already District Champs. The change is that instead of taking the 16 teams and splitting them into 2 separate, geographically-based 8 team brackets (East and West),
there is now only 1 group, seeded from 1 to 16 and then placed into a single, standard 16 team bracket.
WHY THE CHANGE?? With the state title brackets bulit upon 1 group of 16 qualifying teams that are seeded as one group, the chances
are much better that the state title game will feature the 2 top teams in the state, rather than the best team from Western Nebraska versus the best team
from Eastern Nebraska. A few other things to consider... now teams may have to travel across the state to play their tourney opponent (Sidney vs
Seward last year) and now it's also possible that two teams located close to each other could play for the state title.