Four of the eight seeds for the recent Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) women’s basketball tournament were decided on split votes, according to Danielle Harris, the conference commissioner.
In response to a state open records law request, Harris sent the following email to the Chippewa Valley Post:
“No minutes have been drafted for the WIAC athletic directors’ conference call to seed the women’s basketball tournament. However, we can provide you with the following information responsive to your inquiry:
- The sense of the meeting was that there was a consensus for the #1 seed to be assigned to UW-Whitewater, the #4 seed to UW-Oshkosh, the #5 seed to UW-La Crosse, and #8 seed to UW-Platteville, so no vote was taken.
- After discussion, a vote was taken to assign the #2 seed to UW-Stout and #3 seed to UW-Eau Claire which was 4 for yes, 2 for no, and 2 abstentions.
- After discussion, the vote to assign the #6 seed to UW-Stevens Point and #7 seed to UW-River Falls which was 6 for yes and 2 abstentions.”
The seeding order was decided by the athletics directors’ votes, rather than by using the final regular season standings, because COVID issues meant that not all teams played an equal number of games. For example, UW-Stout narrowly defeated UW-Eau Claire twice in the regular season but finished with a WIAC record of 8-5, a half game behind the Blugolds’ 9-5 record.
— reported by David Gordon, associate editor
NOTE: this information was requested on Feb. 18 and was received on March 3.