Not the Babylon Bee 🐝 type story

(2-19-26) Over the years the Indiana High School Athletic Association (IHSAA) has depended on ping-pong balls to place teams in tournament brackets.

RELATED: The IHSAA’s ‘Sacred Cow’ The Blind Draw

Putting aside RPI rankings, not considering won lost records and no seeding, ping-pong balls have been depended on to do that job. It doesn’t matter that a team may have not won a game all season and can play another losing team and advance, while two teams with great seasons could matchup and be eliminated in the first round. Not seeding teams saves time and effort by the IHSAA.

One official from the association said-

‘Sure the ping-pong balls have up and down days…but they deserve the honor of being in the Hall of Fame. We couldn’t manage to bracket tournaments without them.

Besides we’ve always done it that way!’

How the IHSAA uses ping-pong balls-

About the Draw
To conduct the random drawing for the state tournaments, the IHSAA places ping-pong balls representing each school in each sectional into a lottery-style air mix machine. A motorized fan in the bottom of the machine blows the balls around the inside of the transparent container and air then forces each ball up through a tube in random order.

For example, the first ball retrieved from the machine will be the visiting team in game one with the second ball representing the home team in game one. The third ball to come out is the visitor in game two and the fourth ball the home team in game two. That same method is followed through all 64 sectionals and 16 regionals.

It is surprising that other state associations actually use technology and common sense to bracket tournaments….when you can use ping-pong balls.