State Finals Predictions

[Norcal_Fan]

Open
Mitty vs. Etiwanda

D1
Oakland Tech vs. Santiago

D2
Central vs. Bonita Vista

D3
Colfax vs. Los Osos

D4
San Domenico vs. Shalhevet

D5
Bret Harte vs. Marina

Looks like a great lineup of games but to be honest, don't now much about the Socal teams aside from Etiwanda and Santiago. Good luck this weekend!

 

[NCallie1]

Open
Mitty vs. Etiwanda

D1
Oakland Tech vs. Santiago

D2
Central vs. Bonita Vista

D3
Colfax vs. Los Osos

D4
San Domenico vs. Shalhevet

D5
Bret Harte vs. Marina

Looks like a great lineup of games but to be honest, don't now much about the Socal teams aside from Etiwanda and Santiago. Good luck this weekend!

When healthy Bonita Vista is a good team. They have wins over Clovis and SRV this season. BV should be a D1 team. They should take care of Central.

 

[carlmerritt]

Open: Mitty 70, Etiwanda 66.

D1: Oakland Tech 82, Santiago 78.

D2: Bonita Vista 67, Central 59.

D3: Colfax 55, Los Osos 53.

D4: Shalhevet 60, San Domenico 55.

D5: Bret Harte 62, Marina 56.

 

[cptmycpa]

Interesting detail about Los Osos playing against Colfax at the D3 level.
Source: The Sacramento Bee Sports section, dated Thursday, 3/9/2023.

"This includes Colfax. The Falcons will play Southern California Regional champion Los Osos of Rancho Cucamonga of San Bernardino County at 2 p.m. Friday at Golden 1 Center. The Grizzlies (28-5) come from a campus of nearly 3,000 (2,954) students. Colfax has 660 students but has shown it can compete with anyone. The striking difference in enrollment is tied to the CIF’s “competitive-equity” state-playoff model in which enrollment does not outweigh the strength of a program, based on scheduling and championship success. Before competitive equity came into play in 2018, regional playoff games were often lopsided. They have since mostly been games to the wire. Colfax lives for that sort of thing."

Thus, using Sac-Joaquin Section enrollment figures, Los Osos would be placed in D1. But due to competitive equity, is placed in D3 for the playoffs, while Colfax is playing up one level, from D4 to D3 using enrollment figures. The largest enrollment of any Sac-Joaquin Section school is Lincoln-Stockton with 2,970 students. Southern Section high schools commonly have over 3,500 students, such as Etiwanda (3,636), Santiago (3,589), Poly-Long Beach (4,002), and Granada Hills (5,462).

I understand why a small private school (e.g. Mitty, Pinewood, Carondelet, Salesian) would play one, two or three divisions up for the playoffs using competitive equity, but public school vs. public school in the above example doesn't appear to be equitable. Which makes it even more astonishing how good "public school" Colfax is competing against Los Osos--also a public school more than 4 1/2 times larger.

 

[GBBall4L]

Colfax must have a special group of girls

 

[NCallie1]

Colfax must have a special group of girls

It's very impressive Colfax seems to put together respectable teams season after season.

 

[northbaybbguru]

Colfax looks to be at the correct level to me. Los Osos and their 3k students is the misplaced team. Ill argue it until Im blue in the face there should be a floor on how low these huge schools can be dropped. D3/D4/D5 competitive equity gift placements shouldnt be happening.

 

[kiddman32]

I agree about that enrollment- size floor idea….

Said so on the boys’ forum.

I also put for the idea that really small schools, if they have a huge amount of success, like say 2 D5 state finals appearances in a row or 3 finals in 5 years, should be moved up a level, especially privates that can draw in players from all over.

With these slight tweaks, the equity model could work quite well.

 

[Streak One]

The thing is that enrollment based divisions actually work ok for a large portion of the state. And you can put in parameters for moving teams up (NorCal finals appearances, NorCal titles, state titles, etc). That would push up old outliers like St Mary’s Stockton in D3, Mitty D2, Pinewood D5, O’Dowd D3, etc. But by trying to change a system to get around those small issues, it has thrown it into a new world where nobody knows where they are playing or even how to control it.

 

[ClayK]

If you push teams up to Division 1 because of success, then the existing D1 teams are squeezed out of their opportunities to succeed.

 

[GBBall4L]

If you push teams up to Division 1 because of success, then the existing D1 teams are squeezed out of their opportunities to succeed.

But if the existing D1 teams aren't competing at that level how will they succeed?

 

[ClayK]

But they are. So you're American High School, say, and by enrollment, you're one of the top four or five teams in Division I. Let's say three D-1 teams get bumped into the Open. Now you're one of the top two with a good shot at a NorCal berth.

But wait. Suddenly Bishop O'Dowd is D-1. And Salesian. And Cardinal Newman is on the way. All three of those teams aren't going Open, so now you're stuck. The lower divisions got rid of their competition, but there's nowhere else for the powerhouses to go.

Your only hope is that five or six teams go from D-1 to the Open to give you a fair shot at NorCals. And then you have to play well.

 

[GBBall4L]

But they are. So you're American High School, say, and by enrollment, you're one of the top four or five teams in Division I. Let's say three D-1 teams get bumped into the Open. Now you're one of the top two with a good shot at a NorCal berth.

But wait. Suddenly Bishop O'Dowd is D-1. And Salesian. And Cardinal Newman is on the way. All three of those teams aren't going Open, so now you're stuck. The lower divisions got rid of their competition, but there's nowhere else for the powerhouses to go.

Your only hope is that five or six teams go from D-1 to the Open to give you a fair shot at NorCals. And then you have to play well.

So maybe it's either "Move Up" to the Open Division or stay in your division. If too many teams from one division get moved to Open then that could create another problem. Tough problem.