For Arizona basketball coaches and their counterparts, this weekend’s Section 7 high school showcase is an ideal way to start making up for more than 14 months without in-person evaluation.
Played entirely inside Glendale’s State Farm Stadium this weekend, the Section 7 event will allow coaches, fans and parents to watch 12 games at any one time. A total of 192 high school teams with college prospects from around the West are on hand, including Catalina Foothills, Salpointe and Cholla from Tucson High.
No shuttling between high school gyms is required, as was the case for the inaugural 2019 event, while restaurants and hotels are easily accessible just across the street.
And, in what is especially important this week, everything is air-conditioned.
“After the event in 2019, there was a lot of positive feedback, but the one thing the college coaches said was that if there was a way to get it under one big roof, they would love that,” said Matt King, executive director of the Arizona Basketball Coaches Association. “So that’s when we started to get to work.”
It wasn’t hard to figure out what big roof might be available.
So King, whose organization puts on the Section 7, worked with the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority, which owns State Farm Stadium.
For AZSTA, a major selling point was what could happen in 2024, when State Farm Stadium is scheduled to host the NCAA’s Final Four. This summer’s rising high school seniors will be college sophomores in 2023-24.
“They saw a storyline where there could potentially be a player in Section 7 who plays in the Final Four,” King said. “They thought it’d be a cool opportunity to build up to 2024 when the Final Four is here.”
Glendale's State Farm Stadium hosted the Final Four in 2017.
For the NCAA, it was a welcome connection, too. The NCAA’s commission on college basketball, created in the wake of the federal investigation into college basketball, had recommended more “scholastic” events in order to push the summertime recruiting emphasis away from club-ball events.
The Section 7 event is only for high schools playing in traditional federations, and club-type high school teams who play national schedules are not invited. .
“NCAA officials have expressed their appreciation for State Farm Stadium hosting this event,” AZSTA board chair Teddy Eynon said in a statement. “We have discussed the possibility that one or more of the student-athletes participating in the tournament may return to State Farm Stadium to play in the 2024 Final Four. What an exciting opportunity for those deserving student-athletes to compete on one of the nation’s biggest stages.”
Dan Gavitt, the NCAA’s senior VP for basketball, said he wouldn’t be able to attend Section 7 because of a number of other pressing issues. But in a text to the Star, he called the Section 7’s move to State Farm Stadium a “great development for Phoenix.”
State Farm Stadium hosted the 2017 Final Four, with one central court surrounded by field-level seating and stadium seats that combined to accommodate over 77,000 fans. This weekend, 12 courts are crammed on to the field, with two rows of five tightly-packed courts and two main courts at the far “Red Zone” end of the field.
The two main courts have about 2,200 temporary bleacher seats around them while spectators can sit close to the baseline of any other court by settling in the stadium seating areas.
UA commit Dylan Anderson was scheduled to play for Gilbert Perry on Court 1 on Friday night in a marquee game against Seattle Prep, with the winner scheduled to play Saturday morning on the same court. The losing team funnels into Court 3.
“One of the things we do is really try to make sure the event is as competitive as possible,” King said. “So if you win, you stay on the main court and if you lose, you go to a different one.”
The Section 7 event is split into 11 boys brackets of 16 teams each and one girls bracket of 16 teams. Teams were scheduled to play one game Friday, two games Saturday and one on Sunday.
The Section 7 will also host a “finals” weekend from June 25-27 at Phoenix Brophy Prep. That 32-team event will include winners of eight brackets this weekend, plus 24 at-large teams who were invited to play both weekends or were busy this weekend playing in their own state high school playoffs, since some were delayed by COVID-19 restrictions.
