An unfair process
Mike Green coaches the boys basketball team at Antietam, the smallest school in the BCIAA.
He has guided the Mounts to a 19-3 record, the Division IV championship and
the No. 1 spot in the District 3 Class 2A power ratings.
They’re enjoying their best season in at least 15 years. They also have the fourth-highest power rating in the Berks Conference playoff field.
So then why do Green and a lot of other Antietam folks feel dissed?
Because the other coaches who have teams in the county playoffs voted Thursday night to drop the Mounts three spots in the seedings.
The BCIAA calls it a “challenge meeting.” No matter what it’s called, it gives the eight playoff coaches control over how the teams are seeded in the county playoffs. And that’s just not right. Imagine Jay Wright, Shaka Smart, Ed Cooley, Patrick Ewing and other Big East coaches being allowed to determine the seedings in their conference tournament.
“I thought it was ridiculous before Thursday night,” Green said Friday about the seeding meeting. “I had no intention of changing anyone’s seeding. Why do we use the power ratings if we’re going to change seedings anyway? That to me is ridiculous. It makes no sense.”
The BCIAA began scheduling challenge meetings in the 2020-21 school year for the sports that have four divisions. It also changed how playoff teams were seeded. The BCIAA theoretically switched to seeding all eight playoff teams by the District 3 power ratings
Under the old three-division format, the top three seeds went to the three division champions. Three Berks I teams then would often wind up on the same side of the bracket, one at the No. 1 seed and two squaring off in the quarterfinals as the fourth and fifth seeds.
The change made sense, until the challenge meeting was added to the equation.
“There really wasn’t much opposition to it,” said Kerry Ciatto, the BCIAA executive director. “I think they (the BCIAA athletic directors) got tired of the division champions getting a mandatory seed. I think they got tired of the predetermined seeds.”
The challenge meeting creates potential issues.
Who’s to say two, three or four coaches couldn’t agree to form a voting bloc in order to gain seedings or brackets in their teams’ favor?
It adds biases to the process. It adds subjectivity.
“It’s subjective,” Ciatto said, “but coaches have enough film through Hudl they can see what other teams are like. … You can look at so many different variables. What seeding process or selection process is perfect?”
None. The District 3 power ratings have flaws, but at least they’re objective. Strictly using the power ratings to seed teams eliminates personal feelings, grudges and interpretations. It is unbiased. “The power ratings are now irrelevant,” Green said.
Reading High and Berks Catholic had the two highest power ratings and were not challenged Thursday night, according to Green.
No. 5 Muhlenberg then challenged No. 3 Wilson, even though the Muhls lost to the Bulldogs in their only meeting. Muhlenberg, of course, wanted to do everything it could to avoid a semifinal meeting with Reading.
That challenge failed.
“We wouldn’t even have had the meeting if Muhlenberg didn’t want to challenge Wilson,” Green said. “That’s when it all started and all hell broke loose.”
No. 4 Antietam was then challenged by Muhlenberg, No. 6 Exeter and No. 7 Fleetwood. Each challenge was accepted, which infuriated Green.
“At one point I was going to concede everything,” he said. “I said, ‘Just give us the eighth seed.’ That’s the way it was going.”
When No. 8 Wyomissing challenged Antietam, which had fallen to seventh, Green fought back. The challenge vote ended in a 3-3 tie, keeping the Mounts there. That didn’t make him feel any better, though.
“I don’t think the challenge meeting is valid,” he said. “I don’t think they should have it. It’s a way for them to make the matchups they want.”
Green wasn’t sure what he was going to tell the Antietam players at practice Friday.
The Mounts have twice beaten Oley Valley (13-8), which is going to the District 3 Class 4A playoffs, and Tulpehocken (16-5), which is third in the Class 3A power ratings. They beat Kutztown (12-9), which is fourth in Class 3A.
They beat Delone Catholic (16-6), which is second in 2A. They beat Shenandoah Valley (18-3), No. 1 in the District 11 Class 2A ratings. They went 8-0 against their division rivals.
Are they as talented as Reading High, Berks Catholic, Wilson and Muhlenberg? No.
But they earned their power rating; they didn’t rig it. They should have stayed at No. 4 regardless of how they fare against Berks Catholic in the quarterfinals Monday.
“What lessons are we teaching kids?” Green said. “Our kids worked hard all year to achieve something and then someone doesn’t like what they got so they get to change the narrative.”
It’s an unfair process that needs to be changed.