Here is what state basketball tournaments would have looked like in 2016

The winter sports season is over, the champions have been crowned and now every school in the state of New Hampshire is making the transition to spring sports.

At least this year, with a whole lot less snow than the last few winters, there's a chance teams will open up their respective regular seasons on time. Perhaps some of them are on their fields and courts and tracks already.

But it's safe to say this March is not the norm.

Yeah, spring sports tryouts and practices always start the Monday after the final winter championships have been decided, but more often than not, no one is doing anything outside of the gym for that first week of the season.

So why not add another week to the basketball season and host a true state championship in boys and girls hoop?

Fortunately, around here, we have enough imagination to pretend that something like that could happen. For the third year in a row, we're going to tell you what the tournament would look like, and this year, we're going to take it one step further (more on that below).

Let's first refresh your memory and tell you how these brackets were produced.

A state tournament would consist of eight teams - the two finalists from each of the four divisions - with the four champions seeded in the top spots based on division. Then, to assure that two teams that played for a division championship wouldn't meet again until the state final, the runners-up are staggered.

So here are the brackets.

Boys Basketball State Tournament

• No. 8 Kearsarge (D3-2) vs. No. 1 Manchester Central (D1-1)
• No. 5 Lebanon (D2-2) vs. No. 4 Littleton (D4-1)
• No. 7 Portsmouth Christian (D4-2) vs. No. 2 Portsmouth (D2-1)
• No. 6 Merrimack (D1-2) vs. No. 3 Pelham (D3-1)

The schedule would have looked like like this: Quarterfinals split up over two days (Monday, March 21 and Tuesday, March 22), with a day off before the semifinals (Thursday, March 24) and a day off before the championship (Saturday, March 26), which would be part of a doubleheader with the girls.

Girls Basketball State Tournament

• No. 8 Laconia (D3-2) vs. No. 1 Bishop Guertin (D1-1)
• No. 5 Hanover  (D2-2) vs. No. 4 Sunapee (D4-1)
• No. 7 Littleton (D4-2) vs. No. 2 Goffstown (D2-1)
• No. 6 Bedford (D1-2) vs. No. 3 Gilford (D3-1)

With the girls' season ending a week earlier, and to avoid overlap with the boys games, the schedule could have been: Quarterfinals split over two days (Thursday, March 17 and Friday, March 18), when the boys had days off. Then the semifinals could have been on another off day (Wednesday, March 23) and then the championship doubleheader (Saturday, March 26) to finish it off.

So who would win those state tournaments? This week, we've been asking coaches from each division what they think, and using those opinions, combined with results from our ranking system, we're going to be figuring it out later this weekend.

On Saturday, we'll post the results for a girls tournament, and on Sunday, we'll be doing the same for the boys tournament. Be sure to come back to check out both, and sign up for a subscription to get all the details from both.