Region 15 tournament has gotta go

I don’t like the Region 15 tournament. It’s the same reason I don’t like college basketball teams receiving automatic bids into the NCAA tournament for winning their conference tournament despite a losing record during the regular season.

Region 15 is the only region in the state that bases state tournament seeding on a region tournament. This year’s region tournament concludes today at SUU, but regular season champion Escalante won’t be playing in the championship game. Escalante, which owned a 17-1 record heading into the tournament, was upset by Valley last night in the semifinals. This is the same Valley team it beat twice during region play.

Now, regardless of if Escalante wins its third-place game today, the best team in Class 1A must win a play-in game against a yet-to-be-determined opponent next Monday or Tuesday just to qualify for the state tournament. I have no doubt that the Moquis will win that play-in game, but what’s frustrating from an outsiders point of view is what happens next. If Escalante wins its third-place game today and then the ensuing play-in game, it will face the Region 17 champion in the first round. If it loses today, and wins the play-in game, it would face the Region 16 champion in the first round. Either way, we have region champs meeting in the first round and that’s just not right.

The latter scenario is the worst-case scenario. The Region 16 champion is one of the few teams that might be able to beat 1A favorite Escalante in next week’s state tournament at the Sevier Valley Center. And now there’s a chance they’ll meet in the first round? That’s not right in my opinion.

A similar situation happened a few years ago when Region 17 used to have a region tournament. Layton Christian was upset in that tournament, and its punishment was a first round game at state against Escalante. That first-round game pitted the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in 1A against either. It should’ve been a championship match-up, but it never had a chance because of region tournaments.

I know the Region 15 tournament is a real money-maker for the region and it isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, but for those of you down in Southern Utah do you like the region tournament or not?