Jousting at Windmills
July 19, 2012
Charles Barkley uttered famously last month that the worst thing that ever happened to basketball was the AAU.
While it doesn’t all occur under the Amateur Athletic Union’s banner, Mr. Barkley is not the first “authority” to offer such a brash opinion and to blame the AAU for much of what is bad about the current state of non-school basketball, where street agents and shoe companies corrupt children and their coaches, and where basketball is played with little emphasis on fundamental skills and team play.
Certainly, there are others to blame, including all who have made college and professional basketball a business lucrative enough to encourage excesses and unethical practices. And all of this is bigger than any one state high school athletic association can change.
Nevertheless, the MHSAA is in its fourth year of quixotic jousting with the monster about which so many have been complaining so long.
Tomorrow for boys, and then eight days later for girls (July 26), the MHSAA is teaming up again with the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan (BCAM) to provide Reaching Higher, “an advance placement course” for students who have both the interest and potential to participate in college basketball on some level.
Through Reaching Higher we intend for players and parents to gain greater appreciation for the rules and realities of the college recruitment process and for what it takes both academically and athletically to qualify for and succeed in intercollegiate basketball.
Click here to view the details.
Seeding Discontent
January 3, 2017
We have heard for years that the Michigan High School Athletic Association Football Playoffs have created scheduling problems for schools and have caused the demise of leagues, no matter how many times the playoffs expanded – from 16 schools in 1975 to 256 schools today (plus 16 more in the 8-player tournament). Many other states with a variety of other football playoff formats report similar stresses on their member schools.
The inability of weaker teams to compete within a league and the difficulty that stronger teams face to find willing opponents to complete a nine-game regular season schedule are not uncommon for varsity football in Michigan, but are problems rarely experienced in basketball.
That could change if seeding based on wins and strength of schedule comes to MHSAA Basketball Tournaments.
With an easier road to District and Regional titles gifted to higher seeded teams, coaches will want a regular season schedule that is difficult but not too difficult. They will seek a league that is tough, but not too tough. This is the recipe for scheduling headaches. Strong schools will have difficulty finding a full schedule of games, while weaker or simply smaller schools will have difficulty finding a league.
Fearing blemishes on the regular season win/loss records, coaches will delay playing substitutes and avoid sitting out or suspending good players who are bad actors. Every eligibility snafu leading to forfeit will carry tournament seeding consequences. The temptation to hide ineligibilities and the inclination to fight forfeits, not infrequent in football, will come to basketball.
Developing a seeding plan is not at all difficult, but living with one could be.