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Post by radiodavel on Feb 9, 2011 15:20:55 GMT -5
kF...you answered your own question....
"most 1A and 2A State Championship teams wouldn't make it out of their sectionals "
and added to that line...against the bigger schools....
big schools don't like class play-offs because they knock off each other early and don't move on every year...
football, you want one class for that? oh my...that would be a big school bonaza...
a big difference between a big vs small school is depth in almost every sport...
class sports must work, the majority of most states have them, off the top of my head is there even a state who doesn't have classes?
Does SFU have a National Champion banner in their gym? I bet they are proud of it...
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Post by bluestreak on Feb 9, 2011 16:52:05 GMT -5
Ive said it before and Ill say it again, some of my fondest memories growing up were going to Indy with my future high school coach and his son (my childhood best friend) and watching the final fours at the RCA dome. It was unique, it was special, it was one of a kind. At the end of the day, principles (and the polls and past articles will clarify) of small schools petitioned and "won" for class ball almost 15 years ago; so now it is what it is....and it was done to give more kids in OUR state's sport the opportunity to win. Does it still leave a sour taste in many hoosiers mouth, no doubt because its something most still remember. Attempts to have one Champion over first couple seasons (tourny of champions) were't successful and did nothing but mask the reality. Look I played, in two class basketball state games, 2A and 3A; and even though those were really really great; not knowing where you stacked up with the other State bound teams always left me/us wondering, especially since we played against all classes during the season and knew we could have done well in an open sectional/regional. Heck my own coach told us he preferred single class ball (played in the mid 70's against the Northrop's, Wayne's etcs). But again I think that was all because the idea of class ball was still fairly new back then. The big thing is, when you see the buzzer sound next month for each title game the elation in the kids face will still be there. The experience for them is what counts. Now when the State decides to switch Track to class system like other states, then Ill be ticked!
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Post by Kyle Feller on Feb 9, 2011 16:56:20 GMT -5
kF...you answered your own question.... "most 1A and 2A State Championship teams wouldn't make it out of their sectionals " and added to that line...against the bigger schools.... big schools don't like class play-offs because they knock off each other early and don't move on every year... football, you want one class for that? oh my...that would be a big school bonaza... a big difference between a big vs small school is depth in almost every sport... class sports must work, the majority of most states have them, off the top of my head is there even a state who doesn't have classes? Does SFU have a National Champion banner in their gym? I bet they are proud of it... I didn't answer my own question...my point is, why on earth should some team that isn't even the best in their county be considered a state champion? It's terrible....instead of teaching your kids excuses at a young age, why not teach them that the competition is a good thing? Use sports for what they are.....and I don't mean a way to coddle overzealous parents and foster to any kids unfair complex. I work with kids that went to Big East Schools....Big Ten Schools....and Ivy League Schools. Thankfully I don't get judged on my performance based on the size of school I went to. My final HS Basketball game was in the freaking "Star Dome" at South Adams High School in front of 800 people. I was robbed of the chance to play against Zach Randolph (and get destroyed) in front of 8000 people.
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Post by bluestreak on Feb 9, 2011 17:12:53 GMT -5
oh no! not the "Star Dome" haha...sorry a high school gf of mine went to south adams. sorry excuse for a dome.
...I will say basketball wise, that we are seeing many coaches and ADs schedule outta class and outta area, and also the formation of new weekend "classics". Its not the real deal but does give that old school feel of competing with the masses no matter the school size.
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Post by huisrealgood on Feb 9, 2011 18:41:26 GMT -5
Don't worry rd... there are just some things that Hoosiers get up in arms about that just aren't a big deal. The rest of us non-natives will never understand why they're creating such a big fuss over nothing. It is what it is. As a kid you didn't grow up looking at the High School players as your heros. You didn't feel a sense of "Us vs. Them" when you walked into a gym filled with 9,000 people for a Thursday Night Sectional Opener. There is a reason Indiana THE Basketball State, it's not really up to out of staters with their 47 classes and self esteem crap to care. Bullcrap. I did look up to the HS players at Moline. It made my year when I was allowed to go into the locker room and celebrate a conference championship with the players when I was 9. I also remember some crazy battles in historic Wharton Field House between Moline which had 5* future Arizona recruit Travis Wilson and future UIC/Evansville recruit Ian Hanavan take on conference rival and fellow top 5 ranked Galesburg with two future Iowa signee's Joey Range and Rod Thompson. Those were some battles. Two games in packed gyms during the conference season and then again at neutral sites in the sectional championship games. I remember my parents driving me an hour and a half or 2 hours away to watch those sectional games. So don't look down on me in your typical condescending Hoosier smuggness and say that "I wouldn't understand" because I didn't grow up in Indiana without class basketball. BULLCRAP! It didn't matter that those were 2A games and that neither team had to play a bunch of games against small schools to get there. They were huge games and I soaked in every minute of it. So shut the heck up about all this "class basketball sucks"... "nobody outside of Indiana cares about true basketball" crap because it's just not true.
