This Everyone making the Playoffs has to Stop

[jtowne-swim]

That Roosevelt team had all their wins stripped away due to an ineligible player. It wasn't like they stunk.


BTW, A Tournament of Championships would be a GREAT idea....but as long as the sport of LAX reigns supreme in Maryland, you'll never see it. Also, you'd have to get the BCL teams to stop going to Frostburg for the Alhambra Tournament...and I seriously doubt that will happen.

I do not recall that being the case; but even still under the suggestion they do not make the playoffs!

[eaglesinsider]

A Tournament of Championships would be a GREAT idea....but as long as the sport of LAX reigns supreme in Maryland, you'll never see it. Also, you'd have to get the BCL teams to stop going to Frostburg for the Alhambra Tournament...and I seriously doubt that will happen.

I think there's enough places (Baltimore City, Frederick County on West, privates like AACS, MSJ, etc...) that either don't have or don't care about lacrosse that you could overcome that hurdle.

Maybe Alhambra could become a season opening tourney. I don't know if they'd agree to it, but it's just a thought.

Cutting 2 rounds from the public school playoffs allows you to move the championship up a week, so the 1A-4A state championships would be this weekend. The IAAM and MIAA would want to push their tourneys back to this weekend as well, to avoid a week long layoff.

You could then start the Tournament of Champions as early as the next Tuesday with the quarterfinals, with the semis on Thursday, and the finals on Saturday (Wed/Fri/Sun would work better, but the publics still can't play on Sundays as far as I know). The whole bball season would still be over the 2nd weekend in March, before the publics even start lacrosse scrimmages.

[eaglesinsider]

I do not recall that being the case; but even still under the suggestion they do not make the playoffs!

If you won 0 games legally, then you don't deserve a playoff spot, plain and simple.

[jtowne-swim]

I think there's enough places (Baltimore City, Frederick County on West, privates like AACS, MSJ, etc...) that either don't have or don't care about lacrosse that you could overcome that hurdle.

Maybe Alhambra could become a season opening tourney. I don't know if they'd agree to it, but it's just a thought.

Cutting 2 rounds from the public school playoffs allows you to move the championship up a week, so the 1A-4A state championships would be this weekend. The IAAM and MIAA would want to push their tourneys back to this weekend as well, to avoid a week long layoff.

You could then start the Tournament of Champions as early as the next Tuesday with the quarterfinals, with the semis on Thursday, and the finals on Saturday (Wed/Fri/Sun would work better, but the publics still can't play on Sundays as far as I know). The whole bball season would still be over the 2nd weekend in March, before the publics even start lacrosse scrimmages.

It is not as easy as moving up the finals. The MPSSAA tries to spread out the state finals for each sport on different weekends. For example in the winter you have the wrestling dual meet finals followed by indoor track finals. After that is the swimming finals then the wrestling tournament then girls and men's basketball. So simply moving up the finals for one sport is actually a complex issue. The only sport which can move up it's finals with no problem is football.

[eaglesinsider]

It is not as easy as moving up the finals. The MPSSAA tries to spread out the state finals for each sport on different weekends. For example in the winter you have the wrestling dual meet finals followed by indoor track finals. After that is the swimming finals then the wrestling tournament then girls and men's basketball. So simply moving up the finals for one sport is actually a complex issue. The only sport which can move up it's finals with no problem is football.

Less then 1/3 (54) of public schools participate in swimming. I don't think anyone would have a problem moving the swim finals up 2 weekends in front of the wrestling duals. Move wrestling and bball up a week each. This is what my modified schedule would look like:

2/4/12 MPSSAA Swimming Championships
2/11/12 MPSSAA Wrestling Dual Meet
2/18/12 MPSSAA Indoor Track Finals
2/25/12 MPSSAA Wrestling Tourney, BCL Tourney
3/2-3/12 Class 1A-4A State Finals, MIAA/IAAM A/B/C Finals, WCAC Finals
3/10/12 Tournament of Champions Final

[jtowne-swim]

Less then 1/3 (54) of public schools participate in swimming. I don't think anyone would have a problem moving the swim finals up 2 weekends in front of the wrestling duals. Move wrestling and bball up a week each. This is what my modified schedule would look like:

2/4/12 MPSSAA Swimming Championships
2/11/12 MPSSAA Wrestling Dual Meet
2/18/12 MPSSAA Indoor Track Finals
2/25/12 MPSSAA Wrestling Tourney, BCL Tourney
3/2-3/12 Class 1A-4A State Finals, MIAA/IAAM A/B/C Finals, WCAC Finals
3/10/12 Tournament of Champions Final

???????try 108 (56%) you have to have 40% to even have a state final. Additionally you can not move up state swimming finals that early for a multitude of reasons. One is that many counties only haave meets on saturdays because of pool limits so once you throw in regionals you do not have enough weekends in the month to get to the minimum number of meets and that says nothing of snow!

