OHIO HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION ews elease 4080N Roselea Place, Columbus, OH 43214R • Commissioner Daniel B. Ross, Ph.D. (614) 267-2502 • FAX (614) 267-1677 • www.ohsaa.org For Release March 11, 2008 Contact Bob Goldring, Assistant Commissioner Winter Release #4 OHSAA BOYS BASKETBALL STATE TOURNAMENTS (All Game at Value City Arena at the Jerome Schottenstein Center, The Ohio State University, Columbus) Thursday, March 13 Friday, March 14, Continued Boys Basketball-Semifinals Boys Basketball-Semifinals 10:45 Div. II: St. Paris Graham Local (26-0) vs. Toledo Libbey 5:15 Div. I: Lakewood St. Edward (21-4) vs. Cincinnati St. (23-2) Xavier (23-2) 2:00 Div. II: Chillicothe (23-2) vs. Poland Seminary (25-0) 8:30 Div. I: Toledo Whitmer (20-5) vs. Newark (22-4) 5:15 Div. IV: Worthington Christian (25-1) vs. Bedford St. Peter Chanel (17-8) Saturday, March 15 8:30 Div. IV: Haviland Wayne Trace (21-4) vs. New Knoxville Boys Basketball-Finals (25-0) 10:45 Division II 2:00 Division IV Friday, March 14 5:15 Division III Boys Basketball-Semifinals 8:30 Division I 10:45 Div. III: Cleveland Villa Angela-St. Joseph (21-4) vs. Sugarcreek Garaway (23-3) 2:00 Div. III: Ottawa-Glandorf (21-5) vs. Anna (25-1) WHAT: 86th Annual Boys State Basketball Tournaments WHEN/WHERE: Thursday, Friday and Saturday at Value City Arena at the Jerome Schottenstein Center, The Ohio State University, Columbus (555 Borror Dr., corner of Lane Avenue and Olentangy River Rd.) TIME/EVENTS: Semifinals—Thursday in Divisions II and IV and Friday in Divisions III and I; Finals— Saturday in all four divisions. The complete schedule is listed above. TICKETS: $15.00 tickets remain for each session (each contest in the tournament is a separate session) and are currently on sale at the Ohio State Athletic Ticket Office in the southeast corner of the Schottenstein Center (1- 800-GO-BUCKS or 614-292-2624) and on-line at Ticketmaster.com and Ohio State Buckeyes.com. Game day tickets can be purchased at the Value City Arena ticket office, which is located in the southeast corner of the arena. MEDIA CREDENTIALS: Fax requests to Bob Goldring at the OHSAA at 614-267-1677 prior to noon Tuesday. If not already received, all credentials will be held at the Fred Taylor Room, located just off the Northeast Rotunda entrance (corner facing Olentangy River Road and the Fawcett Center). Information will be posted on the OHSAA web site (www.ohsaa.org) regarding the status of your application. Once on the home page of the web site, go to “OHSAA News & Media,” and the information will be available on that page. A list will also be posted of those media members who have been approved for credentials. The approved list will be posted by noon on Wednesday. MEDIA PARKING: If not already received, parking passes will be held for media members at an area hotel. Information will be posted on the OHSAA web site. Parking is at a premium and not all requests will be honored. FAN PARKING: Free parking is available at the lots around the Schottenstein Center, including the Buckeye lots, which are located at the north end of Fred Taylor Drive just off of Ackerman Rd. Free shuttles will transport fans who park in those lots to and from the arena. Additional information on spectator parking is posted on The Ohio State University Transporation and Parking Services web site: www.tp.ohio-state.edu/alerts/OHSAA/ohsaaindex.shtml. DIRECTIONS: To get to Value City Arena, take State Route 315 to the Lane Avenue exit. If coming from the north, turn left (east) onto Lane Avenue; if coming from the south, turn right (east) onto Lane Avenue. At the first intersection, turn left (north) onto Fred Taylor Drive and you will see the arena on the right. A second route is to take State Route 315 to the Ackerman Road exit, located just north of the Lane Avenue exit. If coming from the north, turn left (east) onto Ackerman Road; if coming from the south, turn right (east) onto Ackerman. At the first main intersection, turn right (south) onto Fred Taylor Drive and you will see the arena on the left. HOTELS: A list of Columbus-area hotels along with telephone numbers is posted on the OHSAA web site (www.ohsaa.org). TELEVISION: SportsTime Ohio and Time Warner Cable (STO/TWC) will provide exclusive live coverage of all 12 games at the state tournament. This is the first year STO and TWC will cover the state tournament after they became the exclusive television partner of the OHSAA in September. For more information on their state finals coverage, visit the SportsTime Ohio web site at sportstimeohio.com. SportsTime Ohio was created by the Cleveland Indians Baseball Company in December 2005 as a sports