GEICO Nationals organizers announce new high school basketball championship for state title winners

Paragon expands elite national prep basketball offerings; CIF says its schools will not be eligible for new State Champions Invitational.

Andy Buhler, SBLive Sports | Feb 15, 2022

GEICO Nationals organizers announce new high school basketball championship for state title winners /

A new national high school basketball championship tournament is coming in April.

Sports Illustrated first reported Tuesday morning Paragon Marketing Group, which runs GEICO Nationals and the GEICO State Championship Bowl Series, is debuting the State Champions Invitational for schools that win state championships.

Four boys and four girls National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) member schools will be invited to the event, which will take place in Florida from April 7-9 and be televised on ESPN Networks.

As of now, only independent four-year high schools or state association affiliated schools playing national schedules, like No. 4 Montverde Academy and No. 11 Oak Hill Academy, are eligible for GEICO Nationals in late March.

The move was made with the hope that state associations that bar schools from playing in national postseason tournaments will reverse course.

“We want to create more opportunity for additional teams to participate in postseason play,” Paragon Marketing president Rashid Ghazi told Sports Illustrated. “It’s a really unique opportunity for state champs to play other state champs.”

But will those states holding out change course?

Most state associations do not allow teams to compete in national postseason events, such as the California Interscholastic Federation and the University Interscholastic League in Texas.

Only eight state associations do: Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Utah, Arizona, Washington, Nevada and Washington D.C.

Of the five teams in the top 10 in the SBLive/Sports Illustrated Power 25 national boys basketball rankings eligible for the SCI, only No. 7 Calvary Christian would be permitted to play in GEICO Nationals by its state association.

The CIF said Tuesday its boys and girls member schools will not be able to play if invited, citing its rules that contests can't take place after March 12. It's unclear if teams invited will find a way around state association barriers. In the past, Mater Dei and Sierra Canyon have played under different team names and uniforms in order to skirt CIF rules.

Another potential obstacle is club basketball. The SCI, which like GEICO Nationals is set after basketball seasons across the country are finished, also takes place during the first spring NCAA live recruiting period (April 8-10) — a key AAU weekend.

The news comes during an expansion of national high school basketball offerings led by Paragon. Ghazi is the commissioner of the National Interscholastic Basketball Conference (NIBC), which just completed its first full year.

The NFHS is a governing body for high school state associations. GEICO Nationals is set to take place March 31-April 2.

SBLive California reporter Connor Morrissette contributed to this report

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(Lead photo by Robbie Rakestraw)

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ANDY BUHLER, SBLIVE SPORTS

Andy Buhler is a Regional Editor of Texas and the national breaking news desk. He brings more than five years of experience covering high school sports across the state of Washington and beyond, where he covered the likes of Paolo Banchero and Tari Eason served on state tournament seeding committees. He works on the SBLive/Sports Illustrated Power 25 national boys basketball rankings. He has covered everything from the Final Four, MLS in Atlanta to local velodrome before diving into the world of preps. His bylines can be found in The News Tribune (Tacoma, Washington), The Associated Press, The Columbian (Vancouver, Washington), The Oregonian and more. He holds a degree from Gonzaga and is based out of Portland, Oregon.

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