Basketball proposal should be based on using advantage, not simply having one.
posted by Nicholas Kartos at 9/19/2009
From our message board, the WIAA area meetings and the many conversations I’ve had with many people, it is clear that there are some holes in the WIAA basketball proposal being discussed at the area meetings.
This is my idea to fix the problem, to try and come up with a compromise between the two parties.
I think even the staunchest fan to the private school debate can admit that it’s not totally fair to paint them all with a broad brush and move everyone up. It’s just a means to move the teams they want moved up to move up. And worst yet, the WIAA proposal doesn’t even accomplish moving up all the teams people feel should move up.
Fix Five Division Idea An issue has been presented that smaller D1 schools have a problem competing with the larger D1 schools. But by taking 5 divisions and dividing them equally all you do is create a new problem. In the proposal, the biggest D2 school is 1124 while the smallest is 531. Twice the size.
Instead of a new D2 let’s go for a D1A and D1B. Top 64 teams are D1A, next 64 teams are D1B. In this case the biggest school in D1B is 1342 and the smallest is 862. Seems more fair.
From there you actually start from the bottom, the bottom 128 schools enrollment wise are D4. The next lowest 124 are D3. The remaining schools are in D2, this allows for D2 to be tighter in enrollment.
This is of course before teams are moved up or down.
Divisional Placement The crux of this argument is that being in or close to a urban area is an advantage for a school. I say there is a difference between
having an advantage and
using an advantage. I also believe there has to be a history of success, not just one team that pulled it together and had a nice year.
So here is my plan for moving teams up or staying put. You take the number of games over .500 in tournament play over the previous three years. If your team is 7 or higher games above .500 you move up. This of course could be changed to 5, 6 or 8; but for now let's just say it's 7.
So let’s apply this to some teams.
Boys, teams in bold would be moved up a division:
Aquinas(5, 7, 5 = 17) Assumption(5, 1, 0 = 6)
Dominican(1, 4, 3 = 8) Lakeside Lutheran(1, 1, 1 = 3)
Madison Edgewood(3, 1, 0 = 4)
Milwaukee Lutheran(1, 0, 0 = 1)
Regis(4, 3, 3 = 10) Roncalli(4, 3, 4 = 11) Sheboygan Christian(2, 2, 2 = 6)
St. Catherine's(7, 3, 7 = 17) St. John's(0, -1, -1 = -2)
Wisconsin Lutheran(6, 0, 1 = 7) Xavier(4, 1, -1 = 4)
Girls, teams in bold would be moved up a division:
Assumption(2, 2, 1 = 5)
Edgewood(3, 0, 0 = 3)
FVL(0, 3, 0 = 3)
Regis(1, 1, 1 = 3)
Roncalli(3, 0, 2 = 5)
Sheboygan Christian(0, 4, 1 = 5)
St Mary Central(7, 5, 0 = 12) The Hope School(2, 0, 2 = 4)
Wausau Newman(0, 1, 3 = 4)
WLA(0, 0, 0 = 0)
Xavier(1, -1, 0 = 0)
Waiver to stay in Division There would be a wavier that a private school could apply to stay in their division. This one might need some work because I might not have the terminology down. But my basic thought is if all of the players on their team came from their parish feeder system OR are paying full tuition at the school the team does not have to move up.
You may also modify this rule to allow them one player not from the parish system.
Why not public schools too? Another complaint about the proposal is that it does nothing to address open enrollment. So try this one on, use the criteria on public schools as well. Their waiver would be if they have one or less open enrolled kid on their team they do not move up.
Well, I got a Badger football game to catch. Thoughts?
Comments 6
On
9/19/2009 10:50:01 AM
Old Coach wrote:
So the idea is still to punish teams for having successful programs. Sounds like the idea is to push all the good programs up until they lose then allow them to play their same school size competition until they win again. Although it does seem boring to see the same teams in the tournment I don't see anyone proposing moving North Carolina or Duke into the NBA because they are good at basketball. Don't punish strong programs just because they win. that is the crux of this whole division alignment issue. If you win you must be recruiting instead of if you win it because you do things better than others therefore players want to play for you.
On
9/19/2009 2:57:07 PM
llgb wrote:
I do like your idea of dividing D1 up a little. In general, the better overall basketball comes from the larger schools (no offense to smaller schools),and to add a division for lower levels doesnt make a whole lot of sense to me. There will never be a fair equal system. Thats because its sports its not equal there is a winner and loser every time, some teams have better athletes or coaches or programs. Enrollment is in general the best way to divide up schools, I agree with the first comment, you should not be punished because you do things better than someone else and have success, thats the point of building a strong program. You bump up teams who have success in one division, may have zero success in the next division up, is that fair? So if you always lose in one division why cant I move my team down? Good article keep it up.
On
9/24/2009 10:30:18 AM
RoarCatz wrote:
While I do not at all agree that there's anything nefarious going on, and in fact get more disgusted every day by the distinct odor of sour grapes that attends this whole discussion, the practical fact is that this modification proposal includes several thoughtful elements.
The first one is really imperative: Any proposal must address open enrollments. If the membership insists on dinging privates, then it must likewise penalize open enrollments as a public-school proxy for whatever private-school shenanigans are believed to be occurring.
You're also right on the money when you say that "there is a difference between having an advantage and using an advantage." (That's also the essence of what makes the central, geography-based mechanism of the proposal--the two-public-high-school business--so utterly random.) Still, if this random penalty is inevitable, your thought on modification is a practical one. No matter where you're located, you shouldn't be penalized if all of your players pay full boat, or came through your feeder system.
On
10/1/2009 2:16:51 PM
OHS2011 wrote:
"Sounds like the idea is to push all the good programs up until they lose then allow them to play their same school size competition until they win again" YES! teams should be playing schools the same size not a 300 kid school playing a 900 kid school. And the comment moving duke N.C. to the NBA has no relavance to the topic. There college kids, not grown men. "If you win you must be recruiting" There is 2 reasons as to why the same schools are at state 1.)enrollment
2.)they recruit not suppost to but they do..face the facts its going on. so the proposal would be a good thing
On
11/1/2009 5:44:57 PM
Gigantor wrote:
i dont think any of you should be making decisions on this.. i am a high school student, and these are high school student's memories not yours... My team would face schools that have at least 50 more students. This would allow us to face schools with equal talent. Just dont think that since my school has 250 students can always stay competitive with a school of 300. This also lets us stay closer to home, rather than traveling 3 hours to Bowler. Im all for this new football division thing, and by the way Go wild rose wild cats...
On
11/2/2009 9:42:05 PM
Gigantor wrote:
*basketball... lol..
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