5fouls

I will say this.  Bad high school basketball teams are worse than they were when I was in high school.  And, good basketball teams are better than they were when I was in high school.  When I was in school, 30 points was a blowout, even if it was big school versus small school.  Now, we see games with 60-70 point margins from schools IN THE SAME CLASS.

Can you imagine the margins if a good 4A team got hold of a bad 1A team in today's environment?

1 minute ago, IU Scott said:

The HOF games are shown on local Indianapolis station and they have always have been televised

They shouldn't do that.  Again, Scott, I applaud you for going on a regular basis.  You are a heckuva basketball fan.  

I just disagree with you about class basketball though.  

2 minutes ago, btownqb said:

Right. I get that Damon was much, much bigger. 

But, the Seymour paper did an article after he graduated HS and they couldnt put a total on what he had made them in 4 sectional 4 regionals and 2 semi states. 

I don't think theres been many that could replicate Romeo's following and obviously not Damons. Damon Bailey and his son Brayton are GREAT people btw, I coached against Brayton a lot while he was growing up, what a great kid.

Did Brayton go anywhere to play in college?

5 minutes ago, IUFLA said:

I would think less people attending means less money...but I don't know for sure...

And @btownqb presented no evidence to back his claim up 😉

Well, technically, ticket prices have gone up, so...... 

4 minutes ago, btownqb said:

You're right. But, Romeo came damn close. 

Romeo did for the Southern part of the state,  Unfortunately for him, he also played when the IU program was in decline.  Damon had the playing at the peak of IU popularity.  

4 minutes ago, btownqb said:

Aren't these events streamed? 

I don't know if that was or not.  But, a trip to the HOF Classic is worth it just to see the HOF.  The right matchup pops up in the next few years and I will probably go again, even if SC is not in it.

The HOF itself is amazing.

Oh.  And, I'm an 'old' guy to, so watch what you say.    

7 minutes ago, IUFLA said:

I don't know...I asked why attendance had declined and you said it hadn't...when I presented evidence to the contrary, you act like I have an agenda...I don't...

I grew up in Martinsville, which had a rich basketball tradition...Glenn Curtis won 3 state championships there...John Wooden played there...

My junior and senior years, we went to the regional finals and got beat both times...we had Jerry Sichsting on that team, and were coached by Sam Alford...

All I'm saying is, I know the Glenn Curtis Memorial Gym was always packed...I wonder if Martinsville still draws that kind of crowd...and if not, why?

 

 

 

 

Attendance has declined.  But, his original post referenced 'financial', not attendance.  

We need to face it.  The state tournament peaked with Damon.  It went into decline immediately after that, and that was still several years before class basketball.  No one will ever duplicate what he did for the sport in this state.  

2 minutes ago, IU Scott said:

The thing today with the tournament teams have to travel a lot farther earlier in the tournament.  Before your sectional was teams in your area. We played in New Castle with mainly Henry county teams.   The three years we won the sectional in class basketball we played in Alexandria which is around an hour drive and none of the other teams was in our area.

Again, Waldron fans did not care that Jeffersonville was 2 hours from them earlier today.  They still turned out in droves.    

2 minutes ago, IU Scott said:

I go to the HOF classic in New Castle starting around 90-91. Back then the fieldhouse was completely full.  Today they are lucky to get 4K which is less than half full

When Silver Creek played there, the two best crowds were Heritage Hills and Silver Creek, the two 3A schools.  If Lafayette Jeff.  and especially Lawrence Central, had attended the same as the other two, it would have been a lot better crowd.  

And, that was a tournament that had, at a minimum of 6 players on D1 rosters this year (Pack, Dre Davis, Barnhizer, Kaufman, Jacobi, and Sisley).  

In addition to schools not supporting their team, casual fans aren't attending events like this.  I applaud you for doing so.

3 minutes ago, IUFLA said:

This says differently 

 

I don't think tournament attendance has been hurt by class basketball.  It has been hurt by evolution of society.  Small schools from small towns still support their teams.  Many larger schools just don't.  Private schools are the worst for attendance, but they win more than their fair share because of the inherent advantage they have.  

7 minutes ago, IUFLA said:

I don't really have a dog in the fight but just a couple of questions...

Didn't they use to have the winners of the 4 classes play each other? What happened to that? 

Class basketball may satisfy some people, but why is attendance way down from when it was single class?

In the couple of years they had the class winners play each other, the games were seriously one-sided and it took a lot of steam out of the idea.  

1 minute ago, IU Scott said:

Don't you think the Silver Creek Boys team could have competed with the 4A teams the last four of years.

Our first championship team, we probably weren't even the best 3A team in the state.  We just happened to win the Championship.  We could have competed against the Top 4A schools, but not sure they could have knocked of 3-4 top 4A teams in a row to win state.  Honestly may not even had made it out of a single class sectional that year as Jeffersonville beat us during the regular season,  

The next year, the Covid season, was our best boys' team, and they lost by 32 to Lawrence Central in the Hall of Fame classic.  Now, they weren't that much better than us, but they were that day. 

