To the IHSAA Selection Committee

[EastIowaHawk]

The 3A and 4A substate pairings come out in a few days. A lot of us on this board (parents of players, fans (mostly), coaches and former players) think that strength of schedule should play a prominent role in selecting pairings for the upcoming districts and substates. Personally (and some may disagree) I think that the BC Moore power rankings are the most accurate of the rankings (or at least should share equal significance with, say, the newspaper poll- and maybe they could be averaged). How about this idea? Take the top eight in each class and distribute them across the eight substates. Then take the next eight and reverse the order so that #16 is in a substate with #1, etc. Now, here is where geography should come in. You can't have Sergeant Bluff Luten paired against Assumption or Oskaloosa, but do your best. Maybe #1 is in the same substate as #13 or 14. Just do the fairest job you can. You could do the same for the next tier of eight teams, or maybe not. At least if you did this for the top 16 or 24 teams in each class, it would spread the best teams out and prevent Waukee and Ankeny Centennial or Dubuque Senior and Dub. Hempstead from meeting in district finals, for example. Nothing will ever be completely fair, and there is always an upstart team that catches fire at tournament time and runs over the favorites, but that's what makes the tourney fun. What do other posters think?

 

[PNation]

The state has done a better job of this over the last couple of year, it used to be almost entirely based upon geography. If you look at the 1A and 2A the top teams have been somewhat separated, still with some geography. The problem can arise when 3 of the top teams in the state are close together and sort of on an island. But yes I agree they should do all they can to get the top 8 teams to state.

 

[makelovenotwar]

I would support this kind of move. My frustration with polling is that none of the writers see more than a few teams. I watch alot of high school basketball (boys and girls) and while I live between Dubuque and Quad Cities, I have still not gotten over to see either of the Cascade teams this year. My point is that I really can't comment much on 3A teams that don't play in the MVC. And, again, I follow high school sports closely. How the heck is a Des Moines writer (or coach, or whatever) supposed to comment on Assumption which is the best 3A team I have seen this year.

 

[wolverine55]

It's not an awful idea, but relying on polls/BCMoore/etc. I'm not sure how you even would get 100% consensus on who those top 8 teams are.

 

[Anonymous111]

I think the AP poll is an absolute joke. Don’t care if that hurts your feelings. I personally think the guys at prep hoops do a great job of covering there portion of the state with Tony roe doing pretty much all eastern Iowa and they have a guy do Northwest Iowa. I believe they should hire these guys to do there own official state rankings. Prep hoops then could hire on two more guys to cover north east iowa better, and southwest iowa which they have no one cover. And then they separate the top 8 teams. Then geography can come into play a little bit as you move down to the low tier to mid tier teams. I have seen to many state championship games played in substates in northwest iowa.

 

[EastIowaHawk]

Good comments. In 2016 the Iowa districts/substates were announced in 3A and a team by the name of Cedar Rapids Xavier got a low seed. They had lost a bunch of games, and lost their last six regular season games in the MVC. All they did was beat everybody on a 6-0 run through the state tournament, because they were actually a terrific team. There should be some way of acknowledging that this is actually a strong team, even if they had a losing record. That's why I like the BC Moore ratings. It is not totally "fair" to the "top-ranked" teams that got paired up with them in the districts and got knocked out early. Xavier is possibly as good this year as that team was, which I believe was their first state championship since they consolidated as Xavier. It's not like they are dominating in basketball. Most years they are a little above average. They are not ranked in most polls this year, but I saw recently in a Cedar Rapids paper that one sports writer thinks that they can go all the way again. They are highly ranked this year only by BC Moore. I have no connection with Xavier. I am only using that situation as an example that many state rankings of some teams are close to meaningless.

 

[makelovenotwar]

Xavier this year is a good example EastIowa in that its another team I have not seen. Again, I live in the area and get over to games at Hempstead when I can. If I were setting up the playoffs, I would be looking at the record and maybe how they did against 3A competition. Wahlert is really struggling so the person looking at the teams is getting mixed signals. Is Xavier so-so (record) or pretty solid (whips 3A teams) Makes a power ranking helpful.

 

[Sam Tarly]

Good comments. In 2016 the Iowa districts/substates were announced in 3A and a team by the name of Cedar Rapids Xavier got a low seed. They had lost a bunch of games, and lost their last six regular season games in the MVC. All they did was beat everybody on a 6-0 run through the state tournament, because they were actually a terrific team. There should be some way of acknowledging that this is actually a strong team, even if they had a losing record. That's why I like the BC Moore ratings. It is not totally "fair" to the "top-ranked" teams that got paired up with them in the districts and got knocked out early. Xavier is possibly as good this year as that team was, which I believe was their first state championship since they consolidated as Xavier. It's not like they are dominating in basketball. Most years they are a little above average. They are not ranked in most polls this year, but I saw recently in a Cedar Rapids paper that one sports writer thinks that they can go all the way again. They are highly ranked this year only by BC Moore. I have no connection with Xavier. I am only using that situation as an example that many state rankings of some teams are close to meaningless.

I agree, I like the BC Moore idea. It gives a much better look at how teams will compete against each other. I might be starting a conspiracy theory but do you think Xavier will get a good draw because Tom Keating is now the head of IHSAA?

 

[EastIowaHawk]

With five of BC Moore's top 3A ten in the Cedar Rapids/eastern Iowa area, I don't think anyone there will get a good draw. Just like the log jam problem in the Des Moines area, they need to move some teams to far southeast (where Washington or Mt. Pleasant are #28 and #29) or far northeast where #18 Clear Lake is the top-ranked BC Moore team. Too late now because the pairings come out tomorrow, I think. More than geography, I think the ISHAA wants some tournment star power, so I'll bet Oskaloosa and Norwalk get a pretty favorable placement so fans can watch Born and Foster, if they make it to state. That's 3A. 4A has even a worse log jam in certain areas.

 

[sprolesistheman]

I've heard they they do have a guy looking at some stat breakdowns, so will be interesting to see what they do.

 

[HoopsScoutPrep]

I like the thinking EasternIowa and there are some other good opinions and insights. I personally think conference should be blown up, create 6 classes, 48 schools in the biggest, 64 in the next four and then there is like 58 in the smallest. Create districts like football (could still be called conferences) with 8 teams in them. 6 conference for A & 5A and then 8 conference for 1A-4A. Each team plays 14 conferences games so over half their games are against same class teams, 6 non conference games can be scheduled by each school and can play any other class they prefer. Game 21 is the start of the conference tournament. So everyone gets their 21 games and if you want more you need to win. Conference regular season champs and conference tournament champs qualify for the tournament and then you have whatever at large teams based off of a point/analytic system to get either 24 or 32 teams for the tournament. Not every school should qualify for the tournament (also have an idea to get a few more teams involved similar to NIT). The other big part is parochial schools have a multiplier based off where they are located. In my opinion that gets teams in the right class for the majority of schools. I think this would bring a lot of excitement as once you fill tournament teams you have a selection show and pair teams based on location in the state. Rotate years from West & East and North & South splits. Elite 8 games (State qualifier) are played at regional sites so more people can attend and games won’t be in the morning. Final Four is held at Wells Fargo and every team gets two games in Des Moines and it becomes just a weekend full of games and fun instead of a whole week (people make a weekend out of it). Hy-Vee Hall could be used for consolation games. In the end I think this would be sweet, create more excitement, and make it more fair but highly doubt it could get through! Love to hear thoughts or discuss more!