Volleyball committee exploring possible changes to postseason format

Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com

AURORA — The volleyball committee met on Tuesday, and while nothing changed for next season, the group is exploring potential changes to the postseason format down the line.

They committee ultimately created a subcommittee that will be tasked with looking at the postseason. Among things that subcommittee will consider:

• Keeping the pool play format at state, or moving to a bracket.
• The structure of the regional tournaments, as well as the district tournaments at the 1A and 2A levels.
• The location of the state tournament, currently held at the Denver Coliseum.
• The number of days the state tournament runs. Right now, it’s held over two days.
• Geography and travel, and the role they play in the postseason.
• The potential of adding a Class 6A in the near future, and what that would look like.

The subcommittee will likely meet in early 2017, and then forward any recommendation to the volleyball committee to consider at its meeting next November.

“We are hoping to spend a year getting feedback across the state with regard to the improvements that can be made to our state tournament and postseason, as well as any ideas on what our state tournament would look like if we were to move to six classifications,” said Bethany Brookens, the CHSAA assistant commissioner who oversees volleyball.

But that’s not to say changes will definitely be made to the postseason structure.

“It’s not a guarantee we’re going to be making any changes,” Brookens said. “We’re only reviewing the whole format and seeing if there are better ways to do things than the way we currently are.”

The committee did have a thorough conversation about the RPI formula, and lengthy discussion about whether or not the percentages in the formula needed to change. But the group ultimately unanimously voted to keep it at the current percentage split of 25 for winning percentage, 50 for opponents’ winning percentage and 25 for opponents’ opponents’ winning percentage. They did want to review the data again after next season, however.

The committee did change the start time of the championship matches from 7 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on the Saturday of the state tournament. This was made because over the course of the past couple of years, the finals have consistently been delayed by late-running semifinals.

The volleyball committee report will need to be approved by the Legislative Council in January.