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Follow along as this weekend’s results shape and then reshape the field of 256 teams that qualify for the IHSA playoffs.
Thursday afternoon: As of this moment there are 223 teams that have reached five victories.
Working on the supposition that all five win teams will qualify, that leaves 33 spots remaining for 5-win teams to make the playoffs.
There are 57 games involving teams four win teams in week 9 trying to reach the five win plateau.
Group 1: 29 of those games have that 4-4 team playing a team with a record below the .500 mark.
Group 2: 28 of those games have that 4-4 team playing a team with a record above the .500 mark.
As of this moment if all Group 1 teams win and all Group 2 teams lose, the field will need four 4-win teams to complete the field of 256, the numbers change as results of Group 1 and Group 2 revert from those numbers.
To provide frame of reference, last season seven teams lost in the Group 1 situation and three teams won from Group 2 which opened the door for more four wins to get into the field (six teams eventually did, including Class 5A State Champion Nazareth).
The year previous, those group results were basically reversed.
It could literally go either way and we won’t know for sure until all the results through Saturday afternoon are recorded. But I’ll follow along here as those results go final and discuss how results that oppose the projection alter the fields.
Thursday night games and what they mean:
There are 12 games on the slate for this evening.
Due to Chicago Public League rules for playoff qualification in certain divisions, there are two games on Thursday night that are indirectly pre-playoff games.
Clemente plays Phoenix Military in one game, while Noble/Comer and Agricultural Science meet in the other. Even though all four teams have at least five wins, only the winners of those two games will qualify for the playoffs.
The projection favors Phoenix and Agricultural Science, but if either of those projections are wrong it will require altering in the 3A and 4A fields if Clemente wins and restacking the seeds in 4A if Noble/Comer wins.
One other team in those same CPL divisions (Collins) can win its fifth game with a victory over Von Steuben, but won’t be eligible for playoff qualification because they did not finish in the top two of their division race.
Two other 4-4 teams are looking to lock in fifth wins on Thursday night both Curie and Mt. Carmel. Both have more than enough playoff points to insure a spot if they get to five wins, if either team fails to win that would open a potential spot for another 4-win team.
The following list of schools are already into the playoff field and are hoping to hold their place in the seed chart or in the case of an underdog pick up another win and improve their seed with results on Thursday: Chicago Sullivan, Mather, Rochelle, Lemont, Hillcrest, Tuscola, Illini West, Prosser and Chicago Marshall.
Latest updates
9:07 p.m.: Illini West defeats Tuscola 12-7. Both teams entered the game at 5-3 and were already somewhat locked in the field. But the projection had the game result reversed resulting in a seed improvement for Illini West in the Class 2A field, and a seed drop for Tuscola in 1A.
10:32 p.m.: There were a pair of CPL Week 9 games that effectively served as play-in games for the IHSA playoffs. The projection only correctly projected one of those two games, with Clemente’s win over Phoenix leading to changes in the Class 3A and Class 4A bracket. Clemente is a projected 4A school, so space had to be made in that draw for them which bumped South Shore down to Class 3A to take the spot of the projected winner Phoenix. The seed stacks changed in both 3A north and 4A north. Point of order despite having five wins on the season the losers of these two games (Noble/Comer and Phoenix) are not IHSA playoff eligible.