In a moment like this, you can’t blame a man for bargaining.
Chamblee’s girls basketball team -- ranked No. 1 in Class AAAA with a 23-0 record -- lost to Miller Grove 43-41 this week in the Region 6 tournament quarterfinals.
Season over. No state tournament.
“I know it’s not like March Madness where you can get voted in [as an at-large team to the NCAA tournament], but there should be some mechanism for the best teams to get a shot,’’ Chamblee coach Paul Ireland said. “I’ve always felt that if you go through your region unscathed [in the regular season] that you should get a bid. But we controlled our fate. It’s a tough pill to swallow.’’
Georgia’s region tournaments, which determine the 320 boys and girls qualifiers into the state tournament that starts Feb. 25, are landmines. Only the top four from the region tournaments make state.
Chamblee, which played with leading scorer Lacy Mason and three teammates stricken with the flu, isn’t the only one that stepped in the wrong place.
Southwest DeKalb’s girls, the defending AAAA champions, were upset by Carver-Atlanta in the same Region 6 tournament that picked off Chamblee.
Collins Hill's boys (18-7), ranked No. 4 in Class AAAAA, lost to Mill Creek 63-57 in the Region 7 quarterfinals. Collins Hill had beaten Mill Creek in their two previous meetings.
The South Gwinnett boys, the Region 8-AAAAA champion, lost to Archer, a team it had beaten twice. The Comets will sit out the state tournament despite a 19-7 record and No. 7 state ranking.
‘’I’m not feeling sorry for myself,’’ South Gwinnett coach Scott Bracco said. “We know we worked hard and prepared for every game. We played one of the hottest teams in the region, and it’s very tough in our region to beat a team three times.’’
But not all top teams faced the same dangers in region tournaments.
Chamblee's region is divided in half, with each side crossing over to play its tournament quarterfinal. The four best records besides Chamblee were on the other side, meaning that Miller Grove (17-8) was not a true No. 8 seed.
And while 6-AAAA has 12 teams, several regions have fewer than eight, meaning that the regular-season champion gets a bye into the semifinals and a guaranteed spot into the state tournament.
The Walton boys, from 5-AAAAA, was assured of making the state tournament when it won a coin toss for the No. 1 seed after tying Wheeler for first place in the regular season.
‘’A lot of people didn’t think winning that coin toss was big because we would’ve been the two seed playing the seven anyway, but South Gwinnett got beat by their No. 8, and they were top 10 all year,’’ Joe Goydish said. “That first-round bye is huge.’’
Goydish is one of several coaches who like the idea of the regular-season champion getting an automatic bid to state. Another is Chattahoochee girls coach Erik Herrick, whose fifth-ranked team now stands a better chance in AAAA without Chamblee to worry about.
“I hate to see a team like Chamblee get upset and not get in,’’ Herrick said. “That’s a lot riding on one game. We play 15, 16 region games for a reason. That shows you how good the teams are. If we win a state championship, we want to play the best. But that said, Miller Grove proved on a given night they can be the best.’’
At Chamblee, Ireland won’t deny that. But it doesn’t ease the pain.
‘’It was devastating,’’ Ireland said. “I honestly feel we had a great shot at winning the state tournament if we could’ve just gotten there. I guess it was not meant to be.’’
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