scarab527

Trust me, I agree with you about participation trophies. I just don’t think those considerations apply in this situation.

Lol that’s all you needed to say.

No kid on a 1-8 team believes they have ‘earned’ a playoff spot. But if that 1-8 team wins a sectional, however unlikely that may be, they earned that trophy.

How is it an “everyone gets a trophy mentality” when every player knows they have to win 2-3 games to get a trophy?

I mean, Valpo is white-collar, and they’re one of the best programs in the region. Andrean has many white-collar families as well. White collar demographics don’t seem to hurt Carmel or Westfield either. “Softness” isn’t exclusive to either white collar or blue collar people.

I mean the DAC was down in those years, but CP still beat Merrillville all three times in the playoffs. They lost to Penn in the regional in 2016 + 2017 and Valpo in 2018, all very good teams at the time. They lost by 1 to a Merrillville team that won the regional by 2 touchdowns in 2019. Either way, winning 3 6A sectionals in a row and nearly a 4th is nothing to sneeze at. And I think you’re being too hard on Merrillville and Hobart.

Crown Point won 3 straight sectionals from 2016-2018, and nearly beat Merrillville to make it 4 in a row last year. They had a rebuilding year this year, but I would hardly say they’re a bad program. LC has many issues that we’ve discussed previously. While I agree there’s more to it than pure population, I think it’s hard to doubt that the population explosion the Indy area has experience the last 20 years has factored into that area distancing itself from the Region in terms of sports success.

While I think this proposal could help raise the level of competition within the NCC, I’m skeptical it would do much to close the gap with the Indy schools. To be honest, the only thing I see closing that gap is if the Region starts experiencing some population growth. I think that this actually could happen post-covid, as people could be looking to get out of Illinois. But until some sustained population growth starts happening in the Region, the skill gap between us and Indy in high school athletics will continue to grow.

I know they did, but they took them off the schedule this year to play a team from Illinois for better competition until covid happened. And not Cedartucky anymore? Well maybe I’ll have to come give it a look after all.

River Forest nearly closed just a few years ago. If that happened, I’d imagine some kids would go to Hobart, some to Lake Station. Can’t see any other consolidation happening in the area.

The problem is the NCC has enough of those games to begin with.

Andrean was not going to play Noll this year, regardless of covid. And I am aware Andrean played Hanover those years, and there’s a reason they took them off the schedule. As for going down to Cedartucky, well it’d take a lot more than a basketball game to get me down there.

Exactly. The NCC has huge competitive balance issues in multiple sports, and without addressing these issues, I could see the conference dissolving soon.

Congrats to Hanover on being competitive in a loss to a terrible team. Also, Andrean hasn’t played Noll in football in about 5 years. Hanover beating mediocre basketball programs like Hobart and KV doesn’t impress me either. Andrean is coming off a state run recently and could be gearing up for another, and Munster is one of the best programs in state. If Lowell wants to play their own geographic rival, they can, with one of their non-conference slots. Hobart and Andrean do not want to have to play Hanover in football. I stand by my statement that Hanover would be mediocre in every sport in the NCC, they would not be able to compete with the top teams in each sport.

I stand corrected on Lowell/Morton then, but Andrean and Hobart would benefit from playing them. This move would be about much more than Lowell, I don’t know why you’re so fixated on then. And Hanover beating Munster means nothing, they were one of the worst teams in the entire state. Hanover also lost to an absolutely terrible Portage team this year. They went 9-2 playing an utterly terrible schedule. They would not be able to compete with Andrean, Hobart, or Lowell in football. I doubt they could compete with Munster or Andrean in basketball. They might not be a doormat, but they’d be mediocre at best.

I wouldn’t hold my breath on Highland. That program hasn’t been able to get on the right direction forever it seems like. Shame to see what’s happened to Munster.

Dwenger was 5A the last cycle and got the 2 points necessary to stay up. They will be 5A for this cycle. I saw in the enrollment thread that Valpo is projected to be in 5A for the next cycle, but that could be wrong.

I believe both Dwenger and Valpo will still be in 5A next year.

I still feel like Andrean, Hobart, and Lowell gain enough from their non-conference games that they’d resist an attempt to go to closed, round robin format, even though it would be simpler and reduce travel. In all fairness, most of the posters posting in this thread are Region guys.

Closed conferences are boring.

The original conversation has been sidetracked by this discussion of Lowell playing Hanover, which I’ll still say could get done, Lowell doesn’t have to play Portage, and Hanover has out of conference game slots available, the GSSC is not a closed conference. Also, if I remember right, Lowell only ever plays Morton in the playoffs, which won’t happen now that Morton will be in 5A. I’m sure Lowell would rather play Morton in the regular season than Portage or Griffith. But back to the original conversation, we were talking about the entirety of the NCC and whether the Hammond schools or HC and Wheeler would be a better fit. The NCC is a mid-large school conference of 4/5A teams with P/P Andrean. Hanover and Wheeler are 3 and 2A, respectively. They would be doormats in probably every sport in the NCC. They would never contend in football. Whereas Morton would be a great addition to the conference in football, and they have good girls/boys basketball programs. What Hammond Central’s level of play in sports will be is yet to be seen, but I would find it hard to believe if they weren’t at worst as competitive as Hanover or Wheeler would be. From a size perspective, and very likely a competition perspective, adding the Hammond schools to the NCC makes much more sense than Hanover or Wheeler.

If Lowell’s priority was selling tickets, they’d have already scheduled HC. I guarantee the coaches at Andrean, Hobart, and Lowell would much rather play the Hammond Schools than HC or Wheeler. Not talking about fans, talking about competition.

I’d hate to see Lowell leave the NCC, and honestly I doubt they would. I don’t see them objecting to the Hammond schools joining, especially because they’d likely increase the level of football competition. I doubt anyone would shed a tear if KV left, and them leaving would definitely cut travel. As for EC and West Side, while I think they’d bring some competition into other sports, I don’t think they’d be good enough in football for Andrean, Hobart, and Lowell to want to bring them in. I still feel like the NCC is mainly a football conference, and the conference already has enough the competitive balance issues in that sport, I don’t think it would want to exacerbate that issue. I think EC and West Side joining the GSSC would make a little more sense. Lesser competition in football, good basketball with Noll and Marquette in the conference, seems like a good fit for those two schools.

No way the Hammond schools could bring less than Highland and KV are currently bringing though, right? I’d have to think they’d be competitive in boys/girls basketball and track/cross country as well.

I’ll take the under, looks like 3 would be the realistic number of repeat champions we could see next year. Another interesting question would be a 3.5 O/U on P/P champions for next year. On that one, I think I’d have to take the over.