Let's go back, though, and take a look back at the sentiments surrounding the all-classification tournament and what the centemporary reactions were.

It's easy to see why an all-classification tournament would be intruiging. A champion of champions. Best of the best.

The GHSA split relatively early into classifications. Excluding the GIAA tournaments - sometimes referred to as Class A - Georgia began its split into classifications for the 1934 state hoops meet after having begun its own tournament in 1926. B and C were the first two groups.

Class D briefly existed for two-year high schools (those ending in ninth grade), then large schools moved into the fold with A and AA in 1950. AAA played its first state basketball tournament as a fifth classification in 1957. C was dropped after 1972, then came a shift for the 1979 tournaments, dropping B and adding AAAA. Georgia has had as many as eight classifications, but scaled down to seven in 2024 with 7A being removed.

Not all states had classifications in 1973. Indiana, considered perhaps the universe's hotbed for high school basketball enthusiasm, was a single class until 1998. It was in this atmosphere that the small town of Milan, Indiana, won the 1954 championship, which inspired the 1986 movie Hoosiers. Neighboring Illinois had only gone to classifications in 1971.

Not too many in Georgia would have known about them, but all-classifications tournaments did exist in the Georgia Interscholastic Association, the league for Black high schools. These ran from 1962 until the league shut down in 1970. The all-class tournaments were boys only, except for 1970, maybe 1969 as well.

Both GHSA all-classification tournaments were held at the Macon Coliseum, geographically near the center of Georgia, making it an equal trip, in theory, for everyone.

There was optimism that this would turn out great.

On March 22, one day before tip, Macon News columnist Tommy King thanked GHSA executive secretary Sam Burke for the idea.

King was eager to see what small schools would do and was heavily anticipating a potential matchup between the Southwests, the AAA champs from Macon and the AA winners from Atlanta. "We're definitely not going to Macon with a defeatist attitude," said West Point's leader, John Hoggs, to the Columbus Enquirer ahead of the 1973 tournament. West Point was Class B's champion.

Neither did Burke count out the small schools. In the same Enquirer article, Burke said "Some of these teams will surprise you. You can never tell, but don't count the smaller schools out." On paper, the scores weren't ugly in any of the games.

Southwest of Atlanta (AA) defeated West Point, 75-68, while AAA Savannah earned a nine-point win over Bacon County (59-50). In the finals, the Macon Southwest won 71-64 over Atlanta's. West Point won 3rd place over Bacon, 72-70.

After seeing it play out, though, the opinion was not as favorable. That was the view of longtime Macon Telegraph writer Harley Bowers.

At first saying it was decent in his story on March 29, Bowers went into what he thought were the flaws.

"Played in Macon's Coliseum it was not exactly a smashing success," Bowers said, "but it went off well enough to insure that it will be held again."

Bowers did not think the teams were at the top of their games. In 1973, the state tournaments were staged differently. Instead of being concurrent for boys and girls over all classifications, the tournaments were staggered across nearly a month.

It was not just for classifications, but genders. In some classes, boys and girls might be played on the same dates. Sometimes, the difference might be a week or two between them.

Pointing out that it had been a month since Southwest of Atlanta had played and two weeks for Southwest of Macon, Bowers said the product on the floor was "embarrassing, subpar performances" in their semifinals games. Bowers also noted another real problem of the all-class tournament. Being the winner of the state's largest classification, AAA, Macon's Southwest had absolutely nothing to gain by winning.

Even in 1973, teams had reputations to consider. Whereas a West Point, the Class B champ in 1973, would be eager to knock off the perceived giants. Southwest would only be seen as punching down.

The experiment was nearly dead after one year.

In a June 27, 1973 Macon News article Burke said reaction had not been favorable from the GHSA's member schools. He was considering canceling the all-classification tournament right then.

Large classification schools, AAA and AA, were against the tournament. A and B schools liked it much more, Burke said. Bowers was correct in his initial assessment, Burke agreed.

"The larger schools seem to think they have nothing to gain from such a tournament, and I can see their point," Burke said. "They also seem to think that the smaller schools have nothing to lose."

The excitement was not completely absent. Southwest (Atlanta) head coach David Jones told the Macon News in a March 22, 1974, article that he really wanted to play Savannah, that year's AAA winners.

Southwest upset Savannah, 82-76, the second and last upset over the eight games ultimately played. B-sized West Point had knocked off A's Bacon County in the 1973 consolation game.

Burke was still in favor of the all-class idea in the weeks before the 1974 affair. Talking to Bowers for his March 10 column, Burke was fascinated with going a step further and eliminating classifications for basketball completely. The GHSA tournaments had been split since 1934.

That was Burke's fantasy. He was a realist. He admitted that he did not think schools were for this idea. He also admitted to Bowers that the current staggered tournament staging was an issue for playing an all-class tournament with four classification champions, as Bowers had already noted a year earlier.

(The GHSA began holding all classifications, as well as boys and girls tournaments, concurrently beginning in 1977. This staging has continued since.)

Possibly most importantly, fans literally refused to buy it.

An Athens-based attendee of the 1973 tournament wrote the Atlanta Journal that he did not think a second one would be held because of the lack of fans there.

Writing ahead of the 1974 tournament, the Atlanta Constitution's Randy Donaldson called attendance "spotty" for 1973. Donaldson projected it would be even worse without a local team in it. No actual attendance figures have surfaced.

The GIA all-classification tournaments lasted from 1962-1970, so there obviously was an audience for these types of games. Why did theirs succeed while the GHSA, which had a much larger and better financed fanbase, fail?

No economic information is known about the GIA tournaments. They were barely publicized. Being a segregated league in an era where nearly all media was white-controlled, there were no guarantees about what coverage a school received. Nearly all of the coverage was limited to local newspapers.

The GIA tournaments did have similar timing situations as the GHSA did for their early all-class tournaments. In 1962, the tournament was held March 9-10 at Washington High in Atlanta. Class C wrapped up their tournament on February 17 and Class B was done March 3.

Perhaps helping the GIA's success was the lack of media attention. The teams would have been more of a mystery to one another. The fans might not have felt as bound by their school populations.

In 1964, Beach of Savannah played against Ralph Bunche of Canton in the finals. The teams were polar opposites in size and located across the state from one another.

It might have also helped that the GIA normally played its tournaments in smaller arenas, which became even smaller after its biggest schools opted to join the GHSA, which opened its doors to all-Black high schools beginning in 1966.

The 1969 and 1970 all-class tournaments were both held at T.C. Calhoun in Irwinton. The Calhoun Rockets were state champs in both years, which would have made for an even more electric atmosphere.

Whatever the contributing factors were for one set of tournaments working and the GHSA's being quickly dropped, it's very unlikely another all-classification basketball tournament will ever be staged.