Looking for basketball scores? Inside the new IHSA March Madness smartphone app
The Illinois High School Association says please stop using your smartphone browser, zooming in and scrolling all over the ScoreZone portion of its website to look for Illinois high school basketball scores.
Keep it simple, instead. Just download the organization's new IHSA March Madness app. It’s been available in Apple's App Store since Feb. 8. It debuted Sunday in the Google Play store for Android users.
Matt Jensen, the IHSA Information Technology Director, built the site, using the same information found in the iHSA's traditional ScoreZone sections — while loading other data such as schedules from MaxPreps.com. Additionally, team records — overall marks as well as conference standings — are updated daily.
Other app features include IHSA news and social media posts, along with postseason schedules and brackets. Links to the NFHS Network streams can also be found within the app.
Background:Meet the Peoria native and 'data geek' with ideas to upgrade the IHSA website
Using Marchmadness.org
Upon reviewing the IHSA-owned websites, he found the perfect one — MarchMadness.org, which can also be visited in mobile, tablet and desktop browers.
“Do we really own this?” Jensen said he remembers thinking to himself. “This is a prime domain to launch something as (the season) goes to basketball.”
He then teamed with Jeff Ziegenhorn, who oversees the IHSA’s corporate sponsorships, to work through all the details for the app to come together. Jensen says he estimates spending nearly 500 night-time hours over a six-week period to complete the project.
Following its release, the IHSA March Madness app cracked Apple’s top 100 free sports apps.
“It was pretty awesome to see,” said Jensen, who noted there have been over 1,500 downloads with 10,000-15,000 daily views during the girls postseason. “It’s a labor of love and something I enjoy doing.
“I really enjoy how it came together at the end.”
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Will the IHSA build other apps?
The Peoria native has been asked if apps for other sports will be created. He says he envisions a custom purely ScoreZone app with a combination of every sport score all in one place. Not an app, but maybe even a baseball and softball-centric website could be created for the upcoming season.
Football, however, may very well be on its way to getting its own app.
“I think that would be cool as well,” Jensen said.
Adam Duvall is a Journal Star sports reporter. Email him at aduvall@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @AdamDuvall.
This article originally appeared on Journal Star: IHSA launches new smartphone app for Illinois high school basketball
