HoopsCoach

I considered suggesting Huntington North. They have a brand new facility and I’m sure they would be eager to host a tournament game to showcase their investment. However, I went with Norwell because it is less time and miles for BOTH Luers and Bluffton to go to Norwell compared to HN. Luers to Huntington North - 33 minutes, 26 miles Bluffton to Huntington North - 39 minutes, 25 miles Luers to Norwell - 24 minutes, 17 miles Bluffton to Norwell - 16 minutes, 9 miles

Who pays it for state tournament events in every other sport? Bellmont does not have turf. Travel twice as far? It’s 25 minutes to go from Luers to Norwell. It’s 18 minutes from Bluffton to Norwell. I could see an argument if it was 2 hours for one school and only an hour for their opponent. Not a difference of 7 minutes.

All good. You’re not wrong about those in Wells County that carry some deep hatred, even within the same family.

I’m from Wells County. Norwell and Bluffton (and Southern Wells) aren’t as hateful towards each other as some may think. Maybe some in their communities hold some animosity, but their school leaders seem to work together just fine. This is obviously hypothetical and will not happen any time soon. Just posting this for fun/discussion.

Here are my hypothetical neutral site regionals for this year. Single games played on Friday night, all at locations with turf fields. 6A Lafayette Jeff/Carroll (FW) @ Marion Hamilton Southeastern/Westfield @ Carmel Brownsburg/Cathedral @ Ben Davis Warren Central/Center Grove @ Southport 5A Merrillville/Valparaiso @ Hobart Mishawaka/Snider @ Warsaw Plainfield/Whiteland @ Perry Meridian Bloomington South/Castle @ Jasper 4A New Prairie/Northridge @ SB St. Joe Columbia City/Kokomo @ Mississinewa Roncalli/New Palestine @ Franklin Central East Central/Evansville Memorial @ Bloomington North 3A West Lafayette/Knox @ Logansport Yorktown/Chatard @ Pendleton Heights Monrovia/Owen Valley @ Martinsville Lawrenceburg/Southridge @ Charlestown 2A Andrean/Central Catholic @ Crown Point Luers/Bluffton @ Norwell Linton/Lapel @ Greencastle Triton Central/Mater Dei @ Mitchell 1A North Judson/Park Tudor @ Harrison (WL) Carroll (Flora)/Adams Central @ Oak Hill Sheridan/North Decatur @ Mount Vernon (Fortville) Lutheran/Providence @ Seymour

The same thing it would take to remove AC from the conference. No need to change the districts with open enrollment. SW already gets a few students from Pennville and the NW corner of Jay County. They also get some from Warren. They get a bunch from Montpelier, especially now that Montpelier Elementary has closed. Many families in Montpelier have chosen to send to SW instead of staying in district and going to Blackford. The enrollment at SW from within their district has declined as you would expect with some families moving to cities to be closer to jobs. The only way the school has maintained their enrollment is by accepting from outside the district. Montpelier, Warren, and Pennville are not towns with a substantial number of strong athletes, so SW athletic programs aren’t really benefiting. They are just helping with funding enough to keep the school going.

True that WL is not your average 3A school. They have the advantage of being a relatively small district located in an urban area that attracts an affluent population which values higher education. They are more like a private school than a small town/community school, which is what the rest of the conference is other than Central Catholic. They have similar demographics to what you see in their Catholic rivals across the river, and they are in a college town with easier access to more training and higher level competition in youth sports. Every school in the Hoosier Conference other than West Side and Central Catholic has rural areas of their district and relatively small population centers. West Side and Central Catholic are able to pull from a population center with over 100,000 people. Most of the smaller rural communities that make up the rest of the conference don’t have that luxury. Western pulls a lot from Kokomo and Hamilton Heights may get some families that don’t want to go to the 6A schools in Hamilton County. West Side is probably more like Mishawaka Marian, Andrean, Chatard, and Brebeuf than Twin Lakes, Benton Central, Rensselaer, and Cass. West Lafayette would fit in well as a member of the North Central Conference.

I don’t think either school would leave their current conference. West Lafayette would be slightly more likely to consider it than Lebanon in my opinion, but neither would go for it. My suggestion is very unrealistic.

