CIAC Glory Days
The CIAC Glory Days podcast immerses listeners into the world of high school athletics. Explore the purpose and impact of interscholastic athletics on student-athletes as administrators, coaches, players, officials, parents, and State Athletic Association staff take listeners on a journey from tryouts to championships.
CIAC Glory Days
Dribbling Through Divisions: Unraveling the High School Basketball Season and The Power of Education-Based Athletics
Host Jada Mirabelle is joined by Gregg Simon (CIAC Associate Executive Director), Dave Schulz (FCIAC Commissioner and CIAC Boys Basketball Tournament Director), and Dan Scavone (CIAC Assistant Director and Directors CIAC Officials Association) to discuss rules changes for the upcoming season, and how the formula works to determine divisional placements for boys basketball.
Rule changes for the 2023-2024 season include the addition of a 35-second shot clock and the elimination of the one-and-one foul shooting scenario.
Welcome to CIC's Glory Days Podcast. This podcast gives an in-depth look into the inner workings of the Connecticut Interest Classic Athletic Conference and the purpose behind high school sports. Through interviews with coaches, players, administrators and other guests, the CIC immerses you into the Glory Days of high school sports. So now it's time to enjoy the next episode of the Glory Days podcast. Hello and welcome to the CIC Glory Days podcast. I'm your host, jada Maribel.
Speaker 1:Today we are joined with Greg Simon, the CIC Associate Executive Director, dave Schultz, the FCAC Commissioner and CIC Boys Basketball Tournament Director, and Dan Scavone, assistant Director of the CIC. On this episode, greg, dave, dan and I will discuss how the Boys Basketball Committee determines divisional placements for teams and several key rule changes that will be implemented in this upcoming season. So, greg and Dave, we are about a week and a half away from the start of practice for Boys Basketball in Connecticut. Recently, the committee released the approved divisions for Boys and Girls Basketball. Every year, there seems to be a discussion about the placement of one or two teams within the divisions. So, greg, what is the process used to determine Boys Basketball divisions?
Speaker 2:Well, the process we use is a formula that's created to make sure that we're placing teams properly in divisions. We have 181 basketball playing schools on the boys side and I think it's interesting that reporters seem to always pick out the two or three and they think, ah, we have a great batting average. If that's the case, you know we do okay. So we take a look at a three-year look back to add up and create a point total for each school in the state of Connecticut and then those point totals are assigned to approved divisions. You know the committee creates the size of each division blindly and then when the schools are placed in those divisions, you know, by the number of teams that should be in each division. So basically, the formula is based upon different elements.
Speaker 2:So really, in all of our sports, enrollment is the most important element. We take 66% two-thirds of the size of the school and we take that as our first set of points. After that we take the amount of power points they've accrued over a three-year time period and we multiply that power points by the league, the league multiplier, which is either a three, a two or a one, depending on what league you play in. The thinking behind that is that a league like the CCC or the FCAC or the SEC, those leagues wins are a little bit more value than they are many of our small school leagues. So we wanna make sure that the value of those wins is the way we wanna be able to seed it. So after that's done we add in the success in tournament for those schools that are schools of choice and once we do that we take that entire total. We rank the schools 100 through 181, and then we put those teams into the pre-designed divisions.
Speaker 1:So, before this formula was implemented, how did it work with Boys Basketball?
Speaker 3:Well, I can kinda chime in on that. I started coaching in 1978, so I've been around a while doing Boys Basketball. And back in the pre-days and up until the mid-2000 teens it was based on size and it was just size. So some of your schools of choice in the smaller divisions, because of their size of their school, were just dominating those divisions and the smaller non-schools of choice were a little frustrated with never being able to advance in the tournament. So that kinda was the impetus of getting us into a formula which would try to balance and put schools, based on how they are, where they belong.
Speaker 1:So it seems that every year now there's a question about the placement of maybe one or two teams. So can you tell us about the option to move up to division one and what happens when teams opt to do that?
