5fouls

Jodie Whitaker was from Austin. Renee Westmoreland is who led Scottsburg to a single class title.

Here are the early computerized projections for next week's Girl's State Championship games. There seems to be a lack of evenly matched contests. If you are a geography buff, you'll make note that the team representing the North part of the state is predicted to win all 4 games.

I haven't watched 2 minutes of NBA this year. I just can't. Don't watch much college anymore either. But, I'll still make time for a good Big Ten game if I can.

I got no idea and frankly it pisses me off.

Silver Creek cheerleaders rarely go to an away game these days. They will for New Albany, Jeffersonville, or Charlestown. But, if we go to Seymour? Ain't happening. Chatard didn't bring cheerleaders to the semi-state game today. And, while I wasn't at all of our boy's home games this year, I have been to several. And, I think the band has been there maybe twice. The band is a critical component in the atmosphere for a high school game. Loved it when Rushville brought their band to the 3A girls regional last week.

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?

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.

Did Brayton go anywhere to play in college?

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.