Antioch sectional seeding goes to Plan B

When Antioch athletic director Steve Schoenfelder heard that the Chicago area was going to get slammed by a winter storm on Wednesday, he knew he needed a backup plan.

After all, it would be difficult enough to hold the Class 3A Antioch sectional seeding meeting under perfect weather conditions, let alone a blizzard that would compromise driving conditions.

As the manager of the sectional, Schoenfelder was in charge of getting 21 basketball coaches from schools as far north as Antioch to as far south as Chicago and Bensenville in the same room in Antioch after a day of school and practice.

As it turned out, the meeting was pushed to Thursday, but Schoenfelder would have been covered if it had gone on as planned.

"We wanted to make sure we had the meeting covered if someone from Chicago decided that the roads were too bad to make it all the way up here," Schoenfelder said. "Our thought was that if it were just one or two coaches we could have them call my cell phone so they could vote over the phone. We sent out all of the information that we collected on the teams early so that the guys would already have an idea of how they were going to vote before they got to the meeting.

"But if anyone who was having trouble getting here wanted to say anything more about their teams, we thought they could tell me and then I could pass that on to the rest of the coaches. I would kind of act like a surrogate. We wanted to make sure everyone had a voice."

Usually, sectional seeding meetings aren't such a logistical challenge. The sectionals of the past have always been fairly centrally located to the schools in the field.

For instance, Waukegan used to host a sectional that included every Lake County school. Driving to the seeding meeting wasn't given a second thought by the coaches.

But now that the state is governed by the new four-class system, there aren't enough 3A schools in Lake County to warrant a Lake County-only sectional. So, the IHSA pulled schools from the northern part of Chicago to join the field.

Getting the coaches to the seeding meetings is just the first of many geographical challenges presented by the new four-class system.

Coaches like to be as informed as possible about the other teams in their sectional fields -- not only so they can be informed voters in the seeding meeting, but so that they can properly size up the competition come tournament time.

Many have made it a goal to scout every sectional team in person during the regular season. But this year, scouting hasn't been very easy, especially in the Antioch sectional where the teams are so spread out.

And since the IHSA came out with sectional fields so late in the game, it prevented teams from scheduling a lot of nonconference games against other teams in their sectionals -- or at the very least against common opponents.

"We wanted to see everyone (in the field), but we didn't even come close," said Grayslake Central coach Tim Bowen, whose team will play in the Antioch sectional. "It just wasn't going to happen. It was too far to go."

For the record, Bowen is a big fan of the four-class system.

He says mid-sized schools like his will finally have a legitimate shot at winning a regional and possibly more than that. And that, he reasons, makes a potentially flawed seeding and pairing system worth it.

Kind of.

"You just have to try to do as much research as you can by reading the papers, talking to other coaches who might know something about the teams in your sectional, things like that," Bowen said. "I mean, I went as far as to check out what the opponents of some of our sectional teams were doing so I could have a better idea of what some of the teams in our sectional are really like and how good they really are. You just try to do your best and then make sure that you get some of these teams on your schedule for next year."

In the meantime, Bowen hoped that his team wouldn't be overlooked by anyone.

"I guess my one fear with the way this works would be that people just won't know who we are," Bowen said the night before the seeding meeting. "There are probably a lot of coaches who don't know much about us. Like, we have five losses, but three of them are to Top 10 teams. If we would have had to do our meeting by phone and I didn't get the chance to say that, that could have hurt us."

With a 14-5 record and a strong showing over the holidays at the well-regarded State Farm Classic in Bloomington, Grayslake Central was forecasted to be seeded among the top four, and possibly as high as No. 2.

North Suburban Conference Prairie Division power North Chicago was the favorite to wind up with the No. 1 seed in Antioch, while Lakes, Chicago Senn, Guerin and Ridgewood were other strong candidates for top seeds.

Closer, but still a drive:ŒEven the Class 4A Barrington sectional covers a lot of ground -- from Zion all the way to Rolling Meadows and Schaumburg.

Coaches in that sectional have had an easier time scouting each other than those in the Class 3A sectional, but there have been challenges there, too.

Warren coach Chuck Ramsey, who would normally see every team in his sectional complex, has yet to see several, including Buffalo Grove, Deerfield and Rolling Meadows.

"I've tried to see as many teams as I can, but at this point, it's getting late. There's only two more weeks left in the (regular) season," Ramsey said. "It used to be easier the previous way. It was easier to keep track of records in the papers because everyone was from the same area. And generally, the teams all knew each other. You knew who beat whom and what that meant."

For Grant coach Phil Ralston, the new sectional format has meant feeling less prepared.

"It's absurd to think that most coaches are going to be able to see most teams in their sectionals," Ralston said. "There are quite a few (Mid-Suburban League) schools in our sectional and I haven't seen many of them. I know a lot of coaches down there, so I'm getting information that way, but it's hard to find the time to drive down there to see them in person.

"In the past, I would make it my mission to see every other sectional team. But it was easier to find the time since they were all right here in Lake County."

Working the clock: Speaking of time, coaches and administrators from both the Antioch and Barrington sectionals were anticipating long evenings for the seeding meeting.

Much longer than normal, in fact.

Sectional meetings of the past would usually take roughly two hours, but since many of the teams aren't familiar with each other this year, it was anticipated that the meetings would last much longer as the coaches spent more time sorting through the ambiguity.

"This might be one of those marathon sessions," Grant coach Phil Ralston said before heading to the Barrington sectional. "When you just had a Lake County sectional seeding meeting, there really wasn't much for the coaches to say. We all knew who everyone was. We all knew what were good wins and not such good wins. This will be different because there's not as much familiarity with the teams.

At Antioch, sectional manager Steve Schoenfelder has ordered food in preparation of a very long meeting.

"We'll be able to feed those guys since they're coming from everywhere and some have really long drives," Schoenfelder said. "We'll have nice deli sandwiches, salads. We'll take real good care of them."

Schedule shuffle: The IHSA says it is committed to keeping the fields of the current sectional complexes as consistent as possible over the next several years. That way teams can get a chance to know each other and prepare better for the tournament.

So, the race to make scheduling adjustments has begun.

Expect to see the Class 3A teams from Lake County playing some very unfamiliar teams during the nonconference portion of their schedules in years to come.

Antioch, for example, has gotten into a tournament next year at Luther North that includes four other teams in the sectional complex. Grayslake Central will have Class 3A foes Lakes and Vernon Hills on its schedule next year and will open the season by playing in the Mundelein Thanksgiving tournament, where it will face some common opponents of teams in the sectional field.

"It will help if we can coordinate our schedule like that," Grayslake Central coach Tim Bowen said. "It's always better if you can play some of the those (sectional) teams during the season.

Strange days: As the state tournament season kicks off with the sectional seeding meetings this week, it's surreal to contemplate that Warren -- Lake County's premiere team for years -- will likely not be voted a top four seed.

The Blue Devils have struggled through a rare season in which they've been teetering around the .500 mark. Currently, they are 10-9 and on a three-game skid.

"It is different for us," Warren coach Chuck Ramsey said. "But for our players, most are in their first year of varsity, so they really don't have much to compare it to."

However, most of the Blue Devils have been around the community long enough to know that Warren is usually the favorite come tournament time.

"There are positives and negatives to that," Ramsey said. "When you're the favorite, you've got that target on your back. You're the hunted.

"But there's a reason for it. You're probably having a very good season. But when you're the underdog, it's a little easier in terms of expectations."