Three hundred ninety-nine (399) teams were drawn today and placed into brackets for the 111th Annual IHSAA Boys Basketball State Tournament presented by the Indiana Pacers and Indiana Fever.
Sectional games are scheduled to begin Tuesday, March 2, and run through Saturday, March 6, with the regional round slated for March 13 and semi-states on March 20. The four state championship games that make up the state finals will be played two weeks later on Saturday, April 3 at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
Undefeated Homestead is this week’s top-ranked team in the single class poll from the Indiana Basketball Coaches Association as well as the 4A poll from the Associated Press. The Spartans drew a first-round game against Huntington North in Sectional 6 at Fort Wayne Wayne.
Class 3A’s top-ranked team, the Hammond Wildcats, drew a bye into the semifinal round and will await the GriffithHammond Gavit winner in Sectional 17 at Calumet.
In Class 2A, the No. 1 Fort Wayne Blackhawk Christian Braves will meet home-standing Bluffton in its first round game in Sectional 36. And the Barr-Reeve Vikings, the top-ranked team in the Class A poll, will square off against Washington Catholic in the opening round of Sectional 63 played at North Daviess.
Three schools will participate in their first IHSAA boys basketball state tournament this year. The Elkhart Lions, a consolidation of Elkhart Central and Elkhart Memorial, will host Class 4A Sectional 4. The Illiana Christian Vikings, formerly an Illinois school which relocated to Dyer, Indiana, will participate in Class 2A Sectional 33 at Whiting. And the Lighthouse Christian Academy Lions, located in Bloomington, are slated for Class A Sectional 57 at Clay City.
The Bloomington South Panthers and the Carmel Greyhounds, both 4A teams, currently lead the state winning six consecutive sectional championships and are followed by 21st Century-Gary and Covington, both 1A teams, with five straight titles.