The Thunder Mountain High School Falcons boy’s basketball team has forfeited a January 4 home win against the Ketchikan Kings for accidentally playing a team member too many quarters in the same night.
“We are obviously disappointed about giving up a good win,” TMHS coach John Blasco said. “But we will move forward with the progress we have made. Only time will tell how this may affect our region standings and conference tournament.”
According to Alaska Schools Activities Association rules players can only participate in game action six quarters a night. Coaches monitor that scenario and self-report an infraction to athletic directors who report to ASAA. The Falcons’ infraction involved seven quarters in Varsity, JV and C team action for an unnamed player. ASAA made the determination that TMHS forfeit the game.
The Falcons new record is 7-5 overall and 1-1 in Southeast Conference play. The Jan. 4 win by the score of 54-36 has been forfeited and will be counted as a 2-0 Kayhi victory.
The Falcons have two games remaining on the schedule to play against Ketchikan (Feb. 8-9 at Kayhi) and four against Juneau-Douglas (Feb. 1-2 at JD, Feb. 22-23 at TMHS).
The top record in the Southeast Conference receives a first round bye at the Region V double-elimination tournament in Mt. Edgecumbe on March 5-9.
Ketchikan is currently 5-6 overall and 1-1 in conference play. JDHS is 3-5 with no conference games played.
The Falcons also defeated the Kings Dec. 14 in Anchorage by the score of 64-47 and Jan. 5 by the score of 64-49 at TMHS.
“We are still moving forward,” Blasco said. “The 2-0 loss doesn’t have a major impact on WPI.”
The WPI is one of the factors used to determine an at large bid to the state tournament. The Southeast Conference and Mid Alaska Conference tournament winners automatically go to the state venue. The Cook Inlet and Northern Lights conferences send the top two tourney finishers. The final two teams are statewide WPI at-large berths.
According to the ASAA, the WPI stands for Winning Percentage Index. It is a measure of strength of schedule and how a team does against that schedule. It does not consider things like margin of victory or where a game is played---only whether or not a team won. It is similar to the calculation of the RPI (ratings percentage index), which is used by the NCAA as one of the factors in deciding which teams to invite to the NCAA tournament and where to seed them.
At the state tournament teams will be seeded by their WPI ranking.
