If you guys did not already know, the Illinois High School Association is going to 4 classes starting the 07-08 School year.

I was down in Bloomington today attending a meeting (yes today) and I briefly asked the head of the IHSA Official's Department how the class system would affect officials working in the playoffs and the amount of officials that would work in the post season? His basic answer to me was there would be absolutely no change in the number of officials. What would happen is you will find officials will work multiple class playoffs at a specific site. Now if people are not aware Classes 1 and 2 will have there own weekend (in place of the Class A Finals) and Classes 3 and 4 will have their own weekend the following week. The teams that will go "downstate" will be 4 teams per class. So there still will be 8 teams, but there will be 4 semifinal games played (two per class of course) and the same number of officials working those games.

I know that in conversations with officials recently most thought there would be more officials used in the post season. That apparently is not the case and post season sites will host 2 classes at the same place.

I just thought I would pass along the information.

Thanks Jeff. What a fun way to spend a Sunday, eh?

I recently talked to another official who told me the same thing. The early rounds would have the same number of games, so the same number of officials as in the past would be needed. The difference would appear to be in the finals, and the schedules. In the past, teams would play the semi-finals on that Sat. morning, and the finals and 3rd place games in the evening. Now, it seems as though teams would play the semi-finals on Fri. night, with the finals and 3rd place games on Sat. This seems to make sense, imo.

Thanks Rut. I know there were a lot of people wanting the answer to that exact question, including myself.

The answer is consistent with the information in the powerpoint presentation used to explain the potential change to the schools for voting.

Just for reference, Oregon is going from four classes to six next year, and they are stating that there will definitely be more teams in the play-offs, and more refs needed, than in previous years. Each class will have its own play-off rounds, and tournament, so the number of games will go up 50%.

Nevermind what it does for refs, I think this will be a great thing for the players. Lots more kids get the post-season experience, and lots of schools that would never have been able to get into the play-offs, now will. This is definitely an improvement.

Juulie,

<b>Every school</b> in our state plays in the post season. All the classes are going to do is change who they will play in order to win a state title. Teams in our state are just seeded. So a team that has not won a single game all year will play at least one game in the playoffs. That is why it is called "America's Original March Madness."

The only sport that you have to qualify for the playoffs is in football. All other state run sports everyone has a chance to win a state title.

Peace

[Edited by JRutledge on Jan 16th, 2006 at 12:34 AM]

Same in WI. Lots and lots of huge blowouts in the first round when a team that's 0-20, 1-19, 2-18, etc. plays a top team.

Which, while it does let everyone in the dance, seem sort of pointless. I can't imagine it would be rewarding for either team. One gets crushed and the other risks injury and both have to pay for the trip. It does, on the other side, eliminate the discussions of who is in and who is left out.

What it does do is every game that is played has a purpose. Schools go out and play some of the toughest competition in very tough tournaments because they know they will have a chance to play in the playoffs. The schools are seeded by Sectional complexes and everyone plays first in a Regional Tournament to get to the Sectional level.

I liken our system to the NCAA Post season. Everyone has a chance to move on in the tournament by winning their conference tournament. When you win your conference tournament, then you have the opportunity to play in the NCAA Tournament. If you get hot at the right time you might go far in the playoffs if you did not have a very good regular season. Now you might not win, but you have the chance is what makes it exciting.

Peace

You make some good points but how does the scheduling of tougher teams square with league schedules. Most teams have about 80-85%% of thier schedule made up of league games. There is not a lot of room to schedule freely. If you make the playoffs based on league standing, who you play in non-league play has no effect. It is still advantageous (and perhaps more so) to schedule the toughest non-league schedule you can in order to see how your team does against tough opponents.

I don't know if anyone's from CA, but CA has had five classes (Division 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5) for years.

The state of CA is broken into 9 sections: Los Angeles, San Diego, Southern, San Joaquin, Northern, North Coast, Central Coast, Oakland , and San Francisco sections.

In the majority of the sections, the individual schools vie to win their respective LEAGUE titles before moving on to the SECTION playoffs in their respective divisional placements.

Other teams (sometime .500 or sub .500 teams) can also petition and be selected for SECTION playoffs as well. The section champion and runner-ups get berths to the state playoffs.

The only exceptions are the Oakland and SF sections. The Oakland section consists of the 6 Oakland public school teams that make up the Oakland Athletic League. The SF Section consists of the 11 public schools that make up the SF Academic Atheletic Association. These teams play their league games, win the league championship and automatically get a berth to the State playoffs (since the league championship is also a section championship).

This has been a point of contention recently since the SF teams get a easy road to the state playoffs. SF teams have been competitive recently. Oakland teams usually are pretty good so not many people complain about this. Despite this, there was talk a few years ago to merge SF/Oak into the North Coast or Central Coast sections.

Both SF/Oak are in interesting situations as they both have surrounding schools that play in other sections. SF Catholic schools play in the West Catholic Athletic League that plays in the Central Coast Section. There are other smaller private schools in SF that play in the Bay Counties League that are part of the North Coast Section. Oakland has St. Joesph (Jason Kidd's alma mater) and Bishop O'Dowd (two Catholic powerhouses) that play in a different league.

So, CA doesn't exactly allow "everyone" to get to the state. But there is a rather big post season in place regardless.