CIAC approves 5-division proposal for boys hoops

By Joe Morelli

The CIAC Board of Control voted Thursday to approve the new boys basketball proposal that will feature five divisions for this upcoming season. It is a one-year trial format.

Division I has 21 teams currently, including last year’s Class LL and L state champions (Hillhouse and Sacred Heart) and the runners-up (East Hartford and Notre Dame-Fairfield) and the Class S winner (Trinity Catholic). The Class M winner, Brookfield, is in Division III.

“I think the committee did as good a job as they could with what was in front of them. There are so many variables,” Sacred Heart coach Jon Carroll said. “Is it assured to have a super competitive tournament? We won’t know that answer until we see the results.”

As CAS-CIAC Executive Director Karissa Niehoff indicated in a statement, this proposal was made “to address the concerns we’ve heard from our membership about inequity challenges specific to the boys basketball tournament.” To be more specific, traditional successful programs that can draw from outside its borders, playing in the smaller divisions. This new format gives the smaller public schools a greater opportunity to compete for a state championship.

“I’m grateful that they finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel and made this change,” said Westbrook coach Jeff Beeman, who led the Knights to their first Class S state final last March. “Do I wish this decision was made a year or three years sooner? You never know, but we had a fighting chance to win (Class S) two of the last three years if catholic schools were not included in our division.”

Westbrook is now in Division V. Mike Walsh, the longtime coach at Trinity Catholic, stepped off a plane in Florida Thursday to 10 voicemail messages about the proposal passing.

“We should have been in M or L last year. Five divisions, I don’t understand that,” Walsh said. “It’s an honor to be selected as one of the top 20 teams in the state of Connecticut.”

Notre Dame-West Haven is also in Division I and its coach, Jason Shea, feels Division I will be quite the stacked field.

“I think essentially, it’s a catholic school division with a few bigger and more successful public schools sprinkled in,” Shea said. “No doubt it will be a great tournament. It really looks like a who’s who of top teams. I’m not exactly sure what the criteria was, but I do think the quality of Division II got hurt a little bit.”

Every team in Division I will qualify for the state tournament, regardless of record. There are at least 39 teams in each of the other four divisions. Teams must win at least 40 percent of its games to qualify for the postseason. The committee has done away with “filling the brackets” for teams