After the Crimsons defeated the Sacred Heart-Griffin Cyclones 60-50  last night at the Bowl, It brought the Crimsons’ record to 16-8 (11-4 in the Central State Eight). Regional seedings will be announced tomorrow, Thursday, February 18, 2015 at about 4 P.M. The question is now: Which seed will the Crimsons get in their sub-sectional.

This year, the IHSA decided to change the way that they organized their postseason. Before, they had just organized teams by seed into regionals, which fed into sectionals, into super-sectionals, then state. This year is different. They broke up a sectional into two groups, two sub-sectionals, which then are divided again into regionals. The sub-sectionals are then seeded according to the teams’  records. The IHSA is doing this for most major sports (soccer, basketball, volleyball, etc). To me, it is weird, but it all feeds into a regular bracket.

The IHSA announced the basketball sectional assignments at the beginning of the season. So, the Crimsons knew who they could possibly face in the postseason. They could not escape the grasp of EVERY normal conference foe but also added Taylorville, whom they had already defeated earlier in the season, and Clinton, a school north of Decatur.

As of right now, based on overall regular season records, the top seeds are Lanphier (19-4), Southeast (18-5), Decatur MacArthur (19-6), and Jacksonville (16-8). However, I do not think that the IHSA goes fully off of overall records, especially since it is virtually the CS8 sub-sectional. Right now, between those four teams only, Jacksonville and Lanphier are both 3-2 against those other teams (Jacksonville 1-1 against Lanphier). MacArthur is 3-3, and Southeast is 2-4.

If you break it down:

Lanphier is 2-0 against MacArthur, 1-1 against Jacksonville, and  0-1 against Southeast.

Jacksonville is 1-1 against Lanphier, 2-0 against Southeast, and 0-1 against MacArthur*

MacArthur is 0-2 against Lanphier, 1-0 against Jacksonville*, and 2-1 against Southeast

Southeast is 1-0 against Lanphier, 0-2 against Jacksonville, and 1-2 against MacArthur

So, in conclusion, The seedings are a crap shoot. Any of those teams could take the top seed. The seeds will be announced on Thursday Feb. 18 at about 4 P.M. All we know for sure is that Jacksonville will host a regional.    
*–Jacksonville will host Decatur MacArthur on Tuesday February 23 for the regular season finale/senior night