Kentucky holds the copyright for 'the Sweet 16' and the NCAA uses it with permission.  Every year, 16 Kentucky schools come together in one site for the annual State Basketball Tournament.

The girls are this week;the boys follow next week.

Kentucky has only class and all the schools compete equally. Each season, there's a small school or two who captures the fans imagination as they work through the tourney. There are three small schools in this year's field.. GLASGOW, WALTON-VERONA, and MAGOFFIN CO.

The 16 teams are paired through a blind draw, which makes for some interesting early matchups. The favorites are Louisville Manual and Marion Co., which met in the Final Four last year with Manual winning 56-54.

the girls' matchups (with rankings based on the Litratings)

5. Glasgow
8.  Louisville Butler

4.  Boone Co.- led by Sydney Moss, daughter of Randy)
11. Lexington Dunbar

1.  Louisvill Manual
3.  :Perry County Central

15. Muhlenberg Co.
13. Montgomery Co.

12.  Hopkinsville
14.  Marshall Co.

2.   Marion Co
6.   Walton-Verona

16. Magoffin Co.
9.   Ashland

10. Lincoln Co.
7.   Clay Co.

I'm so envious of this... we used to have a one-class system in Indiana, and the tournament was much more interesting. i.e. Hoosiers

The first two games today were minor upsets.

Lou. Butler eliminated the small-town darlings Glasgow Scotties  54-49.
Lex. Paul Dunbar nipped Boone County in OT, 72-70.

The most anticipated matchup is tonight with #1 Lou. Manual meets #3 Perry County Central.  Manual defeated Perry 70-61 in the semifinals of the prestigious Louisville Invitiational Tournament in January.

In the nightcap, my alma mater Muhlenberg County tangles with Montgomery County

How are the 16 participants determined? 

Posted by bdpoor on 3/7/2012 4:49:00 PM (view original):
I'm so envious of this... we used to have a one-class system in Indiana, and the tournament was much more interesting. i.e. Hoosiers

Jersey has this., they call it the tournament of champions. Everybody has their own state championship and all the state champs come together for a champions of champions tourney.

NY doesn't have it because it would be pointless. In NY, at least in NYC schools aren't classified according to size, they are classified according to how good they feel their basketball program is, so schools at the lowest level will almost always get slaughtered by the highest level schools. However, NY does have a federation tournament. Each classification has a public state champ, catholic state champ, private school state champ, and PSAL champ (NYCs public school champ), and these 4 schools come together to decide the true champ for that classification. It's pretty cool.

Posted by professor17 on 3/7/2012 9:22:00 PM (view original):
How are the 16 participants determined? 

The state is divided up into 16 regions.  Each region contains several districts.  So there are district tournaments of usually 4 or 5 schools.  The top 2 finishers in each district tourney advance to the regional tournament.  There, the 8 schools play a tournament with the winner advancing to the Sweet 16 at Rupp Arena.

Like Al said, the beauty is that there is almost always a small school Cinderella that emerges.  I agree that this may not work in the larger states, but I think Indiana made a huge mistake in abandoning this type of tournament.