We will delve in greater detail into the draw for this year's Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association boys and girls basketball tournament beginning tomorrow and through the week. But there's one terrible situation that ought to be addressed, even if won't be corrected in time for this year's tournament.

The New Town boys team, the defending Class 1A state champions, is seeded at the bottom of the North region through no fault of its own, which means the Titans will have to win three road games despite having a 12-7 record.

What's even more bizarre is that when the draw was originally announced Sunday at Long Reach, the Titans received a top-four seed. But, later, when it was pointed out that Dunbar's record had been incorrectly reported, the draw was reconfigured and the Poets, who were originally a 10 seed, moved up to a three seed, while the Titans were dropped to a 12 seed, the last one in the region.

The reason for all this is because the MPSSAA stubbornly refuses to seed the entire field, granting true seeds to only the top four teams in a region and placing the rest in a blind, computer draw. The current system is a better way to decide a champion than the previous system when every school's name was put in a hat and drawn, but just barely.

Teams with better records deserve to enjoy the fruits of their labors, especially when a state championship is at stake. Each region should be seeded according to winning percentage with appeals in the case of records affected by incomplete schedules to heard by a panel of athletic directors from the region, with the basketball committees serving as the final arbiter.

It's the fair thing to do for New Town and every team in the field.