Legislative Council notebook: 4A basketball staying at 23 games

Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com

AURORA — Ultimately, it never even went to a vote.

A proposal which sought to reduce the maximum number of allowed games in Class 4A basketball from 23 to 19 was withdrawn before any action even took place during Tuesday’s Legislative Council meeting. The Northern League, which originally submitted the proposal, moved to withdraw the proposal during the meeting and there were no objections.

“The basketball committee continues to look at maximum number of games, and sent out a survey to member schools,” said CHSAA assistant commissioner Bert Borgman, who oversees basketball. “By a 60-40 margin, the 4A schools indicated that 23 games is their preferred choice. But more than that, the current bylaw allows for the basketball committee to develop a format that would limit 4A schools to 19 games, if that is the will of the membership.”

Similarly, the Northern League’s proposal which would have reduced volleyball to 19 matches was withdrawn. The sport, too, will stay at a maximum of 23 contests.

“The volleyball committee has worked really hard and is very proud of the current format, including the length of the regular season,” said Bethany Brookens, a CHSAA assistant commissioner who oversees volleyball.

Additionally, the slight alteration to the match order at volleyball’s state championships was approved.

5A football seeding committee removed; 8-man gets rid of cross-divisionals

At December’s football committee meeting, Class 5A programs went away from using Wild Card points to determine playoff qualifiers. Instead, they installed a seeding  committee made up seven administrators, one from each league.

However, that seeding committee was removed at the Legislative Council meeting Tuesday. A replacement solution to determine postseason qualification in 5A football could come at the next Legislative Council meeting in April. If it doesn’t, that would mean returning to Wild Card points and the process used in past years.

The 5A schools will meet prior to the April meeting to determine if another qualification format is better. That could be another seeding committee, or another format altogether.

While discussing the football committee Tuesday, 8-man football changed the way its playoff qualifiers are determined. Instead of using cross-over games, which matched the top four teams from each division against one another, qualifiers will be determined by a new criteria.

Included is automatic qualification for league champions, as well as a complex set of ways to fill out the rest of the 16-team field. For a full breakdown, see this amendment (.pdf), which was passed.

Elsewhere:

• The format for girls soccer’s Class 2A was approved. It will have a 12-team postseason, moving 3A from a 32-team bracket to 24 teams. 2A will begin play in the spring of 2015, meaning girls soccer will have classes 2A, 3A, 4A and 5A. This change does not affect boys soccer, which has 3A, 4A and 5A.
• File this away for later: A proposal passed which gives CHSAA discretion to add a classification “based on the growth of the CHSAA membership.” This paves the way for an additional class, such as 6A, to be added down the road. We wrote about the details of adding a sixth classification over the summer.
• There were two changes to the Classification and League Organizing Committee report: Alameda moved from the 4A Jeffco League to the Colorado 7 League and Valor Christian from the 5A Jeffco to the 4A Jeffco. Both of those moves pertain to non-football sports. In Valor’s case, the move was made because the Eagles are competing in the 4A postseason.
• An amendment to the constitution passed which will not allow schools that offer specialized sport training to become CHSAA member schools. However, students at those schools will be allowed to participate in athletics at other schools.
• Teams that play down a classification based upon a lack of success will still be allowed to compete for a state championship. A proposal sought to not allow that, but was shot down. This issue was originally raised in part because Coronado won the 3A football title while playing down last fall.