Colorado 5A seeding committee's goal: Perfect basketball brackets

Diagnosing the top 10 teams in a classification can be a challenging chore, as many who have participated in various media polls have found out. But imagine trying to nail down the top 48 without making a mistake.

That's what the Class 5A seeding committees for boys and girls basketball are in charge of doing on an annual basis, and they seem to nail it just about every time.

Duane Lewis, a former longtime Alamosa and Alameda (Lakewood) coach, has been on the boys committee since its inception about a dozen years ago. The committee has 13 members, and Lewis himself has seen every 5A team at least once this season, many multiple times.

And believe it or not, nailing down the top seeds isn't priority No. 1.

"What our goal is, it's to try and make sure we don't leave out one of the top 48," Lewis said. "That's our first goal because don't want someone to miss the tournament who should have gotten in it. We have to make sure that the (No.) 48 team is better than the 49, 50 and 51."

Much of the work can be done on paper, by weighing records, good wins, bad losses, common opponents, etc. But by seeing the teams live, the committee can gather further details, such as team speed, rebounding ability, strength of the offensive system, discipline, cohesion, etc.

And with the various members on the committee having different types of experience in the sport, it meshes well. Lewis, for example, might notice things that someone who wasn't a former coach would not.

While it would seem to be a thankless job in that even a perfect bracket would draw complaints from some teams that perceived they were snubbed, that hasn't been the case. The criticism has been minimal, as Lewis estimates only two or three teams complain each season.

"It speaks to the quality of people we have working on them," Colorado High School Activities Association assistant commissioner Bert Borgmann said. "You don't very often have anyone other than a No. 1 or 2 that makes the championship.

"I think in all the years we've had the committee, we've only had one No. 1 seed knocked off before the Great 8."

That was in the 2011-12 season, when No. 8 Poudre (Fort Collins) edged No. 1 Regis Jesuit (Aurora) 57-54 in the second round. That was a big upset, because each of the four regions are seeded 1-through-12 (rather than a single 1-through-48 bracket), meaning Poudre was amongst the Nos. 29-32 overall seeds.

Otherwise, the Nos. 1 and 2 seeds have been solid bets to make a deep run. The girls committee has been equally astute about doling out a detailed, accurate bracket.

"After getting the top 48, we have to make sure the top layers are correct," Lewis said. "Because the top four seeds all get a bye. We haven't had many complaints which has been pretty amazing, and luckily we've hit the teams that got in on the finals quite a few times in a row."

The committee is given 10 factors for which to judge a team, and how a team is trending at the end of the season is one of them. That has some limitations, naturally. For instance, if Team A ends the season 6-6 in league play but is struggling, and Team B ends 5-7 in the same league but is clearly on the upswing, Team B cannot be included in the tournament over Team A because of the poorer league mark.

Players are becoming acutely aware of the seeding committee and strive to make a splash. Consider the comments from Monarch (Louisville) guard Sam Fredricksmeyer after his team pulled out a key Front Range League win Tuesday night against Fairview.

"It was huge, especially going into the playoffs," Fredricksmeyer said. "The committee really looks at that last 10 and we want to go 9-1, not 8-2 or 7-3. Last year and the year before, we dropped some games late and it cost us, and we really didn't want to do that today."

As of now, 5A is the lone class that has a committee. CHSAA briefly employed a 4A committee, but that was difficult considering how spread out the classification is across the state. For the most part, 5A is along the Interstate-25 corridor from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs, with most rooted in the Denver metro area.

Three teams are based in the Grand Junction area, and yes, Lewis has made the four-hour trip there to see them in their own territory. Such trips are necessary, Lewis notes, because "only one or two little things might be the difference in where they land."