REVEALED PREFERENCES. The Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Association now seeds the state basketball tournament.

Milwaukee Hamilton scored a key victory over the weekend and it didn't even take the court.

The Wildcats' boys basketball team, which is ranked No. 1 in the state by the Journal Sentinel, received the No. 1 seeding in the Greenfield Sectional, ahead of Racine Park, which is undefeated and ranked No. 1 in the state by the Associated Press. As the top-seeded team, the Wildcats received a first-round bye in the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association tournament, which begins March 2.

Do I detect a bit of crowing at the Journal-Sentinel? Seriously, though, seeding the tournament is a step in the wrong direction. What's next, a selection show where the likely top seeds have an assembly and the likely also-rans go on with algebra? The old format, in which the strongest South Side team then had to play the survivor out of the south suburbs for the regional, and the strongest surviving Racine-Kenosha-Burlington area teams in the sectional, at least introduced something resembling rivalry in the early rounds of the tournament.