Now that we've acclimated to five divisions, let's bring back Super Tuesday

Let's make Tuesday Super again.

Five years have passed since the one-and-done Super Tuesday basketball concept, a Division 1 state-quarterfinal layout that featured four games at the same time on a Tuesday, three days before the state semifinals in Madison.

An event made for online streaming, the occasion rivaled what we have now with the NCAA Tournament and its accompanying app for digital devices. I remember sitting on my couch for the boys games, flipping from one venue to the other depending on which game was close at the time.

There were several factors that kept Super Tuesday from sticking as a permanent compromise to the newly reformatted state-tournament layout that brought us five divisions where there had been four. But none of those problems were fatal. It wasn't the idea that lacked; it was the timing.

Shock to the system

Division 1 coaches hated the Super Tuesday layout because it wasn't the heretofore model, a system of eight D1 teams playing at state over three days. In an effort to embrace a wider base of schools and give a chance to programs facing off with much larger enrollments in the postseason, the WIAA elected to create a fifth division and redistribute the schools accordingly. Now, only four teams would be invited in each division, D1 included.

In an effort to preserve the high-profile quality of D1 basketball, the WIAA scheduled four Super Tuesday games throughout the state as the new version of a sectional final.

In addition to the disgruntled comparisons between the bygone model and the new one, the event also suffered from bad weather. Girls games had to be moved from Tuesday to Thursday, and eventual state champion Nicolet had to play three games in three days anyway to win the title, this time in two locations instead of the customary one. Super Tuesday also brought us an epic officiating fiasco that may have robbed Germantown of a state-tourney appearance (though it would go on to win 69 games in a row thereafter).

But as I wrote at the time, bad weather could arrive just about any time, hampering travel to the state tournament if not the Super Tuesday games. The negligible difference is that teams would have two destinations instead of one, increasing the likelihood of facing perilous travel. It's hardly a reason to forfeit the idea entirely.

In the years since, some coaches have brainstormed similar ways to recreate the broader representation of Division 1, and many of the ideas rival what we had with Super Tuesday, such as use of Madison's Alliant Energy Center for Wednesday boys quarterfinals, followed by the state semifinals Friday at the Kohl Center, as usual. It doesn't seem like a stretch that these games could be streamed online, as well.

Returning to the Super Tuesday model would be a simpler solution. And one that could be embraced as pretty cool, especially if it was given the time to develop its own tradition apart from the bygone model of eight Division 1 teams at state.

I do fall into the camp of those who feel Division 1 should be given broader representation, both because the quality of play is superior and it would afford greater inclusion of bigger communities — and therefore more impacted souls. Whereas the WIAA wants to view each school as one entity each and treat all equally, I don't think it's unfair to give some favor to a Milwaukee, Madison and Green Bay areas, with each school encompassing more students, parents, teachers and alumni than a smaller school. Then again, there's an argument that making it to state might mean more to the smaller school.

Has 5-division worked?

Judging the first six years of the 5-division format depends on your perspective. If you feel the move was made to try and curtail the number of championships reeled in by private schools, it really hasn't worked, at least in boys basketball. In the 10 years between the merger and the five-division format, 38 percent of boys state champs, 28 percent of state finalists and 20 percent of state qualifiers were from private schools. In the six years since the arrival of 5-division, private schools account for 37 percent of champs, 32 percent finalists and 26 percent qualifiers.

But in actual numbers, there are more gold balls to go around. Twenty-five public schools took home titles in the 10 years between merger and 5-division. Twenty have won in the six years since.

Trying to find a compromise for the public/private debate isn't the official reason for the change, however; instead, the goal was to give opportunities to middle-enrollment schools that wind up in a division with much larger squads.

That may be working. In that 10-year window between merger and 5-division, 56 public schools fitting my description of "new blood" — squads that had not been to state in the preceding 10 years — made it to state, good for 28 percent of entrants. In the years since, 42 "new blood" public schools have done the same (35 percent). When you throw in the private schools that are new to the party since 2011, that number rises to 39 percent.

Private schools aren't included in the first number because they weren't part of the WIAA until 2001, so technically, that number is 37 percent instead of 28. But it's an apples-to-oranges comparison because many of those programs were already at that level of success, and their sudden inclusion can't be fairly compared. When you consider 18 private schools made their first appearance at WIAA state in the first 10 years of the merged format, and the total number of "new" state qualifiers doesn't surpass the rate of new blood over the past six years, it does suggest the new model is working.

Attendance numbers at state haven't seen a dramatic dropoff since the 5-division layout was put in place. If we look at that same 10-year window after the merger, average fan attendance per game was in the neighborhood of 5,784. In the six years since, it's 5,407, a decline of 6.5 percent, but a good chunk of that can be attributed to the 2011 year, when it was historically low at 4,872. The past five years averages to a 4.7 percent decline over the 10-year window.

In other words, the sample is small enough and the results inconclusive enough to delay any definitive statement on whether or not the 5-division format is a good thing. Eight teams in the boys tournament were "new blood" this year, and there were two first-time champs on the boys side and three on the girls side. There is an argument for greater inclusion under the new format.

Let's try it again

Back to Super Tuesday, all the arguments against it strike me as flimsy. The idea that it robs the sectional final of meaning (agreed, but who cares if the sectional final or the Super Tuesday game is the one with meaning?) or prevents proper celebration of a state-qualifying accomplishment (as if kids should get a week to take in a state accomplishment but only 24 hours to take in a state semifinal victory before playing in the championship) don't hold a lot of water for me. Make it Big Monday if you prefer a little extra time to soak it in; that's still two days rest and it follows a clean line from sectional semifinal (Thursday) to final (Saturday) to quarterfinal (Monday).

And there's also the reality that we're never going back to four divisions. I still like that format —and every other state in the Midwest does, too — but the toothpaste is out of the tube. Michigan employs a very similar format to Super Tuesday, and it's one of the reasons I think the same could work well in Wisconsin. None of the Midwest states (Minnesota, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa) employ an imbalanced state schedule that gives favor to the top division, so it could be that model was just as unnecessarily unique to Wisconsin as the 5-division model of today.

As we've cooled our venomous reaction to the five-division model, perhaps it's time to re-investigate a suitable compromise that could once again heighten the spotlight on our state's biggest schools.

Pictured: Franklin’s Cassidy Mihalko (3) goes up for a basket at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater during a “Super Tuesday” game on March 22, 2011. Middleton won the game, 61-59. Photo by Peter Zuzga.