MIAA to mull options other than MaxPreps to seed tourneys

MaxPreps is the current means by which the MIAA plans to seed their tournaments in the future.

But that doesn’t mean the MIAA isn’t going to listen to other options.

Much of Wednesday’s Tournament Management Committee focused on the possibility of using another formula to seed teams. When asked by committee member Johanna DiCarlo of Westboro why the MIAA was potentially looking in another direction, MIAA associate director Sherry Bryant explained the rationale for listening to different proposals.

“We were going to use MaxPreps this fall to see what concerns or questions people had before going to the statewide tournament (next year),” Bryant said. “We didn’t have that opportunity (due to the pandemic), so we are using this time to address concerns from our constituents.

“We heard a lot about score differential. Some didn’t want it (as part of the power ratings) and others wanted it in there. MaxPreps is a little more rigid in what they could adjust for us, but we could work around it. We found other options that can provide us with the flexibility that would answer concerns.”

One of the issues with MaxPreps is since they are proprietary, they kept their rankings formula private, something which bothered several athletic directors. With score differential being part of the equation, it could potentially be an open market for running the scores up.

TMC chairman Jim O’Leary understood the concerns which is why he was very intrigued with a new proposal put together by a group that included major input from former Boston Herald High School Sports Editor Jim Clark.

“We don’t know what the point differentials are for MaxPreps because they won’t tell us,” O’Leary said. “With this proposal, we have the option of capping (the number) to see what works best. With baseball for instance, we could set a cap at 10 runs or seven runs, depending on what works best.

“The key things we were looking for was transparency, simplicity and accuracy. This proposal answers a lot of those questions and it works for all of the platforms.” Earlier in the meeting, the rugby and outdoor track committees received news they wanted to hear from the TMC in regards to future alignments.

Looking to keep the present rugby alignment in order, MIAA assistant executive director Phil Napolitano successfully argued if rugby were to go under the TMC mandates, as many as 10 of the 18 schools offering rugby would be moving up or down a division.

“On behalf of the MIAA Rugby Committee, we are grateful for TMC’s understanding that while we continue to grow the sport of rugby, it is important to have flexibility within the alignment structure,” Napolitano said.

The outdoor track committee won its appeal to go from five to six divisions. Under the new alignments, the breakdown by division is as follows: Div. 1 (840), Div. 2 (848), Div. 3 (881), Div. 4 (858), Div. 5 (873) and Div. 6 (793).

“We just thought that six divisions for outdoor track makes a lot of sense,” said Brookline athletic director Pete Rittenburg, who presented the case for the outdoor track committee. “We just didn’t want to see fewer kids qualify if we had five divisions and if you look at the number, football is the only sport with more participation and they have eight divisions and it is the biggest sport for the girls.

“The subcommittee did a lot of work over the summer, we had multiple meetings to go over this. At the end, the more we looked at it, the more it just made sense to have six divisions.”