Flip wrote:Bison-Vikes #1 wrote:Flip wrote:There are a lot of people that think a 3-class system will never happen. They may be right, but one thing I'm quite sure of is we will not go to a hybrid system.
Fair enough. Explanation why? It seems to address every single complaint.
It is just too out of the box if that makes any sense. I think we would be the first state to have any type of hybrid state tournament. ND isn't that much of a trendsetter.
Believe Delaware, Hawaii and ND are only 3 states left with 2 classes. Delaware only plays 1 tournament at the end of the year. Kentucky is 1 class. Believe Kentucky has a midseason state championship for smaller schools then 1 overall state championship at the end of the year.
From 2019 numbers, the average number of classes for boy's basketball in US high schools was 5. Using the population of each state divided by the number of classes, ND was the 13th lowest in population per class. ND is the 4th lowest in total population followed by Alaska, Vermont and Wyoming who all have 4 classes. Of course, ND would still be higher than those 3 in population/class if they went to 3 classes. (*Note - since high school enrollments are very hard to find, assuming student:population ratio remains about the same for this discussion)
Addressing ND not being a trendsetter, if you study high school basketball class systems across the US, it is amazing what you will find. There are approximately 25 states that use some type of multiplier, success ratio or other means to determine classes or to classify between private/parochial and public schools. There are many different formats for state tournaments as well. For instance, New Jersey has multiple state champions and bring them all together for Tournament of Champions. I don't think ND would be setting any trends by going with the above proposed system.
There are problems in our current 2 class system. My biggest issue in class b basketball is the lack of parity in each region (generally top 2 teams vs. the field), participation numbers dwindling and the fact the class b state tournament has become predictable. If there is a system that would remedy those problems and most likely make for a better end of the year product (tournaments), why wouldn't it make sense to give it a shot?