[eaglesinsider]

???????try 108 (56%) you have to have 40% to even have a state final. Additionally you can not move up state swimming finals that early for a multitude of reasons. One is that many counties only haave meets on saturdays because of pool limits so once you throw in regionals you do not have enough weekends in the month to get to the minimum number of meets and that says nothing of snow!

I assumed everyone who has swimming had a pool. Carroll County has no swimming pools at any HS, and they have no swimming programs. I thought that's how it worked: pool= swim team, no pool= no swim team.

[jtowne-swim]

I assumed everyone who has swimming had a pool. Carroll County has no swimming pools at any HS, and they have no swimming programs. I thought that's how it worked: pool= swim team, no pool= no swim team.

nope to be honest The city has pools in a few schools although they are not functional. Some schools have a pool and no team and some have a pool being used as a batting cage and a team and some have both. Beyond that Easton has a pool in the school. North Point and Lackey have pools. The other Charles County schools have pools that are outdoors. I think Great Mills and Leonardtown have pools. Beyond that Harford has three in middle schools which the 10 high schools share. Montgomery and PG use park and planning facilities. Anne Arundel uses rec facilities. Some Eastern shore schools use the community college. Very similar to Golf not all schools have a Golf course on campus but many have golf teams. Just like some schools have no tennis courts and have a tennis team.

[Jeebus]

Going into the Regional Finals tomorrow, 14 of the 16 games will feature 2 "Top 4" seeds. In fact, in the 1A and 2A, all 8 games will feature a #1 vs a #2.

The only regions where a team outside of the top 4 seeds made it are:

• 3A North, where "#15 seed" Patterson will play #1 Milford Mill
  
  
• 4A North, where #7 Sherwood will play #1 Springbrook.

Patterson is obviously not the 15th best team in the 3AN, and Sherwood went 16-4 during the season in a tough division, so having both of them miss out on a Top 4 seed is an anomaly.

So what we have is 30 out of 32 teams still playing are Top 4 seeds.

So in reality, maybe having only the top 4 teams in each region going to the post season may be a good time saving / money saving solution. Yes, Patterson and Sherwood would have been "punished" this year, but why delay the inevitable if 2 of the top teams in each region are making it to the finals regardless?

[MCsoccerplex]

I think there's enough places (Baltimore City, Frederick County on West, privates like AACS, MSJ, etc...) that either don't have or don't care about lacrosse that you could overcome that hurdle.

Maybe Alhambra could become a season opening tourney. I don't know if they'd agree to it, but it's just a thought.

Cutting 2 rounds from the public school playoffs allows you to move the championship up a week, so the 1A-4A state championships would be this weekend. The IAAM and MIAA would want to push their tourneys back to this weekend as well, to avoid a week long layoff.

You could then start the Tournament of Champions as early as the next Tuesday with the quarterfinals, with the semis on Thursday, and the finals on Saturday (Wed/Fri/Sun would work better, but the publics still can't play on Sundays as far as I know). The whole bball season would still be over the 2nd weekend in March, before the publics even start lacrosse scrimmages.

If the private schools want to abide by the rules of the MPSSAA then they should be welcome with open arms. If not, it should be a "no go."

Regarding the ACIT, it is in its 52nd year. I don't think asking the Alhambra to change its annual date from the week of St. Patrick's Day is going to work. It's a long standing tradition going back to the days when the ACIT was played at the Allegany High School gymnasium in Cumberland.

[Informed Thinker]

Some districts have mixed sized schools and are not large enough to form divisions based on size. So you can have a 1A school in a conference with 2A and 3A schools. They are at a competitive advantage. Efforts to create cross county leagues of similar size met the fate of high gas cost and limited budgets for the transportation. The big issue with everyone in is the cost of transportation when schools of one size are spread out and have to cross over larger sized school districts to play each other in tournaments.

[eaglesinsider]

Some districts have mixed sized schools and are not large enough to form divisions based on size. So you can have a 1A school in a conference with 2A and 3A schools. They are at a competitive advantage. Efforts to create cross county leagues of similar size met the fate of high gas cost and limited budgets for the transportation. The big issue with everyone in is the cost of transportation when schools of one size are spread out and have to cross over larger sized school districts to play each other in tournaments.

Teams in other states with less money than Maryland travel much farther for district games than the alignments I have proposed. They also go much farther for playoff games. I've told the story on here before of a coaching friend in Montana who went 555 miles one-way for a first round playoff game. Even going from Crisfield (non-football) at the end of the Delmarva peninsula to Northern Garrett all the way out west would only be a 310 mile one-way trip. There's no reason travel should restrict anybody in a state as small as ours.

[pmore108]

Travel distance is a horrible excuse. The times you would have to go completely across the state are few and far between. besides Perryville managed to go to Ft. Hill this year, with no issue I am aware of. In addtion, even if there are two small schools in the same district why could they not meet in the middle and have a neutral site game that splits the gate? All it takes is some thinking to come up with these solutions. Harford County teams as an example I am familiar with, go to Bo Manor and vice versa, what is the difference in going to Annapolis or anywhere in Baltimore County? Or for that matter Bo Manor/Elkton going down the Eastern Shore and vice versa.

