Another topic that got a lot of attention last Friday during the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) Rep Assembly meeting was the fact the WIAA wants and will overhaul the state basketball tournaments for next year.

The so called “sacred cow” of the state tournaments (according to Executive Director Mike Colbrese) lost money last year, and has been on and off for several years. Part of the problem he said, too many sites over too long of a time period. Plus, many consolation bracket games (aka the 3rd/6th place games which take place Saturday afternoon) have low attendance.

Currently, the state basketball tournaments are held on three separate weekends, in three separate locations, depending on which classification a school is apart of. This past season the 1B girls and boys tournament was held in Yakima at the SunDome, while the 2B girls and boys played the following weekend in Spokane, before the 4A tournament began the first weekend of March in Tacoma, followed the next weekend by the 3A tournament. This means the WIAA rents out three different spaces, over three different weekends.

Next year the tournament will become a 16 team format, for all schools, with the first round of state held at regional locations Feb. 25-26. From there eight teams will advance to a state tournament site for the rest of the tournament from March 3-5. So rather than spreading the various classifications out, starting next year the WIAA would have three state championship sites, with two classifications per site (3A-4A would be in Tacoma, 1A-2A in Yakima and 1B-2B in Spokane) all on one weekend.

While the particulars have not yet been figured out for how the regional first round games would be played (as many places will have just hosted their regionals district and league tournaments) the WIAA is going to figure out how to make it happen in time for the 2010-2011 season.

While driving to Tacoma for the 3A tournament isn’t nearly as bad as 2A teams from Bellingham heading to Yakima for anywhere from one to three days, having the first round at local sites would eliminate a lot of driving and transportation for some teams, especially if they don’t make it past the first round.

Another plus, at least from a sportswriters point of view, I know people who basically lived in the Tacoma Dome this season, covering both 4A and then 3A the next week. All on one weekend would certainly makes things a little easier on our end.

Joel Willits, sports editor at the Bellevue Reporter (our sister paper), put up his predictions and a look at the 3A basketball state tournament this week in Tacoma.

Joel, who will be covering the Bellevue boys this week, has predictions for both the boys and girls tournaments, but I felt like his predictions were especially dead-on for the girls tournament – check out what Joel thought here.

The Mercer Island girls will face Mount Rainier tomorrow afternoon at 3:30 p.m. A win over the Rams will pit the Islanders against the winner of the Kennedy Catholic/East Valley (Spokane) game on Thursday night at 7 p.m.

A loss to Mt. Rainier pushes the Islanders into the consolation bracket to face the loser of the Kennedy Catholic/East Valley game at noon on Thursday.

From there things get murkier, at least until we know if the team starts off the tourney with a win or a loss.

I’ll be updating live all week from the Mercer Island girls games at the Tacoma Dome on Twitter (MIRsports) and either here or on our Web site .