Opinion: Ducking the open is bigger than where you sit in the stands

The worst kept secret in Arizona high school basketball was on full display in North Phoenix on Friday night.

The rumor had already been going for weeks, a team that did not want to try to make the elite eight of the open division would do everything in its power to avoid it.

A few weeks ago, just as the regular season ended, multiple coaches had disclosed privately their intentions of not giving a true effort to making the final eight due to not feeling like they stood a chance of defeating Sunnyslope or Millennium.

So enter Friday night at O’Connor, an incident involving a parent in the stands prior to the Eagles game between Central led to said parent removing their children who play for Central from the gym and forced the Bobcats to face off against the No. 5 team shorthanded.

Immediately on social media members of that family disclosed what they felt was racial profiling and in turn described what they believed was overstepping from the O’Connor athletic director.

However, according to multiple sources inside the gym and around the scene as the incident occurred a different picture was painted.

The parent was asked to move from the home side of the gym to the visitors side which was where the rest of the fans for Central were asked to be as the stands began to fill up. Immediately, the parent became argumentative at the request and refused to follow through. At that time as the situation became heightened, the athletic director attempted to explain the need for the move and the parent continued to make a scene. At that moment, the athletic director explained that these were the rules for the gym and that should they not follow those rules they would be asked to leave and continued to attempt to deescalate the situation.

The parent expressed that they were leaving and that they were taking their children, immediately that’s what they did and left the building for the night.

Here’s the issue however…

It’s a challenge to believe that there was no intentions of this happening or having a scene lead to a way out when openly for weeks in private conversations members of the coaching staff expressed their plans to drop out of the open and into the 5A bracket to compete for a second consecutive championship.

It’s even more so a challenge when those conversations had been leaking to the media and other coaches as a whole throughout the same timeframe with consistent messaging also coming from players in and close to the program.

Central never was going to play in the Elite Eight of the open

That’s the skinny of the situation.

And frankly, it’s a shame. The Bobcats boast one of the best teams in the state and very well could have gone to No. 4 Basha and defeated the Bears. After all, in their meeting on January 13, the Bobcats lost in a nail-biter 91-87.

Now, the postseason kicks into full gear with the 5A bracket being a true conference championship with zero teams in the open division.

The Bobcats enter the bracket as the No. 4 seed and will be the favorite to win the championship. However, the biggest foe standing in their way will be the top seeded Willow Canyon Wildcats who pushed No. 6 Highland to the brink in their open division loss.

What’ll be interesting to see in the potential semifinal matchup between the two programs is how much of a difference giving a true effort to win and advance in the open could be compared to phoning it in.

March 4 in Surprise could show us.