Speaker 3:Yes, any team can opt to move up to division one from any division, but they can only opt to move to division one Once. The number of teams that have opted to go up to division one Greg talked about the preset number of 16 teams in division one Once they opt up. We wanna keep that number at 16. So if three teams opt to go up, then we go from the 16th back towards the first of a non-school of choice, offering them the opportunity to move back down to division two to keep that number at 16.
Speaker 1:And this year it seems that there's more than 16 teams that have opted to play division one. So how is the committee gonna handle 17 teams being in division one and what does it say about the design of the divisions that more teams wanna be in division one?
Speaker 3:Well, it's nice to see that some teams look to try to go up and be the most competitive division they can be in. This year we did have three teams choose to go up and then, as we went through starting with 16, moving towards one of non-school of choice teams, only two opted to go down, so we ended up with 17. So it would offer an opportunity to have a play-in game, like you would if you had 32 teams in a Division II tournament, or 33 teams. You'd have to have a play-in game of 33, play 32 to get it to a 32-team division. So it kind of offs the same way of now we're going to have 17 versus 16 to get to a 16-team division.
Speaker 1:So, greg, the argument often comes from schools of choice that the formula is unfair. So what are the arguments that you have heard from some schools, and how can a school or the committee address those concerns?
Speaker 2:I think the committee is very open to taking a look at the formula and seeing what's working and what's not working. We've tried to see it both ways. We understand for all of those years there was so much contention that small schools, especially in the S&M Division, didn't have opportunities to win state tournaments, that schools of choice, who naturally are able to draw from student athletes outside of their district, had an unfair advantage. Thus we understand there are some concerns, especially among our agris schools who are putting to that group of schools, among charter magnet schools that they don't belong there, and among our technical schools they don't belong there. But again, it's very hard to differentiate when you're a school of choice. If you have the ability to draw kids from outside, that one kid or two kids that you draw, maybe you're starting center or maybe you're starting goalie in other sports. So it's very hard to get in between the weeds and say, oh, this one's a school of choice but this one's not a school of choice.
Speaker 2:So it's very difficult and obviously you'll always hear put the Catholic schools and all there in their own division. And again we laugh up here because I believe there's 12 boys Catholic schools left that have boys 12. Some of them are tiny schools, like Immaculate and St Bernard's, and some of them are huge schools, like Xavier and Fairfield Prep. It would make no sense to play them in their own division. And how do you play them in their own division when you're not playing other schools of choice in their own divisions? So we get the contention out there. We get the argument both ways, but we really believe that when the formula is used, it's a very fair way to address the concerns of many of our member schools.
Speaker 1:So, besides that suggestion of putting the Catholic schools all in their own league, has there been any other proposed changes to this formula from schools?
Speaker 2:Well, again, we made a promise when we were going out talking to the different leagues about the formula way back in 2017. When we were talking to them, we said that after three years we would take a good heart evaluation of the formula, see what was working, what wasn't working, you know, and we had great success the first two years of the formula. Wonderful tournaments at Mohican Sun Really saw a lot of teams making the finals that hadn't made it before and it was great.
Speaker 2:But unfortunately COVID came along and for two consecutive years we didn't have a tournament. Thus we didn't have any tournament data to add to the formula and we were kind of stuck. So we were using a lot of older information. But after the third year of the tournament we did meet and we sat down and we talked about what changes we could make and at that point a subcommittee made some recommendations to the full committee, but the full committee said they really didn't want to do any of those changes at this point because they wanted three solid years of data to be able to make changes. So we'll have a great tournament this year and then the subcommittee will meet again over the summer and we'll make some recommendations back on things like the league multipliers Very hard to get right.
Speaker 2:Leagues change and things happen and when you have schools that aren't very successful in basketball and they have that large league multiplier, it moves them up divisions. We have a lot of thinking to do, but it's not like we don't want to try to make it the best it possibly can be. It's really important that people out there looking at it understand the intent of the formula was never to create a super division. It was never meant for that. Nobody ever talked about that up here. The idea was to push schools of choice into the larger divisions, thus giving the non-schools of choice a better opportunity to play longer in the tournament and to play for championships.
