Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2014: I don't want to say I told you so, but ...

   Leading off today: There are some Tuesday postseason results I want to get to with another blog later, but first I need to get some bitching out of the way. So please indulge me as I stand atop my bully pulpit.

   I warned you last July 24 that there was going to be a problem in Section 5 once the basketball playoffs rolled around because of the new way enrollments are calculated when schools combine to field a team.

   A source I mentioned in my Aug. 1 blog voiced the same concern and even predicted the event (a Franklin victory) that would cause us all to roll our eyes in frustration.

   And the triple crown of teeth-gnashing was completed when I blogged on Oct. 1 that some enrollment travesties involving Rochester City School District programs were cleaned up after a follow-up meeting, but others were not resolved in a satisfactory fashion.

   Fast forward to last night and these two results from the Section 5 boys basketball tournament:

    • Class A: Edison 63, Brighton 61 (overtime).
    • Class B: Franklin 62, Livonia 58.

   What a farce.

   Hang around either school around dismissal time and you quickly sense that Franklin and Edison each house enough students so that both should easily be playing one class higher in the tournament. But the way the RCSD treats some of its buildings as "schools within a school" gives the RCSD a loophole to exploit the new NYSPHSAA rule that discounts enrollments for "combined" programs.

   It's a worthwhile rule when two or three neighboring districts get together to save a wrestling or hockey program that would otherwise go down the drain. It's an embarrassment when a school that belongs in Class A (Franklin, which was 9-9 in the regular season) ends an unbeaten season for a Class B school (Livonia).

   I renew my previous prediction: If the sliding-scale rule does not get renewed after the second year of its trial phase -- and the vote was probably going to be very close even before Tuesday's train wreck -- you can assign much of the blame to Section 5. More precisely, the blame will belong to one school district in Section 5.

   More playoff rants: I respect the heck out of the non-league schedule that Queensbury played this season, but the Spartans do not belong in the New York State Public High School Athletic Association Division II hockey tournament.

   There's no shame in losing to the likes of Pelham, Skaneateles, Greece Athena/Odyssey, Massena and

More N.Y. postseason coverage All sports • NYSSWA site for brackets of tournaments from the past and present seasons. Boys basketball • Road to Glens Falls for scores and stats. • NYSPHSAA tourney brackets • Current state rankings. Girls basketball • Road to Troy for scores and stats. • NYSPHSAA tourney brackets • Current state rankings. Ice hockey • NYSSWA site for tournament brackets. • Current state rankings.

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Beekmantown. But at some point, you have to win some games. And Queensbury did not do enough of that this winter, finishing with a 5-15 record (including one win via forfeit).

   As the only remaining Division II team in Section 2, the state berth fell into Queensbury's lap. But let's be honest: A 5-15 team that didn't earn its way in via a playoff championship doesn't belong in the state tournament.

   Making it worse, there are only seven sections with Division 2 representatives this year. That means someone has to draw a first-round bye when the action starts this weekend.

   Care to take a guess who that might be? Yup, Queensbury. A 5-15 record has the Spartans seeded right into the semifinals in Utica on March 8.

   Only slightly less onerous is the Class D situation in girls basketball. With Section 1 and the Long Island sections not having Class D representatives, Eldred goes directly to the final four at Hudson Valley Community College on March 15 despite an 8-10 record.

   With no other Section 9 Class D teams having qualified for the postseason, Eldred sits for 20 days from the end of the regular season to the start of the state tournament. If its semifinal opponent comes from Section 5, that team will have played a minimum of five games in that same span.