Mustangs set to move into new conference home for 22-23 season

In 1964, Bob Dylan sang about the times, 'They are Achangin.'

Fast forward 58 years and it appears that the upcoming prep basketball season will be A-changin as well with a much different look and a much different feel for Forrest City and Wynne, the Mustangs' closest neighbor and rival to the north.

Beginning with the 2022-23 cycle and beyond into the 202324 cycle, several schools will be seeing changes, including Forrest City and Wynne.

Both schools will continue to compete as Class 4A programs as they have since the 2018-19 season, when both dropped from Class 5A into the 4A ranks and into the 4A-5 conference.

According to most recent changes made by the Arkansas Activities Association, Forrest City and Wynne will be on the move once again, switching from the 4A-5 conference to the 4A-3 conference for the next two prep cycle seasons.

Both schools have played from the 4A-5 conference in all sports except football for the past four seasons, dropping down from Class 5A to Class 4A to begin the 2018-19 season and have remained in Class 4A since.

Forrest City and Wynne will leave the 4A-5 conference and settle into the 4A-3 conference for all sports except football, joining Blytheville, Brookland, Pocahontas, Batesville Southside, Highland, Trumann and Westside to form a nineteam conference with each team playing 18 conference games, rather than 14.

Valley View moves out of the 4A-3 up and into Class 5A.

There is yet another twist involving the 4A-3 conference.

During the basketball season, junior and senior high boys games will be played on Monday and Thursday nights as doubleheaders, while junior and senior high girls games will be played as doubleheaders on Tuesday and Friday nights.

Each team in the conference will have a bye in the uneven nine team conference, one during the first half of the conference schedule and one for the second half.

Conference basketball games will begin Dec. 5, and continue through Feb. 10, with several dates being flipped moving the girls teams to Monday and Thursday and boys games to Tuesday and Friday with one Saturday round of games scheduled for Jan. 14, reverting back to a girls/boys format.

According to Brookland basketball coach and athletic director Bobby Gross, AAA has restructured conferences based on a new rule regarding the private schools versus the public schools.

"Based on that, in a specific sport they can move teams up or down," Gross said. "Basically, in our instance, AAA has given us a nine-team conference, and that is a first for me as a coach.

We were given the chance to decide what format to use to play the games. With that came several scheduling challenges, including cutting into our nonconference schedules. We've had a couple of meetings with all of the conference coaches and AD's and I think we have smoothed it out to a point where each school can schedule some nonconference games and then play our double round-robin district tournament as well."

When asked about the conference schedule having junior and senior teams playing the same nights, Gross said most of the smaller schools do not have enough coaches on staff to coach junior high games on nights other than when senior teams are playing.

"Some only have two or three coaches who are coaching seventh grade, junior high and senior high," Gross added. "That would put the coaches out four nights a week rather than just two nights a week, based on the schedule we have established. "You know, Forrest City and Wynne, two of the bigger schools have always been able to have split coaching staffs, a junior high staff and a senior high staff. And as it stands right now, not all of the schools in our conference have enough coaches to have split staffs. And reworking the conference let us schedule a boys night and a girls night."

According to Gross, the first half of the conference schedule will have the boys playing

Monday and Thursday and the girls playing Tuesday and Friday. The second half of the conference schedule, everything flips. The boys will play Tuesday and Friday and the girls will play Monday and Thursday.

"There will be some game nights that will have three games, a seventh grade, junior high and senior high," Gross added.

Asked if taking the senior high girls games away from playing the same night as the senior boys might have an impact as to the crowds, Gross gave a quick reply.

"Oh yeah, we have had long discussions regarding that" Gross said. "It still comes down to if you have a senior high night and you only two or three coaches, the same two or three also have to go to the junior high nights. That was one of the things we had to work out. I think that everyone would love to play senior girls/senior boys on one night and junior girls/junior boys on one night, if you had enough coaches."

Brookland, along with several of the other conference schools do not enough coaches on staff to do that.

"That's why we (Brookland) went to this format," Gross added. "This format is not something that is breaking new ground for scheduling. Smaller classifications, 2A and 3A have always used this format in the past."

The format also allows the conference to give each team two bye nights, one in the firstround and one in the second round.

Gross said that the postseason district tournament will still be used to decide the state tournament berths and that district will pair the 4A-3 conference teams against the 4A-5 conference teams, just as it did this past season.

As to which teams will take over the 4A-5 slots vacated by Forrest City and Wynne, Gross said he has no idea.

"I've not seen anything about who goes in," Gross said. "All I got was the information about Forrest City and Wynne coming into our conference."

Both Forrest City and Wynne will remain in Class 5A and the in 5A-East conference for football only.