Last year's boy's team was just asking to lose during the entire tournament.  I have no idea how they didn't.  The South was week last year in 4A, so I would never say never.  But, as tough as it was to get through 3A, I don't think we would have made it to Indy in 4A.

Now, the team with the best chance, may have been our girl's team last year.  We won state in 3A.  Crown Point won state in 4A.  And, we beat Crown Point during the regular season.  We did lose to two Indy area 4A schools in a holiday tournament though, so I'm not in any way claiming we were the best team in the state.

This year's girl's team has a major hurdle next week against SB Washington.  SB Washington has 3 girls who are already committed to Maryland (all are the coach's daughters).  It will take our absolute best and Washington to have an off game for us to have a chance.   

2 minutes ago, Proud2BAHoosier said:

The southern part of the state did well today with 1A Tecumseh winning and 2A Forest Park as well.....

I saw the second half of the Tecumseh game.  They were down 3 at half, but controlled the 2nd half for a relatively comfortable win.  I'll be rooting for them next week as a public going up against a Private in Lafayette Catholic.

10 minutes ago, IU Scott said:

Never said it for football but basketball 

Basketball has outgrown a single class system.  It just has.  After the game today, I went to the grocery.  While leaving, standing outside there were two guys talking and I heard one of them saying 'need to get rid of the damn classes in basketball'. 

This is in Sellersburg, a community that has 3 state basketball championships over the last 3 years and will be playing for another one next week.

Our school and our community is better because of those championships.  But, we have none of those if it is single class. 

It's not a participation trophy.  Its winning against your peers.  And, if they realign as discussed, it evens th things up even more.

27 minutes ago, IU Scott said:

To me it seems just another way to get more teams with trophies.  High school basketball use to be my favorite form of basketball but class basketball ruined it for me.  Even though it has actually helped my high school when we won 3 straight sectionals and one regional.

If you want to kill high school sports in the state, let's get rid of the class system.  All we need to do is look at what Carmel does in sports like Swimming and Tennis every year to get a picture of how much size matters.

And, one thing that everyone overlooks is that the fans from small town schools are often better than the fans from the city.  At today's girls semi-state in Jeffersonville, Waldron, a 1A school, and 2+ hours from Jeffersonville had so many fans attending the first game that the Silver Creek fans arriving for the 2nd game had nowhere to sit.  Waldron not only had completely filled their section, they had filled most of Silver Creek's as well.   Waldron isn't playing in teh regional, let alone a semi-state, if there is no class basketball.  Meanwhile, Chatard, a 3A school from Indy, didn't even fill half their available seats.  Yeah, I get Chatard is private, but still. 

10 minutes ago, rico said:

...or Kirk Cousins.  

To keep the theme going started by @NotIThatLives, it would be Kirk Newton or Cam Cousins.  

5 minutes ago, NotIThatLives said:

Hum.  So whats the rationale of not evening them out?

The big issue right now is at the top, where Carmel is like 5 times bigger than the bottom of the 4A class.  In a perfect world, there would be the same number of teams.  But, given the issue that exists today, I can see logic in approaching it this way.  

The IHSAA did say that, if this proposal is approved, the final number ranges could be different.  The ones in my original post are just what they are looking at right now.  

6 minutes ago, btownqb said:

Thats from what? 2018-2019? 

We are under 500. 

Looked you guys up on the DOE website which has current year enrollment.  You are at 488.

Just now, btownqb said:

Thats from what? 2018-2019? 

We are under 500. 

It was the 2019 reclass.  

Based on 2019 enrollment

5A - 33 teams

4A - 72 teams

3A - 84 teams

2A - 111 teams

1A - 101 teams

A lot of schools around those cut lines could swing the numbers up or down a few.  But, that's the general picture.

3 minutes ago, NotIThatLives said:

Any idea the numbers of schools per class?

I can do a quick calc based on the figures published on the IHSAA site, but keep in mind they are 3 years behind because of Covid.  No reclass has been done since 2019.

I'll get those posted here in a minute though, in order to get a ballpark

3 minutes ago, btownqb said:

That would be very good for us.  

What's Brownstown's enrollment these days?  The one on the IHSAA site from the reclass has you at 562, which would put you near the bottom of 3A. 

7 minutes ago, NotIThatLives said:

So Deshaun Winston is the next prize?  

Either he, or Jameis Watson.  

IHSAA apparently looking at a proposal to go to 5 classes in basketball, baseball, softball, and volleyball.  Class breakdown would be strictly based on enrollment, with no regard to balance the numbers between classes.

2000 + would be 5A

1000-1999 would be 4A

550 -999 would be 3A

300-549 would be 2A

Below 300 would be 1A

May not get passed this year, but gaining momentum.

We have more games?  I thought the season was over.