Last year, the conference's first season under new realignment, the league played Monday "play-in" games held at one site between the bottom two seeds in boys and girls hoops.

Cary AD Mike Dunphy said that part of the reason for doing away with the 8-vs-9 game was that if either seed made it to the conference championship game, the conference championship would have to be moved to Saturday.

No NCHSAA basketball team can play four games in one school week.

As a result, the Athens Drive boys ended their season 3-21.

Get there early: This year is the first year the conference will play its basketball tournament at Athens Drive.

Typically, the site rotates on an alphabetical basis among gymnasiums deemed large enough to hold the event - which leaves out Apex, Cary, Fuquay-Varina and, before this year, Athens.

Athens is used to holding big events, like the WRAL wrestling tournament. But it still doesn't have the largest seating capacity.

My advice?

Get there early so you can sit where you want to, not where you have to.

Today is a quadruple-header in the semifinal round, with the games starting at 4 p.m., 5:15 p.m., 6:30 p.m. and 8 p.m.

Listening to the games: If you can't make it out to a game, the semifinals and finals of this year's Tri-Nine Conference tournament will be broadcasted online at ihigh.com (note: the program isn't compatible with Firefox's Web browser).

The quickest way to find the link is to go to www.ihigh.com/caryhighimps.

David Maney II, the voice of the Cary Imps, will do the play-by-play of all six games, while yours truly will provide the color commentary and do live post-game interviews.

Because of NCHSAA restrictions, only audio is live.

Apex the spoiler again: The Middle Creek boys were a game away from going through 16 conference games without a loss.

But Middle Creek lost at Apex Friday - meaning that the Mustangs are the fourth straight regular-season conference championship with exactly one loss.

Apex ('10), Panther Creek ('09) and Middle Creek ('08) all did the same.

Falcons run the gauntlet: Green Hope's girls went 16-0 in the Tri-Nine for the second consecutive season, and it's becoming a habit for the conference champ to dominate in that kind of fashion.

Before Green Hope's two-year run, Apex in 2009 completed a 14-0 conference season while Athens did the same in 2007 and 2008.

Seeding not the same: Just because Tri-Nine basketball teams are seeded a certain way, that doesn't mean that's where they'll wind up in next week's state playoffs.

Panther Creek's and Apex's boys must reach the conference championship game to avoid playing a Friday tiebreaker game for the higher seed.

Same for Holly Springs and Middle Creek's girls.

Also, if any team seeded third or below wins the conference tournament, it enters the playoffs as the 2-seed regardless of record. Everyone but the No. 1 team gets bumped down a seed.