Saturday is the best day of basketball in the state, and it will come on the two year anniversary of everything going to hell. Sure, you have the Big Ten Tournament semifinals going on in downtown Indy, but it is Regional Saturday. Last week’s 64 sectional winners will travel to 16 sites, where the grueling two-games-in-one-day format will narrow the field down to 16 regional champs, four in each class.
We even get a showcase game in the regional round. Braden Smith, Purdue’s incoming point guard, led Westfield to its first ever sectional crown last week, ending a drought of more than a century, as Westfield is an original IHSAA member dating back to 1903 and the first tournament in 1911.