The South Dakota High School Basketball Advisory committee voted in favor of discontinuing the combined Class AA and Class A high school basketball tournaments on Friday with a unanimous 7-0 vote.
Since the 2015-16 season, Class AA has been running under a combined tournament format on the second weekend of the State Basketball Championships – rotating their location between Sioux Falls and Rapid City.
The State Basketball Championships will also consist of a joint Class A tournament this spring (2019), which will also take place on the second weekend of the event. This means the first weekend of state basketball will only consist of one tournament, Class B Girls, while the second weekend of state basketball will consist of everyone else.
2019 State Tournament Schedule:
Class B Girls – March 7-9 (Huron)
Class B Boys – March 14-16 (Aberdeen)
Class A Girls – March 14-16 (Sioux Falls)
Class A Boys – March 14-16 (Sioux Falls)
Class AA Girls – March 14-16 (Rapid City)
Class AA Boys – March 14-16 (Rapid City)
The proposal to discontinue the joint tournaments will be taken up by the Athletic Directors of South Dakota in March. After that the South Dakota High School Activities Association Board of Directors will take up the proposal for two readings/votes – one in April and the other in June.
If the proposal is approved by the High School Activities Association Board of Directors, it will go into effect for the 2020-21 season, meaning the State Basketball Tournaments of 2021 would split up the boys and girls tournaments into separate weekends.
