Kentucky still run a one-class only state tourney in both boys and girls basketball. My understanding is that since Indiana went to class system, Kentucky is the only state still running a one class tourney in the United States.
Kentucky starts with 64 Districts with usually 3-6 teams competing for the District title. The District Champions and the District Runner Ups both advance to one of 16 Regionals. The winners of the 16 Regionals all advance to the State Tourney. So the Sweet 16 in both boys and girls advance to State. Kind of sounds like Illinois back in the day that Huff Gym or the Assembly Hall were filled to watch the State Tourney.
The idea of the runner up advancing from the District is designed to make up for situations where two great teams might be paired geographically in the same District.
Four times in the last twenty five years, a team that lost in the District has gone onto win the State Title- 2011 Christian County, 2014 Covington Catholic, 2015 Owensboro, 2019 Trinity. The most famous of the runner up winning was in 1979 when undefeated Lexington Lafayette lost in the District Championship. Lafayette was undefeated on the season until then. They then went onto win the State Championship, and are considered by many to be one of the all-time top teams in Kentucky history.
So in the headline I said that a small school wins State every year. How does that happen?
A separate organization puts together what is called the “All A Classic.” This tourney is run in January. They run 16 Regionals around the State with 5-8 teams in each Regional. These are completed in the first half of January. All 16 winners advance to the “All A Classic” State Tourney. In the last week of January. Small schools build this into their regular season schedule.
The tourney is for only small schools. Roughly the 1/3 smallest schools in Kentucky participate with a cap of enrollment around 550 students. So it is guaranteed that one small school in Kentucky can say they are the “State Champs.”
After this tourney, all the small schools join the large schools in one state tournament at the end of the season. In 2024, a small school actually won the end of season boys State Championship.
Illinois will never go backwards in terms of classes, but it is interesting to see that there are other ways to run a state tourney than the way that Illinois runs the tourney.
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