MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[augiefan]

Thanks Dansand for the recruiting update. You've already commented on Carleton, Larson and Waller, but what do you know about the other 3 going to Augie. Waller is the only one I am familiar with, and he is an excellent recruit. I see Spenner is from Hoffman Estates, but I do not recall much about him, as I generally follow the Upstate 8 and the Fox Valley Conferences.

[dansand]

I don't know too much about the latest three. Steckel is a kid with Quad City ties. He was a deep reserve on Bettendorf's (IA) State championship team two years ago. He played last year at the small school level in Iowa. My guess is that he's a long-term project.

All I know about Spenner is what little I could find on the internet. Seems like a tall thin kid with a good perimeter game, possibly a Nate Swetalla-type?

Doetch is a kid who was apparently considering D2 champion Winona State as well as Lewis (pre-Trost). I've also seen a sight that had him committed to South Dakota. However, this link from Monday has him committing to Augie (where his brother, Jason, plays football). He was an IBCA Special Mention Class A All-State selection this past season.

http://www.rrstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060529/SPORTS/105290018

[Mac Attack]

Does anyone know of any basketball camps that might be hiring D3 players to help? I've seen players in the past who were floor monitors in the dorms, helped referee games, etc. Any information would help. Thanks!

[martin]

A bit of a rant – that is not really off topic.  Discussion of the IHSA pops up from time to time since the bulk of CCIW cagers play under the auspices of that august organization. 

I was looking at information about some recruits and noticed that the University of Chicago Lab School is in Class AA.  All this because of the multiplier for non-boundary schools.  They had a nice 18-8 season and could have done well in the Class A tournament.  Unfortunately, their enrollment of 480 was boosted to 792, just above the cutoff for class AA.  So they went into the regional with Simeon. 

In the coming year, Peoria Manual, winners of the Class AA championship from 1994 -97, are being dropped to Class A. (Note: To Manual's credit, they have asked the IHSA to classify the Rams as Class AA in the coming school year, the last one under the two class system).

One thing that happens with the multiplier is that when you boost some schools, others come down.  Under IHSA rules, 4/9 of the schools are AA and 5/9 are A.  So we have this remarkable situation where the nerdiest high school in the state has to compete with the big boys while one of the all time basketball powers gets to beat up on smaller schools.  Maybe enrollment should be adjusted for the number of kids with thick glasses and pocket protectors. 

All this because the small downstate schools are angry about Catholic schools winning so many state championships in football.  So multiply their enrollments and get them into bigger classes, removing some of the competition.  I think a lot of the complaints about Catholic schools are vestiges of the racism and anti-Catholic sentiment that was (is?)  pervasive in downstate Illinois.  I think the Mason Dixon line runs somewhere through Tinley Park.  Most Chicagoans know a lot more about Wisconsin than they know about their own state.  Outside the Chicago area, it is a southern state.  What went on in Cairo and other towns in "Little Egypt" was just as ugly as Selma and Birmingham.

I admire the Catholic schools (I am not Catholic). I have noticed that the only athletic teams that are truly integrated are the ones representing Catholic schools.  There is a lot of sacrifice (and money) on the part of parents to send their kids to Catholic schools.   So what are the perceived benefits of not having boundaries?   Probably the biggest benefit is the ability of Catholic schools to demand discipline (and get it) from all their students.

But the IHSA is a one school, one vote organization.  So all the small downstate schools with 150 students count just as much as say Stevenson with 4,600.  And they want a better chance at winning a championship trophy.  So they want four classes in basketball instead of a great two class system.  They should see what happened in Indiana when they went from one to four.  They want to get the strong Catholic schools out of their brackets, so multiply their enrollments.

They really hate the small inner city Catholic schools like Leo and Hales Franciscan.  Hales is not really good at its paperwork.  They are trying to save inner city black males (on a shoestring budget).  But the downstate schools do not like it when an all black team from Chicago is in the Class A tournament.

I thought high school sports were all about participating.  Maybe the IHSA should make another class for backward, ignorant schools.  At the end of each season, every school in that class would be declared a champion and get a trophy. 

[heatherfeather24]

A bit of a rant – that is not really off topic.  Discussion of the IHSA pops up from time to time since the bulk of CCIW cagers play under the auspices of that august organization. 

I was looking at information about some recruits and noticed that the University of Chicago Lab School is in Class AA.  All this because of the multiplier for non-boundary schools.  They had a nice 18-8 season and could have done well in the Class A tournament.  Unfortunately, their enrollment of 480 was boosted to 792, just above the cutoff for class AA.  So they went into the regional with Simeon. 

