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Old Sat Jun 13, 2009, 09:52am
BillyMac BillyMac is offline
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Followup Story ...

CIAC changes boys basketball tourney format
By: Joe Morelli, Journal Register News Service
07/27/2006

The CIAC boys' basketball tournament committee heard the outcry from basketball coaches, athletic directors and principals alike and made some significant changes to the format.

Gone is the power-points system that caused so much controversy to the point that one school, Ridgefield, forfeited from last year's tournament after the Tigers sat out players in the final game to potentially lose a game on purpose. Back in is the class enrollment system (Class LL through S) with a few notable exceptions. First and foremost, private and magnet schools' enrollment will be doubled that of the public schools because of those schools' abilities to draw from numerous towns. "Mike (Savage, the CIAC executive director) has access to all of the state's policies (for boys' basketball)," said Dr. Edward Goldstone, chairperson of the boys' basketball committee. "Apparently, many states do factor that in." So for instance, if a private school has 140 boys, the school will now have 280 points. Another factor is recent success in the state tournament. A school will receive an extra 10 points each time its team reaches the state tournament semifinals on any level. A finalist receives 25 points while a state champion gets 50. So take, for example, Trinity Catholic-Stamford won back-to-back state titles under two different formats in 2003-04 and lost in the final in 2005. That's an additional 125 points for the Crusaders, a Class S school by strict enrollment.

Teams in smaller divisions can once again choose to play in the Class LL state tournament only. Requests must be made in writing to the CIAC by Oct. 1. The other classes will not be re-balanced if schools opt to move up. "The whole idea is to recreate the brackets once the season started and have those brackets be as equitable as possible, given the fact our last attempt at doing that underwent a lot of criticism," Goldstone said. Although the power-points system created an impressive Division I tournament, it allowed larger schools to drop into smaller divisions with subpar seasons. It also allowed schools to potentially manipulate the system, like Ridgefield apparently did when it lost its regular-season finale to Bassick-Bridgeport and dropped from Division I to Division II. When impropriety was discovered, Ridgefield forfeited out of the tournament. "I personally thought (the power-points format) was very good," Goldstone said. "I thought the issue of manipulation became so controversial that (the CIAC) Board of Control felt no matter how well-meaning the format was, it did lead to problems. Having all divisions pre-determined before the season started and having that success factor was crucial in providing an extra level of balance. But the strength of schedule is no longer a factor." This format will be in place for two years. Classes for the 2006-2007 state tournament will be available in September.
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