wrong to me. And under the previous format dissolved back in 2010, that could not happen.

It hasn’t happened often, but you don’t have to go far back to find when it did.

Last season, Napavine won the 2B girls state championship after losing its opening-round game.

Secondly, it is possible for two teams to face each other twice in the same state playoff.

Again, it doesn’t happen often. But again it happened last year.

The Camas girls opened state last year by beating Gonzaga Prep in the opening round at Battle Ground High School.

A week later, the Papermakers were in the state championship game, whey they faced — you guessed it — Gonzaga Prep.

Again, in the old format, this could not happen.

So how do we fix these two issues while still providing 48 teams (12 in each tournament, 4 tournaments each site) the chance to play in the final state site?

My proposal works on a two-year cycle. And we’ll use the 4A/3A tournaments as an example.

First, we abandon the two-tiered matchups in opening round. The No. 1 seed plays No. 16, 2 plays 15, 3 plays 14 and so on.

Then in Year 1 of my proposal, those eight first-round matchups in 4A are played at the Tacoma Dome on Wednesday. Losers are out, and winners advance to the quarterfinals Thursday.

The eight round-of-16 matchups in 3A are played in four high school gyms in the Tacoma area. It’s four gyms so the games could be played after school hours, not disrupting school days at host schools. Losers are out, winners advance to quarterfinals.

From there, both tournaments would proceed as normal.

In Year 2, 3A would play first-round games at the dome, and 4A would play off-site on Wednesday.

This proposal still provides 48 teams the opportunity to play on the Tacoma Dome floor each year. And it brings 64 teams to the tournament city, where some teams could take in the state experience, even just as spectators if they chose.

It’s better than not at all.

The round-of-20 games at 3A and 1B would be played the previous Saturday.

And this proposal opens up another opportunity.

What if those Wednesday first-round losers don’t go home? What if they return Thursday to play consolation-round games at those four off-site high school gyms?

Thursday winners could play again on Friday at two host gyms. Friday’s winners return to play Saturday for fifth place … at the Tacoma Dome.

There is time in the current schedule on Saturday for fifth-place games. Fifth-place games were part of Saturday state schedule before the format change in 2011.

Look at that. We just re-created the 16-team, double-elimination format. We just expanded the number of teams that get to play on the Tacoma Dome floor from 48 to 52, all without additional rental costs in Tacoma, Yakima and Spokane.

There is no perfect solution to improving the state-tournament experiences of qualifying teams. The goal is to find the least imperfect solution.

Could this be that solution?