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Post by Kyle Feller on Feb 9, 2011 18:47:52 GMT -5
HIRG...it's cute when you try to puff your chest for Illinoi
Indiana is the Basketball State....always was, most likely always will be....and has a connection with the game that you can't replicate anywhere else on the planet. I understand how much it bothers you...but sometimes you just have to suck it up and deal with it. 19 of the 20 largest High School Gyms in the world aren't in Indiana out of coincidence.
When the state tournament drawing show was on statewide Television it was a big event....when my third grade teacher broke our class into four groups for Final Four weekend (I was at the Bedford North Lawrence table)...that was a big deal. When my family HAD TO BUY SEASON TICKETS just to make sure we got state tournament tickets...that was a big deal. When CBS Dateline followed Alexandria's HS Team around for a week during the state tournament, that was a big deal.
At the end of the day...I've sat in High School crowds throughout my life and played in front of crowds that most colleges would kill for. I've seen "Hoop Dreams"......come on HIRG, weak.
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Post by goshen32 on Feb 9, 2011 18:53:44 GMT -5
I like Kyle grew up in Madison County during the last run of non-class basketball in Indiana. I attended the HOF classic at New Castle (largest HS gym in the world) and watched my brother play in front of a packed house, and saw sectional games played at the Wigwam - 2nd largest HS gym- (which today Anderson has again pushed to sell, a whole different issue).
Now, I am a coach at the 382nd smallest school in Indiana. Since class basketball has been initiated, my school has won 4 sectional titles and 2 regionals titles. A few things that I have noticed about our kids: They don't know anything about our area teams, which is likely due to our sectional being in Fort Wayne due to the lack of small schools in our area. A byproduct of that, we have no rivalries, nor do or kids get that fired up to play any particular team.
I think these are two very unfortunate products for our school in particular, our kids don't go watch area games, and they don't see our opponents play because they don't want to drive the hour-plus to Fort Wayne or Hamilton. There was always something special about seeing your opponents around town or at church, this simply isn't a reality for us anymore. I think its sad to have lost that.
One interesting statistical thing of note: Since the class basketball initiative was passed, scoring has gone down nearly 14 points per contest. Now you may say, don't blame that on class basketball, but in 1996 you were not allowed to work out with your players in the summer, but now you can practice as much as you like, which was instituted after class basketball. Just an interesting piece to consider.
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Post by Kyle Feller on Feb 9, 2011 19:00:54 GMT -5
Growing up where we did...
You could drive 15 minutes South and be in the 9,000 seat Wigwam (Anderson).
You could drive 20 minutes east and be in the 8,000 seat Muncie Fieldhouse (Muncie Central).
You could drive 20 minutes north and be in the 8,000 seat Bill Green Arena (Marion).
You could drive 20 minutes west and be in Memorial Gym (Kokomo) with 5,200 people.
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Post by huisrealgood on Feb 9, 2011 23:23:24 GMT -5
HIRG...it's cute when you try to puff your chest for Illinoi Indiana is the Basketball State....always was, most likely always will be....and has a connection with the game that you can't replicate anywhere else on the planet. I understand how much it bothers you...but sometimes you just have to suck it up and deal with it. 19 of the 20 largest High School Gyms in the world aren't in Indiana out of coincidence. When the state tournament drawing show was on statewide Television it was a big event....when my third grade teacher broke our class into four groups for Final Four weekend (I was at the Bedford North Lawrence table)...that was a big deal. When my family HAD TO BUY SEASON TICKETS just to make sure we got state tournament tickets...that was a big deal. When CBS Dateline followed Alexandria's HS Team around for a week during the state tournament, that was a big deal. At the end of the day...I've sat in High School crowds throughout my life and played in front of crowds that most colleges would kill for. I've seen "Hoop Dreams"......come on HIRG, weak. Screw you, you arrogant jagoff.
