High School Girls Basketball

BY ADAM RONIS

I'm all for competitive basketball. Who wants to see Knicks-Celtics? Unless, of course, you have some members of those teams on you fantasy team. (Unfortunately, the only Celtic I have is Rajon Rando. Just get steals and feed Kevin Garnett!!!). Or you like to see destruction. Anyway, no one likes to see 64-22 girls basketball games either.

Nassau is trying to eliminate those lopsided scores in all sports and has gone to ability-based grouping. It's an interesting concept that will provide great games just about every night this season in girls basketball. The problem I have is with the setup.

Lets try and simplify it. Basically, teams are seeded before the season. So in the AA, the top five teams are in the same division and seeds 6-10 are in the same division. The teams play division opponents twice and crossover to the other division for one game. All these 10 teams are guaranteed playoff spots. That's right, it doesn't matter what happens in the regular season, these team are in.

So what's the point of the regular season? Start the playoffs today. There has to be a better way to institute ability-based grouping. Here's a hypothetical situation (Don't get mad Syosset. You are just an example!). Syosset is seeded fifth. It potentially could go 0-13. Regardless, Syosset can't be seeded worse than five in the postseason. Is anyone outraged this? Shouldn't you have to earn a postseason berth? Doesn't hard work account for anything? It's like giving a student an A before the semester begins based on their previous semester's track record. (I wouldn't be opposed to that if I was back in school.)

Then there's subjectivity when determining the seeds. It's based on the success of the team over the past few seasons. This year's seeds were done before the summer. Things have changed since that time. For example, Elmont lost Ariel Edwards, who transferred to Christ the King. That could have potentially changed its seed. If you go by population, like most states do, there's nothing to quarrel over. What if a team loses two top players to injuries? Say that team can't be seeded worse than five. Obviously, that team is vastly different. That's why you can't have this system.

The rule is a team can't be seeded above another team in a higher conference. So a team in Class AA Conference 2 can't be seeded ahead of a team in Conference 1. The No.1-5 teams will all get the top seeds based on how they finish the season.

This one really emphasizes the point of how ludicrous this system is. In Class B, Wheatley already knows its seed and who it will play in the first round of the playoffs. No joke. Wheatley is the two seed and will play No. 3 Locust Valley in the semifinals.

Class A, B, and C are seeded together. Malverne, a B school, is the second seed in this group and will play only A schools during its league schedule. Three teams in Class B are vying for the final spot and four seed.

Again, I am going to love seeing Massapequa-Elmont twice and Hicksville-Calhoun twice. But the way it is set up with guaranteed playoff spots and seeds is not ideal. The other side will say how can you penalize a team for playing in a tough division. There could be a real good team that has a poor record because of its arduous schedule that is way better than a team seeded below them. That's true, but the regular season has to mean something.

We'll see what happens and how it plays out this season, but I think the system needs tweaking. What do you think?