[85Knight]

Going into the Regional Finals tomorrow, 14 of the 16 games will feature 2 "Top 4" seeds. In fact, in the 1A and 2A, all 8 games will feature a #1 vs a #2.

The only regions where a team outside of the top 4 seeds made it are:

• 3A North, where "#15 seed" Patterson will play #1 Milford Mill
  
  
• 4A North, where #7 Sherwood will play #1 Springbrook.

Patterson is obviously not the 15th best team in the 3AN, and Sherwood went 16-4 during the season in a tough division, so having both of them miss out on a Top 4 seed is an anomaly.

So what we have is 30 out of 32 teams still playing are Top 4 seeds.

So in reality, maybe having only the top 4 teams in each region going to the post season may be a good time saving / money saving solution. Yes, Patterson and Sherwood would have been "punished" this year, but why delay the inevitable if 2 of the top teams in each region are making it to the finals regardless?

You're looking at it backwards. The fact that the top four seeds normally advance shows that seeding by record actually works, that the regular season does matter. So why not seed the entire field by record?

If you want to have a 4 team region then so be it but as long as you include all the teams then all the teams should be seeded by record.

[85Knight]

Teams in other states with less money than Maryland travel much farther for district games than the alignments I have proposed. They also go much farther for playoff games. I've told the story on here before of a coaching friend in Montana who went 555 miles one-way for a first round playoff game. Even going from Crisfield (non-football) at the end of the Delmarva peninsula to Northern Garrett all the way out west would only be a 310 mile one-way trip. There's no reason travel should restrict anybody in a state as small as ours.

Agreed. Travel in Md is not that big of a deal. Teams in WV have done it with no problem. This is not Cali. or Texas. You can pretty much get anywhere in the state in less than 3 hrs. and the times that someone would have to travel that far are minimal. With a little thought and planning those times that a team had to travel from the eastern shore to western Md or vice versa could be worked out.

[pmore108]

The travel excuse really irks me in a bad way. There is no hard and fast rule that games have to be played on Friday nights. Saturday night could be just as big of an event. If you need to meet in the middle, make it a saturday night, the fans will show up. It also reduces the need to leave school early. I agree that Friday nights are awesome, but Saturday nights (or days) could be good too!

[old school]

But if you seed everybody, won't you still have blowouts when 1/16 2/15 play each other?

Several years ago, I believe it was Forest Park went something like 5-17 because they were 1A playing mostly bigger schools. They went on to win the state 1A title.

However, I do believe it's absurd that everybody gets in.

If this were college or professional sports, I would agree. It's high school and a big part of the high school basketball experience and it is far from the everyone gets a trophy mentality that's prevelant in youth sports. But it is a huge part of the basketball experience and everyone gets a chance to roll the dice one more time before they pack it. You guys are obvious fans but the games are for the kids and they have no problem getting into the tournament at 0-22. It is the experience. Let all the kids play. 9 times out of 10, the 0-22 teams get bounced in the first round anyway. Doesn't hurt anything. But not seeding the entire tournament does.

[RAIDERX]

very similar to an 0-22 Eleanor Roosevelt who then won the 4A state title.

They were never 0-22, just had a losing record going into playoffs and ran the table.

[eaglesinsider]

If this were college or professional sports, I would agree. It's high school and a big part of the high school basketball experience and it is far from the everyone gets a trophy mentality that's prevelant in youth sports. But it is a huge part of the basketball experience and everyone gets a chance to roll the dice one more time before they pack it. You guys are obvious fans but the games are for the kids and they have no problem getting into the tournament at 0-22. It is the experience. Let all the kids play. 9 times out of 10, the 0-22 teams get bounced in the first round anyway. Doesn't hurt anything. But not seeding the entire tournament does.

Even when I was playing in high school, I would have been beyond embarrassed to be an 0-22 playoff team. Even back then, I felt like you had to earn it. I would have been even more embarrassed to only score 4 points like J.M. Bennett. To me that does hurt the kids, driving 1/2 way across the state on a Monday night to lose by 57-4. If you have any pride as a player, that has to be way more embarrassing than not being a playoff team. A 3+ hr bus ride back to Salisbury is just adding insult to injury at that point.

Not every team makes the football playoffs, going by your theory than the football players on 0-10 teams are missing a huge part of the football experience. If you let everyone into the playoffs, there's absolutely no incentive to try during the regular season, even if a team is a "15" seed like Patterson, the best teams will still make it. The regular season should matter, when all teams make the playoffs, you should just scrimmage teams 24 times then start the playoffs.

[pmore108]

Comparing football and basketball playoff systems is tough because in basketball the body of work is so much larger. Again, by forcing district play, you get who the true representatives of each district should be. I personally don't like the idea of some districts getting treated like the SEC in college football or how the ACC was treated in basketball years ago. Population trends change quickly in a state like Maryland, domination by certain districts or teams will change with time.