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Post by goshen32 on Feb 10, 2011 0:38:15 GMT -5
Screw you, you arrogant jagoff. Keep it classy, HIRG
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Post by MapleLeaf99 on Feb 10, 2011 8:30:42 GMT -5
They don't know anything about our area teams, which is likely due to our sectional being in Fort Wayne due to the lack of small schools in our area. But you could still play them during the regular season. I know the decision was made a few years ago to stop playing Northridge - my guess is that would have happened even if there was just one class.
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Post by goshen32 on Feb 10, 2011 10:34:10 GMT -5
They don't know anything about our area teams, which is likely due to our sectional being in Fort Wayne due to the lack of small schools in our area. But you could still play them during the regular season. I know the decision was made a few years ago to stop playing Northridge - my guess is that would have happened even if there was just one class. You are making the assumption that those schools want to play us, rather once we were not on those teams sectional they did not. You brought up the example of Northridge, when they moved to 4a they were not interested in playing us. We play the 2a schools in our area and with realignment, now 3a schools. But to say it's our decision to not play those schools is not true, if anything it's more them. We would've put last years team up against anyone in the area.
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Post by oldtimer on Feb 10, 2011 14:48:48 GMT -5
I find this discussion very interesting. I went to Elkhart's Northside gym and watched tiny Argos win the regional as well as saw Wawasee knock off the top ten Warsaw Tigers in 95. you would have thought Wawasee had dies and gone to Heaven! My son was invited to a meeting with top players from the area to meet with the IHSAA officials about what the athletes wanted. They all wanted to maintain single class basketball and have a chance to knock off the big schools. I distinctly remember him coming home and telling me the deck was stacked as one of the "officials" had told him on the side that it was a done deal and what the athletes told him that day did not matter.
Part of the fun of the single class system was to have all the local teams come together in a packed gym and try to beat the bigger schools. Now check out how far teams have to travel to go to tournament games and you begin to see that there are no longer great rivalries at any of the levels. The semi state used to be a great time as four teams would play in the morning, people would party in the afternoon at local hotels and talk about the evening match up and who would represent that part of the state at the final four. All of that excitement is now gone with no final fours at the regional, semi state, or finals level.
Everyone knows the real state championship is the final game of the day with the class 4A game. I dare say the North Central reserves last year could have won the class 1A and 2A title games.
As far as the NCAAA goes, the distinction is not made on the size of the schools, but on the financial structure hence D 1 is full rides and D3 no athletic aid. You just cannot compare the college game to the high school situation as it is not based on size at all.
One final thought, when my son won the Tresler award, he won it against kids from the four schools who had made it to the final four and it really was a great honor. Today it is called the mental attitude award and goes to a kid form the two competing schools. It is nice but it just is not the same as it once was and few people see it as prestigious as it used to be.
Having said that, I now need to leave and accept the Nobel Peace Prize from my town in Indiana as it is now given out to the person from each town who writes in a most uncritical manner on Bethelhoops! We call it the Class 382 Nobel Peace Prize!
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Post by Kyle Feller on Feb 10, 2011 15:08:18 GMT -5
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Post by blue2blue on Feb 10, 2011 16:28:31 GMT -5
Ah, the sweet memories of one-class basketball.
-Hilliard Gates -Eckridge meats sponsoring the tourney -Painting up cars and caravaning to NorthSide gym -Tiny Jimtown on one side of mighty Elkhart, the Jimmies all in their maroon/gold and Concord in their bright green on the other side. In the middle, the arrogance of the Blue Blazers, in their blue and white. The other schools all banded to cheer against the Blazers, no matter who Elkhart's opponent was. The splitting of Elkhart into 2 high schools ended that dynasty. -Watching the Lafayette semi-state on cbs and switching over to watch the Ft. Wayne semi-state on abc. Great basketball all day and into the evening.
I am convinced that one-class basketball made the small school players better as they had to compete against the larger ones. They regularly during the season popped up on the schedules of the larger schools, and win or lose, it made them better.
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