Winless Watch: Very Extra Special Boys Sectional Draw Edition

Before I get to my discussion about the upcoming sectional tournament, hearty congratulations go out to the Union (Modoc) Rockets, who graduated from the Winless Watch list with a resounding 89-40 win over Seton Catholic last weekend, then turned around and defeated fellow WW member Cowan on Tuesday night of this week, 50-49. In addition, Kouts also posted its first win of the year; the Mustangs defeated River Forest over the weekend, 54-38. That brings the statewide number of WW brethren to four.

The sectionals are often the marquee event on the high school athletics calendar, whether it be for basketball, football or cross-country. While winning the first round of the state tournament is old hat for some schools, for most others, a sectional title often means that your season was a success, and even a loss in your next game at the regional can’t tarnish your season. A sectional championship can make a 4-17 season an unqualified success, while the glory of an 18-2 record can be stained somewhat by a loss to a 7-13 team in the sectional round.

Due to the advent of class basketball, some might believe that a sectional championship doesn’t carry the same weight that it used to carry, since smaller schools don’t have to go through bigger schools to win a title. Phooey, I say. Yes, I miss single-class basketball, and I agree wholeheartedly with anyone who wants to go back to the single-class system, but the system is what it is right now, and you still have to win two or three games to advance to the next round. If you’re a school of hard knocks like Medora (enrollment 96), does a sectional trophy lose its luster because you had to go through schools a little closer to your size like Springs Valley (enrollment 283) and Northeast Dubois (enrollment 296) instead of larger schools like former sectional foes Seymour (enrollment 1209) and Brownstown (enrollment 565)? I can’t claim to speak for Medora, but I have a feeling I know what the answer would be.

Anyway, Medora has something to its credit that other schools – from Class A schools like Shoals and Vincennes Rivet all the way up to Class 4A schools like Hamilton Southeastern – can’t claim: a sectional trophy in its case (from the 1949 Seymour Sectional). And while the list of schools without a sectional championship to their credit shrinks by at least one or two every year, there is still plenty of seemingly-terminal sectional misery to go around.

So, who has the best shot of cutting down the nets for the very first time come next weekend? Winless Watch’s pick to break their drought will be the winner of the Borden Sectional; as I see it, it will likely come down to the host Braves and the Lanesville Eagles (the draw fell just right so that the two teams wouldn't meet until the title game). The two squads have won a grand total of zero sectional titles between them; WW predicts that Lanesville will break their winless skid and be cutting the nets next Saturday night. The Eagles go into their sectional as a prohibitive favorite, having drawn the bye in addition to carrying a glossy 18-3 record into the final weekend of play – probably the best season in school history.

All of this leaves us with the original impetus for this recurring post – the set of teams that are winless on the year. There will be at most four teams out of the 393 IHSAA basketball-playing schools who will end the regular season winless. How did the draw stack up for them?

Cannelton, as we can see from their results, has been resting its starters all season in preparation for the sectional. (After all, the girls did it – winning all of 1 game during the season before upsetting New Harmony in the sectional … only to lose by nine touchdowns to Wood Memorial in the championship.) Still, the draw was less than favorable to the Bulldogs, as they face Evansville Day School in the first game of the Wood Memorial Sectional. The Bulldogs gave the Eagles everything they could handle on January 31, but Day eked out an 80-28 win.

Howe Military drew the host school in the first round of the Fort Wayne Blackhawk Sectional. The Cadets did not face the Braves during the season, but for what it's worth, Blackhawk is building a winning tradition, as their last three seasons ended at the semistate, state championship, and semistate respectively. Though tradition can only carry a team so far, look for the Braves to start a deep run into the tournament with a convincing win over the winless Cadets. (But ultimately, they still play the games, right?)

North White faces Pioneer in the bye game next Friday night at the Tri-County Sectional. The Vikings played Pioneer on February 3 and very nearly removed themselves from the WW list, falling 43-40 to the Panthers. Consider this: if North White pulls off the mild upset, you'll have a 1-20 team playing for a sectional title - isn't Indiana high school basketball great?

Lastly, Cowan drew Union City in the first round of the Blue River Sectional. One of the Blackhawks' 18 losses thus far on the season came at the hands of Union City, 59-46 on December 29. The Indians carry a 12-8 record into the final weekend of play before the sectional.

And, if it doesn't work out for these Final Four, perhaps someone would front travel money, rent a gym in Indianapolis and have these four duke it out. (That's really not an awful idea – certainly better than the Tournament of Champions that was held during the first couple of seasons after class basketball started, where the message was, "Well, you're a champion in the sense that your season will probably still end with a loss.")

(Special thanks, as always, to the inestimable John Harrell, whose Indiana High School Basketball site is priceless to me when putting together Winless Watch. The man should go into the Hall of Fame someday for his tireless work on compling current and recent Indiana HS hoops info.)