Speaker 1:So, now that we have the division set and practices will begin next week to buff the regular season just around the corner. So, dan, when games tip off, this year we'll have a shot clock for the first time in Connecticut, and we also have a change in the rules for players who will shoot two foul shots rather than one, and one after 17 fouls and the addition of a new rule that a player must leave the floor for one tick of the clock after receiving a technical foul. So in a previous podcast episode we spoke about the shot clock. Can you tell us what officials are doing with our schools to prepare for this new rule implementation?
Speaker 4:Sure, we've collaborated with. Timing is Everything, which is a private business and this business has been out there working shot clocks and game clocks in college level basketball in Connecticut since 1996. So they've been around a while. The owners of this company, as well as the commissioner of the company, felt it was their obligation to help us with this project and they volunteered their staff to put on clinics for our member schools and our leagues and, in conjunction with the commissioners of the leagues, we set up dates and times and we provided opportunities for future shot clock operators of our member high schools to attend these. And they've been very informative. They've been hands on. They actually put together a simulation of game situations so our kids were able to play a half and the potential operators are able to identify mistakes and identify what needed to transpire rather than what occurred. So they actually purposely made mistakes to help the learning curve and I think it was very effective.
Speaker 4:And we tried to have these clinics at different parts of the state so it would be ample opportunities for everyone to attend. So we sort of did it by league. We started with the Eastern part of the state and we moved all the way to Litchfield. Last Wednesday was our last clinic, so we ran five of them and we have one today. There's one that Western High School at 245 and that's going to be, I'm sure, well attended and we'll be ready from that standpoint.
Speaker 4:We also sent out two documents. Our state rule interpreter, along with the local basketball interpreters, put together a lengthy document about the shot clock guidelines and that's been sent out numerous times and we took that version and actually condensed it and made a table chart that were vast schools to actually laminate and put on your scores tables. It's short of a cheat sheet so when games occur, that shot clock operator can review that before the game. They should be just like officials. They should need to have a pregame and officials will have a pregame with that shot clock operator to talk about the dynamics of the protocol. So that would be readily available. And then, lastly, the National Federation of High Schools put out a very, very guided version of a video that's been sent out to our member schools as well. So they've had ample learning resources, so I expect it to to go off pretty well.
Speaker 1:Wow, those are all great things we're doing to help get everyone adjusted to this.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 1:So, Dave, how has the FCAC been preparing for the implementation of the shot clock?
Speaker 3:I think we might have been the first lead to host a shot clock clinic back in October at Norwalk High School and we had over 50 people there. So we invited every school to send either their shot clock operator, their regular clock operator, an official who might want to also do a shot clock on the side and to try to teach that. I think the main thing is going to be that little shot clock cheat sheet that can be laminated and put right there that someone can read, because inevitably you might have a sickness and someone might have to say, hey, can you fill in today? So we need to be able to prepare them and keep them going. I know that all our schools in the FCAC thankfully have their shot clocks mounted and ready to go, so that's a positive that we're in line, ready to go.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's great. So, greg, what was the interest in implementing the one tick of the clock sitout rule following a technical file?
Speaker 2:Sure, we've seen that sometimes tempers flare during our games and we had some high profile altercations last year during games and we started to talk a little bit about with the Connecticut High School Coach Association what we might be able to do.
Speaker 2:So the Connecticut High School Coach Association came up with a proposal, kind of based on what a yellow card does in soccer.
Speaker 2:It removes the student athlete from the field in soccer for one tick of the clock and they can re-enter the game once they've settled down. And you're not going to have that quick whip around where if a kid gets technical file the next time down the court and if he's not taken off the court he immediately wants to retaliate or she wants to retaliate against the player from the other team. So I think it's that ability to be able to cool down, settle down for a little bit and not to have those quick double technicals that happen quite often or lead to fights on the court. So we're just again, I think all of our committees are in a constant look to see how we can implement sportsmanship among our student athletes and try to make the game the best we can for all of them. And we appreciate the Connecticut High School Coach Association taking the lead in that and creating that. Certainly Joe Kanzanella. Oh, joe Kanzanella had a lot to do with that.
Speaker 1:So, dan, do you agree with Greg that this will help officials in managing the game, or at least help players to calm down so that they hopefully avoid getting a quick second technical?
