A modest proposal -- well, two actually

[ClayK]

First, the ideal: CIF reforms itself into four east-to-west sections. Then each section adopts the same rules (for start of practice, number of games, postseason seeding).

Each section sends its top four into NorCals and SoCals, except maybe the Open, which could be a maximum of 16 but whatever number seems right.

Then the seeding meeting would be a) streamlined and b) freer of intersectional politics (vote for my D3 boys team and I'll take care of your D2 girls).

The real world. There is no good system. Nothing will work perfectly. There will always be 16 seeds and 1 seeds, or schools that miss or make enrollment numbers by a few students.

1) Eliminate enrollment divisions entirely. The season begins as a blank slate.

2) Plus-.500 record in league or overall qualifies a team for sectional playoffs.

3) Sections have two committees, one for boys and for girls. They rank all qualifiers 1 to whatever using primarily body of work but factoring in power rankings (injuries, etc.) Each section has an Open division. (SF and Oakland are folded into CCS and NCS, respectively.) They submit a ranked list to the CIF committees.

4) There are four CIF committees: Boys and girls for NorCal, and boys and girls for SoCal. They meet twice: Once before the last week of the sectional playoffs to get a rough idea of the landscape, and hear about injuries, etc., and once on the traditional Sunday.

Teams are ranked solely by competitive equity. And 16 seeds are unlucky; 1 seeds are lucky. Nothing you can do ...

 

[Norcal_Fan]

I like the +500 record in the league or overall. The problem with doing away with enrollment divisions is how are people going to know who to play? I think strength of schedule MUST be a factor when determining seedings for sections and most definately for Norcals. Maxpreps is SO FLAWED (and no, have no way to fix it) in its rankings that it's almost comical and what is more comical, is how much the Norcal committee leans on them to seed teams.

IF they really want to do competitive equity, the section administrators should not be ANYWHERE near the seeeding table. They probably have VERY limited knowledge of basketall and even less when it comes to the girls side.

 

[ClayK]

Scheduling is always complicated, but it's not hard for coaches to figure out where they stand, or might stand.

And yes the MaxPreps algorithm isn't perfect, but after a full season, I've found it's pretty accurate. (No algorithm can take into account all the variables, especially given the difficult in getting in-depth data.) As a head coach, I always used last year's MaxPrep rating and my research into who was returning to do my schedule. Enrollment divisions had little to do with it (except to schedule really bad teams from a higher division when they used division records to seed); it's about setting up a schedule that helps my team get better.

For example, if I were looking at Campolindo for 2024-25, I would start by looking at this year's final ranking, which is 48. The 48th ranked team would be in the middle of D3 with no enrollment factors.

So where do I think my team will be next year? Let's say I think we improve up to 35. OK, now I look at the teams right around 35, and start thinking about which ones will get better and which ones will get worse. These are the teams I'm likely to be competing with for seeds.

Then I can apply my own philosophy about scheduling -- go for wins, say, over strength of schedule; avoid playing teams I might play in postseason -- to that information.

I don't think it really changes things that much, except now you can't schedule three horrible teams in your division to make sure you have a .500 record in one category.