The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
CIAC basketball formula needs more emphasis on present
Westhill finished 0-20 in a Division I designed six years ago to highlight the best boys basketball teams in the CIAC. Automatic postseason berths were assured this season in the 16-team group and top-seeded East Catholic pummeled Westhill, 87-47, Wednesday night.
This is embarrassing, of course, as embarrassing as the fact that 17 of those 20 losses were against Division II and lower teams.
Westhill lost by 27 points to Bridgeport Central, a six-win team that missed the Division IV playoffs. Westhill had no business playing in Division I this season. Neither did Bristol Central. Westhill lost 12 seniors from last year’s 16-8 team and had a new coach. Save three subs, Bristol Central lost everyone from its undefeated Division II champions that featured 7-foot-2 Donovan Clingan, the state’s overwhelming dominant force.
Common sense dictated Bristol Central should have been in Division I last year and Division II this year. Common sense isn’t necessarily in charge. Bristol Central, 6-14 in the regular season, was beaten, 79-40, by No. 2 seed Northwest Catholic. West Haven, which otherwise wouldn’t have qualified for the tournament either at 7-13, fell to No. 3 seed Notre Dame-West Haven, 95-61.
Division I coaches Andrew McClellan of Ridgefield and John Pfohl of Kolbe Cathedral are among those who have pushed for a 32-team playoff in Division I. The Westhill debacle has strengthened support, which in turn would affect the five-division structure.
With the 35-second clock being introduced next season, it seems like the perfect time for the CIAC to address the entire framework of boys basketball with an open mind, to make improvements and promote a new model by November.
If the CIAC acts promptly to add a solid number of qualified, broad-minded people from around the state to the existing basketball committee, there is ample time to explore all ideas and still clear the CIAC’s multi-layered approval process.
The major points that must be addressed:
• The CIAC currently puts all its weight on the three-year history of
teams. It ignores the present. This must change.
• Catholic school placement. Like Thanksgiving football, it is the quandary that never ends.
• Five divisions. Too many.
• Should there be a 32-team Division I bracket? How will it be composed?
When the CIAC last underwent major changes in 2017, boys basketball went from four alphabetical classes (LL, L, M, S) to five numerical divisions. The major reason, as former CIAC Executive Director Karissa Niehoff said, was “to address the concerns we’ve heard from our membership about inequity challenges specific to the tournament.”
In other words, a framework to stop Catholic schools from winning lower divisions where they had no competitive business playing. And get them in the top divisions where they belong.
Sacred Heart, featuring Mustapha Heron, won 2016 Class M with the best team in any division over the last decade. Outrageous. Trinity Catholic defeated Westbrook, a once-in-a-generation small town public-school team, for the 2017 Class S title. Sad.
It should be made clear the format produced in 2017 was an improvement. The smaller public schools, except for a multiplier of two in a hybrid ECC when it should be a one, got help. The problems remain primarily at the top.
The current formula for ranking schools: Power points over three regular seasons (the sum of wins by opponents a team beats x 10), times a league multiplier based on its strength (ranging from x 1 to x 3) added to adjusted
enrollment figures (boys enrollment x .66).
Let’s take Ridgefield: 1314 adjusted power points (438 power points over three years x 3 for strength of FCIAC) plus adjusted enrollment of 518.8 (788 boys x .66) equals 1832.8 total points. No. 4 in the CIAC.
Now let’s examine East Catholic: There’s the aforementioned formula that adds up to 1464.2 points. With schools of choice, there also is a tournament success component (100 for quarterfinals, 150 semis, 200 finals, 300 state champions). With two tournaments wiped out by COVID, only last year was factored. By running the table to win Division I, East Catholic got 750 success points which gave it 2214 total points. That’s first in the CIAC, despite being 147th in enrollment.
Among the 181 teams, 61 are schools of choice. It’s not only 12 Catholic schools. It’s charter, inter-district magnet, vo-tech, voag and project choice (there must be at least 25 from outside the district for vo-ag and project
choice).
Yet as evidenced by the latest GameTimeCT Top Ten poll, where six of the top eight teams are Catholic schools, including the top three, it’s easy to see where top basketball players are choosing.
Only five schools among the top 16 in boys enrollment are currently in Division I. New Britain (2nd), Greenwich (3rd) and Stamford (5th) are among those in Division II.
Now, consider this: Bridgeport Central (19th in boys enrollment), New Milford (31st) and Harding (34th) are in Division IV. Norwalk (17th), Hall (25th), Darien (28th) and Wilby (32) are in Division III.
Clearly some city kids are whisked away by Catholic, small in enrollment, big in hoops, or non-CIAC prep schools. In some cases, schools that excel in other sports need to take their licks in basketball.
Would the CIAC ever stomach a 12-team Catholic postseason tournament? I just don’t see it happening.
So this leaves the more difficult task. A 32-team Division I bracket is an attractive idea. Sell it, McClellan says, with four regional winners and a Final Four leading into Mohegan. Pfohl wants all the games on neutral sites.
An elite-level tournament could help sell itself. Winner is king. No doubts. The CIAC also loves its $10 gate in the state tournament to finance itself, so anything pointing to fewer games also means resistance. The CIAC leadership is constantly stressing “educationbased, participation-based” athletics. It is unclear how a super tournament may fit into its mantra. It may simply laugh at it.
What no one should snicker at is a need for the basketball committee to focus in more on the present. One or two players can make all the difference in basketball. So educated eyes on who graduated, who remains and who is arriving in the coming season is so much more important than what happened three years ago.
This would help immeasurably for preseason rankings.
Measuring injuries and a more nuanced power points mechanism for strength of schedule would so much better set seedings at the end of the regular season.
That’s a huge question to be answered. Do you make present-day judgements preseason. Or wait until say three quarters of the season is over to start talking and finish off seedings at the end of the season? Or both?
Max Preps uses a formula based on strength of schedule and scores. Among the top 25 as of Thursday, 11 were in D-1, 9 in D-2, 4 in D-3 and 1 in D-4.
Granted, it’s a snapshot, but it does show there is quality room to build a bigger Division I. St. Bernard’s, 174th of 181 in enrollment,
is in Division II this year. A fairer, more-up-to-date analysis would have had it in Division I.
McClellan would like two tournaments. Part of his reasoning is strong teams would rather not play in a high school NIT. That’s not going to happen. The CIAC membership would never go for a 150-team Division II. It wouldn’t go for three divisions. The focus should be on four.
Only 21 of 39 teams won 40 percent of its games (the minimum for Divisions II to V) to qualify for the Division III tournament. That meant 11 byes for a 32-team bracket. A joke. It also is indicative there is sensible room to return to four divisions. Only 24 of 47 in Division IV qualified.
Look, as it is constructed now, it’s impossible to get the best 16 teams in the tournament. Last year, Bristol Central and Northwest Catholic chose not to opt up to Division I. They ended up in the D II finals, 1 and 2 in the state polls, playing the most important game of the season that left Central the unquestioned No. 1.
When Wilton, Hillhouse and Notre Dame-Fairfield opted up to Division I. Warde (ranked 16th), New Britain (14th) and Windsor (12th) were dropped to Division II because the CIAC wanted only 16 teams this year. Because Wilbur Cross (15th) and Westhill (13th) are schools of choice they had to remain in D-1.
Maybe you didn’t know Westhill is home to the regional agriscience & technology center.
With its strong returning team, Warde should be in Division I. One could make an argument Windsor always deserves to be in Division I.
Instead we had Westhill and Bristol Central headed nowhere but south.