COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio High School Athletic Association state girls and boys basketball tournaments will return to a format that will include the semifinals and finals all being held within a three- or four-day period during the 2025-26 and 2026-27 school years.
The OHSAA Board of Directors approved modified basketball dates for the next two school years at its regularly scheduled meeting April 24.
The basketball state finals will remain at University of Dayton Arena and all semifinals will be held at the venue or other locations in the Dayton area, according to Tuesday’s OHSAA Administrator Update.
This past March, it was just the girls and boys basketball state finals played at UD Arena. The state semifinals were played at neutral locations around the state and a week (or nearly a week) before the state finals.
This past season was the first time time that girls and boys basketball went to seven divisions in each sport.
The starting date for regular season basketball contests will remain the same as previously published for the 2025-26 season, so eliminating an extra week for the state semifinals means schools will have an extra week to schedule regular season games prior to the start of OHSAA tournaments.
In 2026-27, the start of the regular season will be a week later, so that extra week will no longer be available.
For this upcoming season, the girls basketball state tournament is scheduled for March 12-14, 2026. The boys basketball state tournament is scheduled for March 19 to March 21 or March 22.
Purcell Marian (Division III) and Winton Woods (Division II) were girls basketball state champions from Greater Cincinnati while Princeton (Division I) was a state runner-up this past season.
Aiken was the Division III boys basketball state runner-up.
The Dayton Daily News reported in May 2024that UD Arena would be a host site for basketball state championship games through at least 2026.
The OHSAA Board of Directors voted unanimously Feb. 15, 2024 to expand the number of tournament divisions in seven sports including boys and girls basketball (from four to seven divisions) starting this school year.
