New Cali Playoff Divisions this year

[CentralSection]

How come I haven't heard any talk anywhere about the new CIF state revision to the state playoff format.

1606. Division Placement of Schools

Each Section will determine the divisional placement for its schools who qualify for the state basketball championships and is required to submit the placement of schools into the five divisions to the State CIF Office no later than December 1.
CIF-member schools will be required to participate in the division that has been established by their respective Section. Sections may use their own established criteria to determine placement of teams in the five divisions based on the following guidelines:

Division I As determined by Section

Division II As determined by Section

Division III As determined by Section

Division IV As determined by Section, but enrollment may not exceed 1,250

Division V As determined by Section, but enrollment may not exceed 500

(Revised May 2008 Federated Council)




This is very big news in my opinion. Basically Div I through III can accompany any size school. Its completley up to the section to decide what schools go in what division for 1 through 3. Had anyone heard what the other sections are doing? Are they still going enrollment based? The central section is moving towards ability based divisions 1-3.

[bbhcky4]

Absolutely - and you know there is a lot of lobbying going on as some schools want to be in a lower division as they think they can get a state title that way.

This brings up the issues of recruiting where typically those schools who can get the kids through recruiting should be going against each other but that never happens.

What if CIF decided to hold an open division giving those schools the chance to enter and go against the top schools or should I say those that do the best job at recruiting - I wonder how many would enter or are they more concerned about getting titles playing against lesser competition. It definitely would expose those that are only about that and may even out the playing field for those schools who go by the rules.

[CentralSection]

Yeah on top of that trying to figure out who you might play in the state playoffs is going to be a nightmare.

[scoutnwhoops]

I imagine a majority of the decision will be made to benefit the football and boys basketball programs. I know when I've seen other realignments in other states football was the heart of the change and GBB just goes along for the ride.

[ClayKallam]

Marie Ishida, the president of the CIF, addressed this at last year's state championship, and this is what I take from it:

What the CIF wants to do is go away from enrollment-based divisions -- which certainly don't reflect quality of play -- and toward competition-based divisions -- which the Southern Section did last year. In other words, enrollment will only matter in Divisions AV and V; otherwise, the goal will be to get the best teams in Division I.

Last year, for example, that would have meant Poly, Sacred Heart Cathedral and St. Mary's of Stockton would all have been Division I.

So here's my modest proposal. At the end of the basketball season, all schools that are eligible for postseason in a particular section submit their entry forms, which includes their game-by-game results. A committee then evaluates these teams by their overall strength, not their record, and seeds them.

In the North Coast Section, let's say there would be a 16-team Division I bracket, a 16-team Division II bracket and a 16-team Division III bracket. At the end of the season, the basketball committee would seed all the eligible applicants from 1 to however many applied. The top 16 would be designated Division I; the next 16 would be Division II; and the next 16 would be Division III. Divisions IV and V, absent only those teams that opted up, would be seeded separately from the top three divisions.

My fear is that the sections will try to determine division assignments prior to the season, or by the strength of a league, which would make the whole system random again. Injuries, obviously, could change everything, and so could one of those magical seasons when a team comes out of nowhere. If they can see their way clear to doing it at the end of the season, when it's much more clear who belongs where, it would be a pretty good system (though a lot of teams would be rooting to get that 17th seed).

[OCHoopFan]

I thought the CIF playoffs were going to based on a point system on how the team did in the CIF playoffs only(not states)and their overall enrollment.

Points were something like 5 points for a CIF win, 4 points for a semi final win, 3 points for a quarterfinal win, 2 for a second round win, and 1 point for a first round win. Thus LB Poly or Redondo in the southern section would have 5+4+3+2+1 =15 points for 2007-2008 season. Then figure in the previous 3 seasons to get a total. Then there was some calculation for enrollment too.


CIF Blue Book, which came out last month, only mentions enrollment for basketball, while nearly every other HS sport seems to have the playoff groupings determined already.

See page 17-20 at
http://www.cifss.org/pdfs/bluebook.pdf

[ClayKallam]

I thought the CIF playoffs were going to based on a point system on how the team did in the CIF playoffs only(not states)and their overall enrollment.

Points were something like 5 points for a CIF win, 4 points for a semi final win, 3 points for a quarterfinal win, 2 for a second round win, and 1 point for a first round win. Thus LB Poly or Redondo in the southern section would have 5+4+3+2+1 =15 points for 2007-2008 season. Then figure in the previous 3 seasons to get a total. Then there was some calculation for enrollment too.


CIF Blue Book, which came out last month, only mentions enrollment for basketball, while nearly every other HS sport seems to have the playoff groupings determined already.

See page 17-20 at
http://www.cifss.org/pdfs/bluebook.pdf

One of my least favorite things about the Southern Section is the arrogance of using "CIF" in place of "Southern Section." "CIF" stands for "California Interscholastic Federation", and is made up of 10 sections, of which the Southern Section is one -- the most important one, granted, but still just one of ten.

With that out of the way, I'm assuming that you mean the Southern Section playoffs will be based on a point system (which, with typical Southern Section arrogance, doesn't include what happens in the CIF (or state) playoffs against teams from other sections).

The idea of using three years worth of points isn't necessarily a good one, especially for basketball, because if you have a D-1 player who's there for three years, you might be pretty good -- and then when she graduates, you're back to being terrible. And if that D-1 player has been there only one season, and you're now really good, the two previous mediocre years will drop you to a division below where you should be playing.

Why not just do it after the season?

[CentralSection]

To OCHoopFan:

That is how I heard they are going to do it down in the southern section. Thats weird the bluebook says that. However the SS still hasn't said how it will send its teams into the "State" playoffs I guess enrollment. You have 10 section divisions and previously you would drop your teams into their respective enrollment based divisions after your section playoffs were complete. However this year 1-3 their are not enrollment based divisions. So depending on what the SS does makes huge ripples in the state tournament.

To Clay

Each Section will determine the divisional placement for its schools who qualify for the state basketball championships and is required to submit the placement of schools into the five divisions to the State CIF Office no later than December 1.

The CIF State is requiring the individual sections to have Div I-V completley decided by Dec 1 of this year. If the CIF State wanted ability based Div they should have standarized the rules and enforced down to the sections. Leaving it up to the individual sections is crazy in my opinion. This section doing this and this section doing that is silly.

I like your idea for the most part except for a few things. Teams at the bottom of a division start possibly sand bagging to drop down a division. Maybe I don't know.

Also having at least some kind of idea who is in what division helps for gearing up in the section and state tournaments. It would be a little like summer ball to some exctent. Show up and play and you never know who your going to get till the wednesday before the tournament.

[CentralSection]

Forgot to mention the Central Section is doing it this way.

Their using a point system taking the past 2 years. Example: Section winner 10points, League winner 5pts and so and and so on. Whoever has the most points in the previous enrollment based divisions they move up a division. Whoever had the least points moves down.

So if you were the top team in your division the last 2 years you will move up to the next division.

[bbhcky4]

Love your thinking Clay. I think though that there are some of the so called top schools who don't want to be in that Div 1 as they are more concerned about wins and getting titles than the competition they play. They are also members on the board of the CIF, Southern Section. Maybe the members need to be looked at so there is a more unbiased approach to as you say the seeding on previous seasons and sandbagging issues.

I love the idea of seeding and deciding at the end of a season and then seeing who applies to enter as then there are no excuses.