Chino Hills HS
 

Just read an on-line article that Chino Hills HS--where LaMelo Ball played until his father pulled him out--will be playing in the state championship game. I guess Ball's departure didn't hurt them after all.

"It's gotta be the shoes," I think.

Yes, but instead of playing in the Open division, they went through D1 this season.

Here in PA, classifications are based, I think, on school size, so schools don't and can't determine where they compete.

I'm not familiar with CA classifications. Does this mean that CH was in a "higher" category when Ball was there, and that the school "dropped down" after he left?

In any event, a state tournament at any level is probably highly competitive, and if CH wins, a championship is a championship.

Kinda. CA divisions start with school size, but then there is a formula that moves schools based upon recent performance in the regular season and playoffs.

The Open Division is for the best schools that year regardless of school size. So you could have a 4000+ student population public school competing against a 100 student population private school. Open Division brackets are not single elimination and all teams are guaranteed a spot in the State Playoffs.

Here's the press release for Chino Hills' area, the Southern Section. If you're super curious, here's how the divisions are broken down now.

Sort of and soft of.

In PA, for the sports with 6 classifications: football, b/g basketball, baseball, softball, all schools are listed with separate populations of boys and girls, then divided into 6 equal groups. Due to this protocol, it is possible for a school to be one classification for boys basketball and another for girls if there is a vast difference in gender population at the school. However, I don't think that is the case with the current classifications (theoretically possible, practically impossible).

Any school can petition PIAA to move up a class for competitive purposes. A quick look has a basketball team going from 1A to 6A (Catholic school) and baseball team moving two divisions from 4A to 6A(this is a public school). Many minor sports, such as wrestling (with only two divisions) and field hockey (three divisions) do this regularly.

And how about the Basketball finals being moved due to weather?

In our neck of the woods classifications are based on school size but you can asked to play in a classification higher than your school size. I have heard of rare cases where some schools say that they have a large population of special needs or another group that does not participate in athletics and therefore would like to be classified down or based on the athletic eligible population but these cases would be few and far between.

Actually, in PA, the classification is determined per gender population of each school. A school can play up in classification but cannot play down. There are 6 classes in PA.

There is a Ball on the team, I think he is a cousin but I'm not sure. I'm glad to see they are doing well without that loudmouth around. They had such a fun team when that guy on the Lakers was a senior.
CA still has some quirks to work out with the divisions but I like it. By quirks I mean there was a lot of head scratching why some teams were moved up two divisions for example when their record didn't indicate it. In previous years, a problem was some smaller private schools in division 5 who were getting to the state championship or making it through pretty far but they weren't that good as they wouldn't finish first or second in their regular league for example. Or maybe they were good but you never knew at what level because they didn't play the top teams. Now they get bumped up to say division 3. It means the best teams are in the open division but also the lower division teams can play up as well which is good. Prior to teams moving up, one of the best teams I saw was a Div IV one that ended up winning their state IV title, but I thought they could have taken on the top teams. Now a team like that would be in the open division and it gives a clearer picture who the best team really is.