Bisonguy06 wrote:I have followed this conversation for a long time, many years, and it has shifted. Supporters of three classes used to want the middle class to be quite small, and made up of the very largest B schools plus the private schools.
Now it seems like people want a big group to move to the middle division, leaving a small number of small schools to play for their own title. I’m just wondering, what has changed?
As you stated, we have been discussing this for quite some time. Numerous ideas have been bounced around over the years and the 20-32-the rest, with 4 regional tourneys in A & B divisions, each sending 4 teams to 8 team state tourney was the latest put out there on this thread. The thought process has been addressing various arguments over the years against the 3 class proposals. Travel was brought up as an argument, but as stated by ndlionsfan & flip earlier, the scheduling would stay exactly the same, or even easier as a few new schools would be added in some regions which would open cross division play and less travel for some schools. Serious question, would you consider this to be a big middle division and small lower division?
Also, another argument brought up is "If you change the boys, you have to change girl's bb and volleyball." Addressing this, would like to point out that some regions already have different district and regional play for boys and girls. Region 4 has a super regional for girl's volleyball and district play for boy's and girl's basketball. It seems to me that the NDHSAA doesn't care what each region does for their district/region tournaments as long as they have 8 teams represented at state. So why is this an argument? Have asked earlier and perhaps you can answer why the same changes have to be made across the board? Is it a financial or logistical reason? Thanks.
BISONFAN18 wrote:I am not sure I can say I have ever argued for what the size of a particular class should be. The mistake I made in the past was focussing on measuring the health of the class b division based on the state tournament. Huge mistake. After being exposed to other levels of play in other states, I see how playing against teams on the same level is very good for the game in general. I think I have seen a good (not great) SD A team (17-3; ave win +14 ppg) who would beat St. John (currently ranked #1; last undefeated B team to receive a loss; ave win +27 ppg) 8/10 games. I mention the point differential because that is how competitive the level of play is. The middle division in SD is just much more competitive. The SD team I mentioned is Winner. They are also a smaller school than St John. I would even go as far to say that if a team like St John was in Winner's region of 7 teams, St John would be a #4 seed in the region tournament.
Very interesting post. Thanks for the insight.