Hoover vs. Huntsville brought together one of the greatest displays of boys basketball talent in the state of Alabama’s recent history.

With both teams in the Top 25 of the MaxPreps national rankings during the year, Hoover’s thrilling 63-60 deserved all the attention it got.

The only complaint? It should have happened later in the year.

This Northeast Regional championship showdown was one of many examples of some of the state’s top matchups of the season happening at regional sites or earlier, limiting some of the state’s top teams an opportunity to go to Birmingham.

Coaches across the state have come together in the Alabama Association of Basketball Coaches, putting together a plan to revamp the AHSAA playoff system.

The AABC’s plan has been keyed by Homewood boys basketball coach Elijah Garrison, with Orange Beach coach Chris Laatsch and Vestavia Hills coach Patrick Davis among others key in developing the plan.

‘Get the best teams in’

Garrison said the two main points of the proposal are to “Get the best teams in the playoffs and get the best teams to Birmingham,” with many other coaches echoing the same thing.

Davis brought the plan to light during his postgame press conference after a Northeast Regional semifinal matchup against Huntsville.

“There’s parts of what we have now that are really, really good,” the Vestavia Hills coach said later. “Our state tournament, the state finals, the Final Four, whatever you want to call it, is a really good setup, having it all in Birmingham, it’s a central location, it’s a great venue, so the whole thing is certainly not broken.

“At the end of the day, if you’re putting any sort of postseason tournament together, the goal has to be, how do we get the best teams in? And then, how do we set it up so that the best teams can go as deep as possible?”

This is a plan that Laastch started working on four or five years ago, with the new-look coaches association and renewed interest from the AHSAA helping move the needle in the right direction.

A basketball committee meeting, which will see the plan presented, is set for March 14.

“A lot of people are scared of change; if it’s not broke, why fix it, that kind of thing,” the Orange Beach coach said. “I’m more under the thinking that if it’s not broke, let’s break it and fix it back better, if we can. That’s kind of the mentality behind it. I think now with coach Savarese in his last couple years, coach Briggs and then and now Mr. Harmon, I think they’ve all expressed interest in hearing from the committees and what they see and what they think. Now that there’s people that feel like their voice is being heard, I think people are willing to step up and say, ‘Hey, let’s really look at it,’ where before, I think people assumed nothing would ever change, it wasn’t worth the trouble to try to get a proposal or try to get a committee to propose something.

“I think now people are feeling, over the last couple years, that they are actually listening, and so let’s see what is best and can we make it better?”

Use RPI to build brackets

One of the main goals in the proposal is to introduce an Ratings Percentage Index-based ranking system to put together a full bracket for each classification. Multiple of the states around Alabama use an RPI system, which is a formula that ranks teams based on wins and losses, strength of schedule and other factors.

The association has a model for both straight up rankings and divisions into north and south brackets.

Not only would this reward the entire body of work for a season, but it would also eliminate many of the matchups that see teams face off against fellow area teams. Over the past six years, there have been 91 instances of teams from the same area meeting in the regional final.

“I don’t mean to sound condescending or anything, but if you go to an 8-year-old travel baseball tournament or a 9U AAU tournament, where you’re going to play some games that matter for your seeding,” Davis said, “if you had two teams that were 4-0 in pool play, well, they’re not going to play each other in the first or second rounds. They’re going to, if they meet, they’re going to meet in the finals.

“We’ve just got such good basketball right now. I mean, the state of Alabama’s basketball is so good right now, and I just think this is a way that we could make the product at the end even better.”

This year saw many top-four matchups at regional sites, including Class 1A No. 1 Spring Garden girls vs. No. 2 Ider in the Northeast Regional and Class 7A No. 1 Hillcrest-Tuscaloosa girls vs. No. 4 Bob Jones in the Northwest Regional.

The coaches said they believe that the regional sites and state championships make for a very good product and a great tournament product, but look to change the format to make for different pairings.

Another part is updating the area format and moving away from areas and into larger groupings. The proposed plan calls it “district play,” or “modified regions,” which is state-determined.

It will keep the home-and-home matchups between other state-designated teams and add one game against teams in a designated cross-region.

The updated area tournament bracket also rewards the body of work, with the top two teams getting a double-bye and the No. 3 and No. 4 teams getting a single bye.

“Kids like to play meaningful games, and we’re increasing that number and I think it’s going to create a lot of excitement across regions,” said new Whitesburg Christian coach Patrick Harding, who led Buckhorn to back-to-back 6A titles. “Our cross at Whitesburg Christian was going to be with Sand Mountain teams, we’re going to have a renewed interest in what’s going on over there, even more so than when it was the current cross-areas.

“I think more than anything else, people are going to be talking about high school basketball in the state more, because you’re going to have more meaningful games and and I think we’re going to have the best teams play later in postseason instead of those early round-of-16, round-of-eight matchups that could potentially be a state championship game.”

Garrison pointed to the Southeastern Conference tournament bracket as one that rewards an entire body of work, with teams one through four getting double byes and five through eight getting single byes.

Time for a change

Hewitt-Trussville coach Jeremy Monceaux, a graduate of Parkway Christian and one of the most accomplished past players in AHSAA history, said bringing these changes will ensure every game of the season has more meaning.

“I think it’s crazy that probably less than 10 percent of your season, or less than 25 percent of your season matters toward any postseason play, which seems counterintuitive, really; what are we playing games for?

“The one thing I always bring up to the coaches is we’re in a different world than we were 50 years ago. I played high school basketball here in this state at a 1A, small-school level, and I had an amazing career. Nothing’s changed since 1998-2002 when I graduated, but yet, in the other sports, especially football, you’ve seen a lot of change since those years, and how we do things, and different things like that. We just think it’s time.”

Coaches are also encouraging the shot clock, with that one of other ideas that have been discussed with the AHSAA and brought to the forefront of conversations as well.

“Our goal is to impact the sport as a whole,” Monceaux said. “We’re encouraging the shot clock. That’s what we’re trying to find a good resolution for, not just 7A or the bigger classes, but something that’ll really benefit the entire state, 1A-7A right now.

“We’ve thrown around some ideas, I know that the people who are the highest level of our coaches association have put together a great proposal and so I’m hoping that that’ll be listened to as we get closer to some of these meetings at the end of the season.”

The back-and-forth between the AHSAA and the AABC in producing the plan has been encouraging, Laatsch said, with the communication increasing confidence in the AABC’s goals.

“At the end of the day, as long as they’ll listen to what we say, sometimes they may see things that are problems or speed bumps or hurdles that we don’t necessarily see because our lens is more singular focus, where theirs is more global,” he said. “They’ve got to protect a lot of things, and then at the end of the day, they’ve listened to us, and if they decide it’s not the best thing, or the championship committee decides not the best thing, well, then, we can deal with that.

“The fact that they’ve been willing to listen and let us present, we’re appreciative of that.”

Those that are involved in the association encouraged others to join and help contribute; in just three years, the Alabama Association of Basketball Coaches has grown to around 200 members across the state with members in every classification.

“Our young coaches that are involved in the coaches association have done a great job of reaching out to the different boys and girls, North and South,” Harding said. “Some of us older coaches give them guidance when they’ve asked, but I think it’s a credit to our young coaches for the energy and their resolve to get this going. I’m really proud of what they’ve done.”