Three hundred ninety-nine (399) teams were drawn
and placed into brackets for the 111th Annual IHSAA Boys
Basketball State Tournament presented by the Indiana Pacers
and Indiana Fever.
Sectional games are scheduled to begin Tuesday, March 2,
and run through Saturday, March 6, with the regional round
slated for March 13 and semi-states on March 20. The four
state championship games that make up the state finals will
be played two weeks later on Saturday, April 3 at Bankers
Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
Undefeated Homestead is this week’s top-ranked team in
the single class poll from the Indiana Basketball Coaches
Association as well as the 4A poll from the Associated Press.
The Spartans drew a first-round game against Huntington North in Sectional 6 at Fort Wayne Wayne.
Class 3A’s top-ranked team, the Hammond Wildcats, drew a bye into the semifinal round and will await the Griffith Hammond Gavit winner in Sectional 17 at Calumet.
In Class 2A, the No. 1 Fort Wayne Blackhawk Christian Braves will meet home-standing Bluffton in its first round game in
Sectional 36.
And the Barr-Reeve Vikings, the top-ranked team in the Class A poll, will square off against Washington Catholic in the
opening round of Sectional 63 played at North Daviess.
Three schools will participate in their first IHSAA boys basketball state tournament this year.
The Elkhart Lions, a consolidation of Elkhart Central and Elkhart Memorial, will host Class 4A Sectional 4. The Illiana
Christian Vikings, formerly an Illinois school which relocated to Dyer, Indiana, will participate in Class 2A Sectional 33 at
Whiting. And the Lighthouse Christian Academy Lions, located in Bloomington, are slated for Class A Sectional 57 at Clay
City.
The Bloomington South Panthers and the Carmel Greyhounds, both 4A teams, currently lead the state winning six
consecutive sectional championships and are followed by 21st Century-Gary and Covington, both 1A teams, with five
straight titles.
About the Draw
To conduct the traditional, random drawing for the boys basketball
state tournament, the IHSAA places ping-pong balls representing
each school in a given sectional into a lottery-style air mix machine. A
motorized fan in the bottom of the machine blows the balls around
the inside of the transparent container and air then forces each ball
up through a tube in random order. For example, the first ball
retrieved from the machine will be the visiting team in game one with
the second ball representing the home team in game one. The third
ball to come out is the visitor in game two and the fourth ball the
home team in game two. That same method is followed through all 64
sectionals and 16 regionals.
No. of Schools Entered: 399 teams
By Class: 100 4A teams; 99 3A teams; 102 2A teams; 98 1A teams.
Total No. of Games: 395 games in 33 days.
Greensburg hosts their sectional where they will play Wednesday, March 3rd taking on Rushville.
North Decatur and South Decatur play at Milan. North Decatur takes on South Ripley Tuesday, March 2nd and the winner of that game plays South Decatur on Friday night, March 5th.