Speaker 4:I do Very much, so I think you know officials themselves are going to treat this as an opportunity to converse with the coach as well. I think when the player is removed from the game, the coach will have a better understanding of what transpired, and I would imagine some coaches will keep their players out for longer than one ticket a clock and that will vary from situation to situation, but certainly in many cases the player's emotions would not warrant them to stay in the game. So I think this is a positive move by our committees to implement this.
Speaker 1:So can you tell us a little bit about the rule change to eliminate one-on-one foul shots? Is that a Connecticut rule or an NFHS rule change?
Speaker 4:That is a federation rule change. So that is, and we are a federation state and so basically it kind of follows the premise of the women's college game now. So on the fifth common foul, so your fifth team foul, your opponent will shoot two shots. So it basically eliminates the one-on-one. Interestingly, the fouls will reset every quarter. So after the first quarter it will be reset to zero at started, a third quarter reset to zero and the start of the fourth quarter reset to zero.
Speaker 4:So the theory here is that there was two objectives. Number one, based on a lot of the research the Federation has done with some physicality and injuries on the one-in-one sequence, their hope, and this will minimize and eliminate the risk of injury there. That was one philosophy. The other rationale was, with resetting the fouls, to increase the flow of the game. So you're not in a long period of time where you have more than seven fouls in the previous rule and you'd be shooting foul shots for a significant period of time and it really disrupted the flow of the game. So I think the reset of the fouls and then going to the two shots, I think that's going to accomplish both of those rationales. It's definitely gonna lend credence to it and I think you're gonna see a game. It's gonna be interesting to see how that works out. It's gonna be unless you watch a lot of women's college basketball. I think folks around here certainly aren't used to that, that nuance of the game, so it'll be interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I look forward to seeing it this season with all these new rules implemented, seeing how the game changes. So now, every episode, we wrap up with the question of what is the purpose of high school sports. So, dan, we'll start with you. What do you believe the purpose is behind high school sports?
Speaker 4:Well, we always talk about being education based and I certainly think the onus, you know, obviously, at the winning at the varsity level, winning does play a role, but I think with high school sports it should be more to it.
Speaker 4:So, in addition to teaching kids how to win graciously and how to lose graciously, I think part of it is to help young people understand that they're part of a team and that team component is so important when in everyday life you know they're gonna be when they're in their professions, they're gonna have to work with other people and they're gonna have to have ups and downs and that's what sports is about, ups and downs and they're gonna have to take those practices that they've implemented through their athletic careers and bring them to everyday life. So I think it's more than just how many championships they've won. You know, you really have to look at did I even make it through the season? I'm a high school athlete. I'm not sure if I wanted to participate in this sport, but I did. I put the time and I put the work effort in and I completed one of my goals in life. And I think that's the way you have to look at high school sports. It's more than just the athleticism itself.
Speaker 3:Oh I can obviously echo everything that Dan said. He kind of touched base on everything. But one of the things from my coaching days I felt was really beneficial for a student athlete to take from the end of the season would be the fact how hard they wanted to work to improve, to maximize their ability level. Not everybody has the same ability level, so if they wanna and which carries right over into life maximize what you do on the job, how you can do things and how that benefits the team together. So I think that's really what we hope for.
Speaker 1:Greg.
Speaker 2:Again with education based athletics. I mean athletics become and I think people forget all the time that we're not professional, the kids are not professional athletes, college athletes. It's an extension of the classroom. You're. The same kind of things you're trying to learn in the classroom can be taught so well on the athletic field. I think the relationships you develop with your teammates, obviously, but also with your coaches, and having that lifelong relationship coming off that championship weekend that we had yesterday and the day before, seeing the hugs among coaches and players and the years of knowing a lot of these people and being a great influence in their life, is just really, really important. And again, it's not the, as Danny said, it's not the wins and losses. All the time I always said it's the bus rides, it's the pasta parties, it's the laughing after practice when things are all done, things you remember the most. And I think that's what education based athletics is all about.
Speaker 1:Yes, those are all such great and meaningful answers. Thank you all for joining us today and we'll see you next time on the Glory Days podcast.