I’ve posted this on another forum, and I know it’s more unrealistic fantasy booking, but here it is anyway. I’d like to see the NCC expand with several more schools and split into 2 divisions that function as their own separate conferences. Keep the NCC name and “Conference of Champions” moniker since that is really the only thing that keeps the conference alive. With the cost of transportation, a conference with the geographic footprint of the NCC is more of a burden than a benefit. So bring in some slightly smaller schools that can compete with the current NCC members that are located within or close to the current footprint of the NCC. Something like this: NCC East Marion Mississinewa Jay County Delta Muncie Central Yorktown Anderson Richmond NCC West Kokomo Western Logansport Lebanon McCutcheon Lafayette Jeff West Lafayette Harrison

Muncie Central, Delta, and Yorktown - possibly. Centerville - very unlikely. I think Oak Hill is even less likely to join that group than Centerville. They are a very good fit in the CIC and they would be foolish to choose to leave for a conference that would double their travel. It would be interesting to see several of those schools form a new conference of large 3A, 4A, and small 5A members centered around Muncie. Throw out NCC history (the biggest obstacle to this) and go with Delta, Jay County, Muncie Central, Yorktown, Mississinewa, Marion, Anderson, and Richmond. New Castle would be a great fit instead of Anderson, but I think there are still some hard feelings over New Castle leaving the NCC. If Jay County doesn’t think they can compete, then give the Trojans an invite. Anderson might be interested in taking their place in the Hoosier Heritage, and the HHC might consider the Indians if they lose Delta, Yorktown, and New Castle. As much as I like fantasy booking, none of this will actually happen.

There was a stretch of about 10-15 years around the late 90’s up to 2010 or so when the south side of Lafayette experienced a housing boom and became the trendy part of Tippecanoe County to move to. They were pulling athletes from Jeff, and Harrison wasn’t seeing the growth in their district yet. That trend on the south side stopped with the housing market taking a dump about 12-15 years ago. The families that moved in during their growth period had kids that made up the really strong classes they had up to around 2019. As the housing market recovered, most of the new construction in Tippecanoe County in the past 10 years has been in the Harrison district (note their enrollment growth to over 2000). Many of the young families that have moved to those homes in Harrison’s district now have children that are getting to high school, and their talent pool has improved to the point that they have the best athletic program in the NCC. Jeff has turned things around a bit with keeping their athletes from leaving (as well as poaching a few from the TSC district). McCutcheon doesn’t have a lot of talent in the pipeline compared to Jeff and Harrison, but they will still be very competitive in certain sports (see Volleyball and their connections to club volleyball programs). West Side will always have an abundance of talent with a small but affluent district that resembles the demographics of Central Catholic.

Yes, the DOE lists the BD 9th grade center as a separate school in their data and on their INview site (which sucks), so they only list the BD enrollment for grades 10-12.

You are mistaking. Carmel and BD have been #1 and #2 for around 15 years. Both have had over 4000 students since 2007. Warren Central has been close to 4000, but never over. Carmel 5327 Ben Davis 4557 Warren Central 3868

Yes. I know this is a football forum, but my view of conference changes is based upon the entirety of the school programs. Football and boys basketball tend to be the “bread winners” of the athletic family and often drive the discussion of conference moves, but conference changes need to be made with all programs in mind unless it is a sport specific conference. It’s not always easy for AD’s and administrators to get coaches to understand that. Their views are naturally going to be focused on the impact of any moves on their program, and sometimes AD’s and admin allow them to have too much of a voice. If they are a good coach, AD’s often listen because they don’t want to risk losing them.

I get that, which is why I said “None of these will work out this way.” There are lots of things that would stand in the way of some of these conferences changing and looking like what I listed. There are more realistic changes I could see happening, and changes I would prefer to see instead of what I posted. Here are a couple examples: Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference Avon Ben Davis Franklin Central Lawrence Central Lawrence North North Central Pike Warren Central Hoosier Crossroads Conference Brownsburg Carmel Center Grove Fishers Hamilton Southeastern Noblesville Westfield Zionsville