enter- tainment company with the primary objective of establishing and operating a new regional sports network and to serve as the home for the Cleveland Indians. STO’s partnership with Time Warner Cable was forged to deliver OHSAA programming to over 3.1 million homes statewide and will include analog cable clearance on Time — MORE — OHSAA WINTER SPORTS TOURNAMENTS -2-2-2 Warner Cable, Cox Cable, Buckeye CableSystem, Massillon Cable, Insight Cable, Armstrong, AT&T, U-Verse, WOW! and dozens of other smaller, hometown cable systems; DirecTV and Dish! Network satellite distribution on analog and standard packages with national distribution outside of Ohio on the sports package, and avail- ability on Time-Warner Cable’s “Local on Demand” service. INTERNET COVERAGE: The OHSAA’s new on-line partner, Cleveland.com, will be providing exclusive on-line coverage of the state tournament when it provides a live video stream of all 12 games. The games can be accessed on the company’s web site devoted to OHSAA tournaments, ohioHSsports.com. Included in the game coverage will be in-game statistics, box scores, photos and an in-game fan chat room. RADIO: The following 10 stations are scheduled to cover all 12 state semifinal and final games live: WBNO-FM, Bryan; WKKI-FM, Celina; WVKO-AM, Columbus; WFOB-AM, Fostoria; WIMA-AM, Lima; ESPN 990 (WTIG- AM), Massillon; WNDH-FM, Napoleon; WPTW-AM, Piqua; WKSD-FM, Van Wert; and WQKT-FM, Wooster. Other radio stations around the state will also cover selected teams from their area on a game-by-game basis. Check local listings for coverage details. BOX SCORES AVAILABLE ON OHSAA.ORG: Final results, including box scores and play-by-play, will be available as soon as possible following each semifinal and final on the OHSAA’s web site, www.ohsaa.org. TV STATIONS PLANNING LIVE SHOTS: Regulations at the Jerome Schottenstein Center do not allow sta- tions to run cable in the arena since the arena has been prewired. Therefore, stations who plan to go live either must pay a connection fee to use one of the open connector positions, or you must be self-supporting (no con- nections into the arena) and go live from the parking lot west of the arena where a special area has been reserved for satellite trucks and there are production pedestals. A third option is that the Schottenstein Center has base- band fiber routing to two Satellite Teleports in the Columbus area for “C-Band” uplinking. If you plan on going live, please call Mark Smith, video coordinator at the Schottenstein Center, at 614-688-5359, to finalize ALL plans. You must contact the OHSAA, however, to secure credentials. RETURNING TO VALUE CITY ARENA: For the 10th straight year, the state tournaments return to Ohio State’s Value City Arena at the Jerome Schottenstein Center. Last spring, the OHSAA Board of Control approved a new five-year agreement, with an option for three additional years, for the Schottenstein to host the state wrestling, girls basketball and boys basketball tournaments beginning this winter. Of the 85 state boys basketball tournaments held prior to this year, all but nine have been held in Columbus. Between 1957 and 1998, 40 of the 42 state tournaments were played at Ohio State’s St. John Arena. The excep- tions during that period were in 1986 and ‘87 when the University of Dayton hosted the event at the UD Arena. The tournaments moved to Value City Arena in 1999. The $105 million Schottenstein Center was named after the late Jerome Schottenstein, a Columbus native whose leadership as chairman was the source of the growth and success of the Schottenstein Stores Corporation, Value City Department Stores and Value City Furniture. The arena, which is the largest in the Big Ten Conference, has a capacity of approximately 19,230 for the OHSAA state tournaments. PREVIEW: Eight former state champions comprise the field for the 86th annual OHSAA Boys State Basketball Tournaments, the 10th consecutive to be held in Ohio State’s Value City Arena at the Jerome Schottenstein Center. Schools that have won past championships include Lakewood St. Edward, Cincinnati St. Xavier and Newark in Division I, Cleveland Villa Angela-St. Joseph and Ottawa-Glandorf in Division III and Worthington Christian, Bedford St. Peter Chanel and Haviland Wayne Trace in Division IV. Two of the qualifiers are making their first state tournament appearances. Division I: Three past champions make up the Division I field. In the first semifinal, two teams that qualified for last year’s tournament return when unranked Lakewood St. Edward (21-4) meets No. 4 Cincinnati St. Xavier (23-2). St. Edward was state champion in 1998 and is making its sixth state appearance overall.