In the coming year, Peoria Manual, winners of the Class AA championship from 1994 -97, are being dropped to Class A. (Note: To Manual's credit, they have asked the IHSA to classify the Rams as Class AA in the coming school year, the last one under the two class system).

One thing that happens with the multiplier is that when you boost some schools, others come down.  Under IHSA rules, 4/9 of the schools are AA and 5/9 are A.  So we have this remarkable situation where the nerdiest high school in the state has to compete with the big boys while one of the all time basketball powers gets to beat up on smaller schools.  Maybe enrollment should be adjusted for the number of kids with thick glasses and pocket protectors. 

All this because the small downstate schools are angry about Catholic schools winning so many state championships in football.  So multiply their enrollments and get them into bigger classes, removing some of the competition.  I think a lot of the complaints about Catholic schools are vestiges of the racism and anti-Catholic sentiment that was (is?)  pervasive in downstate Illinois.  I think the Mason Dixon line runs somewhere through Tinley Park.  Most Chicagoans know a lot more about Wisconsin than they know about their own state.  Outside the Chicago area, it is a southern state.  What went on in Cairo and other towns in "Little Egypt" was just as ugly as Selma and Birmingham.

I admire the Catholic schools (I am not Catholic). I have noticed that the only athletic teams that are truly integrated are the ones representing Catholic schools.  There is a lot of sacrifice (and money) on the part of parents to send their kids to Catholic schools.   So what are the perceived benefits of not having boundaries?   Probably the biggest benefit is the ability of Catholic schools to demand discipline (and get it) from all their students.

But the IHSA is a one school, one vote organization.  So all the small downstate schools with 150 students count just as much as say Stevenson with 4,600.  And they want a better chance at winning a championship trophy.  So they want four classes in basketball instead of a great two class system.  They should see what happened in Indiana when they went from one to four.  They want to get the strong Catholic schools out of their brackets, so multiply their enrollments.

They really hate the small inner city Catholic schools like Leo and Hales Franciscan.  Hales is not really good at its paperwork.  They are trying to save inner city black males (on a shoestring budget).  But the downstate schools do not like it when an all black team from Chicago is in the Class A tournament.

I thought high school sports were all about participating.  Maybe the IHSA should make another class for backward, ignorant schools.  At the end of each season, every school in that class would be declared a champion and get a trophy. 

I can't really comment intelligently, except to state that I believe the Illinois Math & Science Academy is, in fact, nerdier than Lab.   

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I can't really comment intelligently, except to state that I believe the Illinois Math & Science Academy is, in fact, nerdier than Lab.

Now that is the kind of trash talk we need more of on this board.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Martin,

I wasn't aware of the 'multiplier' rule that IHSA uses (I wonder if they have ANY rational justification for the specific multiplier that they use?), but it does (clumsily?) address a problem that exists in Michigan as well.  To oversimplify: by-and-large, private and parochial schools can (and SOME do) recruit, public schools can't.

Many Michiganders are upset at the domination of such schools as Brother Rice, Detroit Central Catholic, Detroit Country Day, etc. (this is not true in all sports - Ann Arbor Pioneer, a public school and also the largest in Michigan, has a veritable monopoly on swimming and tennis, for both boys and girls).

Yes, the emphasis should be on participation, but the kids want (and deserve) a fair chance at winning, too.  Ypsilanti will never compete for a title in soccer or LAX, for example, because certain private schools have a near monopoly on potential professional athletes in those sports (but we DO have state-title-worthy track teams!) 

I have no solutions to offer.

[David Collinge]

In Tennessee, the public and private schools have separate administrative organizations and compete for separate championships.  In Alabama, there is a private school championship, although I believe the privates can opt to compete for the public school titles.

Of course, the difference between public and private schools in Tennessee or (especially) Alabama is not the same as the difference in Illinois or Michigan.  Although separating the publics from the privates is a solution to the problems of recruiting and unequal resources, that's not what motivated the separate (but equal?) classifications in southern states.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Of course, the difference between public and private schools in Tennessee or (especially) Alabama is not the same as the difference in Illinois or Michigan.  Although separating the publics from the privates is a solution to the problems of recruiting and unequal resources, that's not what motivated the separate (but equal?) classifications in southern states.

With a few noble exceptions, I'm not so sure that Illinois and Michigan schools are that different from Tennessee and Alabama.  Perhaps it is just a distortion from media attention, but some of the most prominent non-public schools in Michigan seem to have no (or VERY few) non-whites other than top athletes.

