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Originally Posted by tomegun
Congrats to Nevada! He will be working games in the state tournament next week in Reno.
On another note, our state tournament almost didn't happen...on time. A team self-reported an ineligible player and was forced to forfeit 4 games. This moved them from second place out of the playoffs. Well, one of the players went to court and the playoffs on that half of town (boys) were delayed.
The zone final was supposed to be played last night, but will be played on Tuesday now. Here is what happened:
The decision was made to give back two victories and the team made the playoffs. I heard two versions of what happened: 1) The player in question was a fifth-year senior and 2) The player in question took some high school classes as an 8th-grader and that started his eligibility. If it was the latter, I think the state shouldn't have penalized the team in the first place. At any rate, the victories were given back because this player was the last player off the bench and his team won the two victories by 30 points or so - he didn't determine the outcome.
Now, the winning team will have to play today, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday in Reno and Friday in Reno. If the team happens to take a bus to Reno, that is a 450 mile trip!
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I actually teach at the school in question. The kid was indeed a 5th year senior (don't know how he ended up at the school in that circumstance) and the school did indeed self-report resulting in the 4 forfieted wins. However, the school, not the kid, appealed to the state to overturn the appeal based on the player's limited playing time and impact on the 4 wins (he joined the team late in the season so there were only the 4 wins in question).
Our school's head coach, AD, & Assistant Principal over athletics joined a teleconference on Thursday (I think) with the state and the same reps from the 3 schools in the 4 games in question. One school who our kids had beaten twice said the player in question had no impact on the wins; the other 2 schools said he did have an impact. So, on Friday morning the state announced 2 forfiets were overturned and 2 weren't, resulting in the team reclaiming the 2nd seed vice missing the tournament. The resultant 4th & 5th place teams played a play-in game on Friday night...don't know how that turned out.
On Saturday night my school hosted a post-season game for the first time in forever. The gym holds about 2500 people and it was probably 40-45% full, a HUGE attendance for the school (though at least half were there for the rival team from about 3-4 miles away). The place was rocking and the kids were pumped. Unfortunately the other team played an excellent game and our boys absorbed a 17 point beat down that wasn't even that close. Talk about anti-climactic. As a loyal fan for the home team on this night I wanted to blame the officials...my association mates
...but they called an excellent game.
Oh well...made for an interesting week.