The CIF-Southern Section announces Friday which schools will play in the first Open Division in the boys and girls basketball playoffs.
One month from today, leagues in Orange County and elsewhere in the 575-school Southern Section receive the CIF-SS office’s recommendation for new playoff groupings that go into effect this fall.
The CIF-SS office is a busy one. We stopped by the Los Alamitos facility this week to discuss with section commissioner Rob Wigod some topics and tasks that he and his staff are working on now, with these basketball playoffs, and beyond.
THE OPEN DIVISION
A group of the section’s elite teams will be selected to play in the Open Division of the boys and girls basketball playoffs. A panel of past and present coaches and administrators and media members selects the teams. A maximum of 16 will be selected for the double-elimination division, but there could be as few as eight teams in either or both of the boys and girls brackets.
Some girls basketball coaches are concerned that only eight teams will be worthy of Open Division selection, and that an eight-team bracket spread over three weeks would mean too much time between playoff games.
“There is a possibility of that, absolutely,” said Wigod when asked about the potential for an eight-team Open Division. “There is going to be the selection committee that will determine that – it’s not going to be me or (assistant commissioner in charge of basketball) Rainer Wulf. They have the discretion to decide if 12 teams is the right number.
“It needs to be deserving teams. We don’t have this philosophy that we need to fill the division with anybody we can. It’s not about just finding 16 bodies.”
As for the schedule holes that would exist in an eight-team bracket, Wigod said: “There is a very realistic concern about what the lag time would be and how it would play out. We want our best team at its best, when they’re coming out of our section playoffs and going into the state playoffs. If this format creates too much lag time, we will address that.”
BASKETBALL DIVISIONS
The way basketball playoff divisions have been created in recent years is that schools are first placed into groups by their enrollment, then can be moved into higher divisions according to their “playoff points profile.” That profile measures the previous four years of playoff performance.
But a section school that has an enrollment of 1,250 or lower can only be moved as high as Division 4AA, which is six divisions below the highest division, 1AA.
State-ranked boys basketball teams such as Bishop Montgomery of Torrance and Serra of Gardena have reached the 4AA ceiling. They are on the CIF-SS “watch list” of 23 teams considered top candidates for the Open Division, so they might not be included in the 4AA bracket. Still, looking at the 4AA rankings, the top seven teams are private schools, some with much playoff success. Laguna Beach is the top-ranked public school in 4AA at No. 8.
Wigod would like that 1,250/4AA ceiling to be examined.
“I’ve addressed that to the basketball committee,” Wigod said. “The Open Division addresses that at least to some degree. Last year, the best girls basketball team in our section was Windward (of Los Angeles) and they couldn’t go past 4AA.”
Wigod said the CIF-SS office is looking at having some sports where teams are seeded by program strength, with league affiliation and enrollment having little to do with playoff division placement. He hopes to have a format to present to CIF-SS member schools within the next two years.
“We could rank the schools from 1-300, with the top 60 in Division 1, the next 60 in Division 2 and so on,” Wigod said. “We’re actively looking at that for the next round of playoff groupings. We’re already starting to compile data and playoff results to show to our schools.”
FOOTBALL PLAYOFFS
The CIF-SS office is putting together recommendations for playoff division groupings for the 2014-15 and 2015-16 school years. Significant changes could happen in football. The Pacific Coast League has been dominant in the Southern Division, and the Sunset League has been as well in its two years in the Southwest Division after being dropped from the top-tier Pac-5 Division.
“I can’t talk much about specifics,” Wigod said. “Every two years we look at performance, where we think equity needs to be achieved. Sometimes that means moving somebody up, or keeping somebody in the same division and making that division tougher.
“We’ll look at the Pacific Coast League and the division it’s been in or the Sunset League and the divisions it’s been in. Do we toughen those divisions or move those people out? That’s what we have to look at.”
TRANSFERS
Some transfer eligibility rules are easy to understand, like a student-athlete making a valid change of residence or, if no such move is made, sitting out the first month of the season to become athletically eligible at the new school. Some are difficult, particularly the one that is in the CIF-SS Constitution as Rule 206 C (10) – athletically motivated transfer.
It would seem that every transfer of a student-athlete is at least partially athletically motivated. But only a small number of athletic-eligibility attempts get the “athletically motivated” examination.
“‘Athletically motivated’ comes into play,” Wigod said, “when information comes to us, and primarily that information comes from the school the student left which is looking at the athletically motivated by-law and has the obligation to report if they think the move was athletically motivated. The (athletically motivated) by-law is very clear about things like dissatisfaction with the coach, with the former program.”
Applications of the athletically motivated tag and how they are judged in eligibility appeals seem inconsistent.
“They are inconsistent,” Wigod said. “I get frustrated by that, too, because I want people to know, at the very least, that we’re consistent. People expect that of us, they want us to be consistent and I want us to be consistent, too.”
Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com