Fantasy booking some Central Indiana conferences a few years down the road. None of these will work out this way. Just some ideas. For football, Center Grove could still play Warren Central week 1, Carmel week 2, and Cathedral week 9 if they are in a 7 team conference as listed below. Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference Ben Davis Indianapolis Arsenal Tech Lawrence Central Lawrence North North Central Pike Warren Central Hoosier Crossroads Conference Avon Brownsburg Fishers Hamilton Southeastern Noblesville Westfield Zionsville Conference Indiana Center Grove Franklin Central Columbus North Southport Decatur Central Plainfield Whiteland Mid-Indiana Conference Mooresville Martinsville Terre Haute North Terre Haute South Bloomington South Bloomington North Franklin Community Perry Meridian Hoosier Heritage Conference Shelbyville Greenwood Mount Vernon Pendleton Heights Greenfield-Central New Palestine New Castle Beech Grove Indiana Crossroads Conference Speedway Monrovia Ritter Lutheran Triton Central Indian Creek Covenant Christian Scecina North Central Conference - West Lafayette Jeff McCutcheon Harrison (WL) West Lafayette Logansport Kokomo Western Lebanon North Central Conference - East Marion Mississinewa Delta Yorktown Jay County Muncie Central Anderson Richmond Independent Carmel Indianapolis Cathedral

Don’t forget that Luers, the smallest SAC school (*private school), just shared the conference championship with Carroll last season.

The NCC plays varsity Friday night, followed by JV and/or Freshman games on Saturday. Usually late morning and early afternoon for the JV/Freshman games. Occasionally a Monday evening game will be played, but they are normally on Saturdays.

I honestly don’t think the requirement to be willing to host is necessary - just an idea and I agree that it would be unlikely to have support from the IHSAA board. If the IHSAA would simply give schools more of an incentive to host, I think a lot more would be willing. Covering the cost of hosting and letting the host keep concession revenue just doesn’t make it worth the effort for an AD to want their school to host. Spreading more of the wealth from tourney revenues to host schools, and giving more schools a chance to pull in some of those revenues by letting them host (instead of the same schools that have admin on the IHSAA executive committee always hosting when others are willing) would help incentivize hosting and maybe eliminate any need to mandate hosting.

It’s definitely possible. I think Ohio has a rule that requires a school to be willing to host any round of the tournament to be eligible to host any games. I doubt that the executive committee would push for that here. I prefer the 2 games at 1 site on Saturday format like we have for basketball. I’ll just use this past season as an example. Here’s what it could have looked like. @Elkhart New Prairie/Northridge Andrean/Eastside @Warsaw Brebeuf/Marian North Judson/Adams Central @Lafayette Jeff Merrillville/Westfield Michigan City/Zionsville @Franklin Central Center Grove/Ben Davis Indy Lutheran/Tri @Bloomington South Mount Vernon/Evansville Memorial Scecina/Mater Dei @Bloomington North Cathedral/New Albany Tri-West/Gibson Southern

Not trying to pat myself on the back, but I did this enrollment thing a hell of a lot better than the IHSAA did. All they need to do is ask and I can take care of it for them. They have my number.

There is already a growing enrollment disparity between the 4 largest and 4 smallest of the 8 current Mid-State members. The addition of Southport and Columbus North would only escalate it. I would expect Greenwood and possibly Martinsville to consider leaving if this became a reality. Greenwood is a landlocked school district that relies on out-of-district transfers for any growth. Martinsville continues to lose enrollment to families leaving for Center Grove. Greenwood’s application to the Hoosier Heritage Conference would probably be submitted immediately after the approval of what you are suggesting. If new membership requires unanimous approval from current members, I would expect Greenwood and Martinsville to block these additions. Southport 2379 Perry Meridian 2373 Columbus North 2219 Whiteland 2012 Decatur Central 2001 Plainfield 1810 Bloomington South 1655 Bloomington North 1592 Franklin Community 1571 Mooresville 1391 Martinsville 1284 Greenwood 1186

It wasn’t Delta. It was Mississinewa.

Haven’t seen anything official, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the IHSAA delays reclassification for one more year.

IHSAA just rubber stamps the recommendations of the alignment committees. The committees are usually made up of AD’s or administrators from schools in that class, so all it would take is one person on the alignment committee that doesn’t want Ben Davis in their path. If, for example, a Warren Central admin is on the 6A committee and decides they don’t want to play both BD and CG in the tournament, putting them in the same sectional solves that problem. And don’t think it hasn’t happened. It does in almost every alignment cycle.