[Gregory Sager]

That's not the case in terms of Chicago Catholic schools, however. They tend to have very large minority enrollments, and we're talking general student population rather than merely the student-athlete pool. I don't know what the racial makeup of the prominent suburban Catholic football powers such as Providence Catholic and Joliet Catholic happens to be, but the Catholic basketball powers mentioned by Martin (Leo and Hales Franciscan) are either 100% black or close to it. The Catholic schools on the city's North Side tend to have significant numbers of Hispanic students.

Believe me, Chuck, the Catholic schools are not primarily being used as a white-flight mechanism within the city of Chicago. Perhaps they were in the past, but that's no longer the case -- at least not with the city's Catholic schools with which I'm familiar. More often than not, a parochial education is a means to have one's children escape Chicago's faltering public school system, and that parental desire is something that transcends racial boundaries. It also transcends religion, because schools such as Leo and Hales Franciscan cater to students who come from an ethnic group that is overwhelmingly Protestant. Chicago Catholic schools do tend to have significantly higher percentages of white students than do Chicago's public schools, but that's more a matter of religious and economic background than race. The city's non-sectarian private schools (e.g., Francis Parker and Chicago Latin) tend to be whiter than the Catholic schools. I don't know how the city's two Missouri Synod Lutheran high schools figure into this, although my guess is that they draw students from families that find the religious atmosphere of the schools appealing.

I can't speak to this issue where the suburbs are concerned, because I just don't know that much about suburban Catholic schools. But the truth of the matter is that there just aren't enough middle-income white kids left in the city of Chicago for there to be an effective white-flight reservoir of the type that DC was referring to in the South.

I agree with a lot of what Martin says, although I would hasten to point out that if someone is going to point the finger in terms of negative racial attitudes, it needs to be pointed at Chicagoans and suburbanites just as much as it does at downstaters. This is one of the most segregated cities in the United States in terms of whites and blacks (Hispanics complicate the demographic picture of the city somewhat). And much of suburban Chicagoland is the byproduct of the white flight of the 1960s and 1970s. Chicago and its suburbs obviously can't be tagged with an anti-Catholic bias, since the city has been heavily Catholic for 150 years and the suburbs followed suit once the city's Irish, Italian, Polish, Czech, etc., populations began to move out beyond the city limits over the past two generations. But there's enough backwardness and ignorance to go around in the state of Illinois.

While I find myself in agreement with Martin's general thesis that the enrollment multiplier and the IHSA's maddeningly stupid move from a two-class system for basketball to a four-class system are attempts by downstaters to tilt the playing field in their favor by sheer force of numbers, in the interests of fairness and equal time I'd like to see a downstater make a counter-argument here on CCIW Chat.

[dansand]

Augie has announced their full recruiting class:

http://www.augustana.edu/athletics/mbasketball/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1149195054&archive=&start_from=&ucat=4

Looks like a nice class. Coach G even landed a kid out of the Public League.

[Ralph Turner]

The University Interscholastic League in Texas has over 1200 schools, all but a handful are public.  The UIL sponsors competition is athletics, Music including Marching Band and Choir/Vocal performance, Academics including prose and poetry and one-act play amaong others.  It has 5 classification systems, and the breakpoints are when the enrollment has doubled, something like 0-200, 200 to 380, 380 to 875, 875 to 1800, 1800 to 4500.

I have no problem with a school district trying to compete among schools its own size.

[matblake]

I think that it is hard to get away from the fact that winning is more fun than losing.  People are going to try and give themselves the best chance to win.  I think that most people are going to fight what they think is best for their own kids, and not what is for the "general good" even if that is technically part of their job description.   The difficulty of these kinds of changes is that the long term consequences are not usually seen until everyone had adjusted to the new system.   

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

The best high school program I've seen was at a private school, but not one that recruited or even had a large player pool.  Their benefit came in having a K-12 program (not at one location, but under the same school board).

The coach of the varsity team worked to impliment his defense and offensive systems at every level (down to 5th grade) so that a majority of the players entering high school each year already had four years of "experience."  It proved very effective.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Dennis,

To be honest, I introduced the question on the other board precicely to avoid this sort of controversy.  Greg had nothing to do with it.

I happened to notice the karma plunge he was taking and realized that the numbers suggested that more than one person was involved.  I knew that it was admittedly a battle between you and April, but I was trying to call out the other party(ies) to come forward.

It was just a little investigation during the summer slow down.

I guess I typed all this to defend Greg, but since you drop his karma every morning already anway, it was probably wasted space.


Cheerio.