crimsonace1

NP was up 28-6 at halftime in that game, punctuated by one of the greatest runs I've ever seen by Charlie Spegal. New Pal largely grinded out the second half and ran out the clock. But, outside of the first-round game in the rain against Zionsville, it was the only game NP played that tournament that was decided by two scores. They were a juggernaut that year. That said, DC has had some *really* good teams but has had the misfortune to run into some generational teams. NP in 2018, Cathedral in 2019 (which in turn was wiped out by NP in the regional), and then maybe one of Cathedral's best-ever groups the last two seasons. They're a solid, well-run program with a lot of athletes and Div. I talent that annually has a chance to make a deep run.

The 6A/5A cutoff is 2,080 for this cycle but keeps moving up as schools get larger. DC is experiencing some growth but they're still the 15th-largest school in 5A (so squarely in the middle). A few others - Whiteland, Plainfield, especially - will likely get to 6A first and that requires some of the 6As to get a bit smaller, too.

He requested his account be deleted.

Let's conveniently ignore the two seasons before that, right?

The Success Factor has probably affected football and volleyball more than any other sports, but it's largely done what it was supposed to do - ensure schools like Cathedral, Chatard, Roncalli, Andrean, Evansville Memorial, Sheridan, Pioneer, et al, can't continually reload and win 4-5 state titles in a row in a given class. It giveth and it taketh away. I'm very tied to the New Palestine program. In 2013, the regional was New Palestine vs. Chatard, and was a great game that NP eventually won (and was a real breakthrough win for the program that had never quite been able to get over the regional hump in the previous two decades) ... as it was the first year of the SF and Cathedral, which had dominated the class, had been bumped to 5A. Cathedral went on to win back-to-back 5A titles while being a 4A-sized school, while NP and Columbus East had some generational talent and duked it out in 4A (and then both Success Factored up to 5A in 2015 and met again in back-to-back sectional tourneys, with the winner going to Lucas Oil). NP is back in 4A this year for the first time since walking off the turf at Lucas Oil in 2014. 4A would've been absolutely loaded those years had New Pal, Cathedral and Columbus East all been in the same class. But I've also known of programs that have had generational talent that win in a lower class, get bumped up and the team struggles (but likely would've struggled in the lower class). The constant tinkering early - lowering the threshhold to stay up from four points to three and then two - was frustrating because *twice* the tinkering kept NP up in a higher class, but NP obviously did pretty well in 5A. The IHSAA seems to like the system the way it is and it's likely going to remain in the current form.

I was trying to do PXP - thankfully, we'd seen MV enough that we could identify each player without really having to look at the jersey numbers. If it has the NFHS stamp on it, it's a legal football to use in a game, but yeah, just on sight, those don't look like balls I'd use in a game (especially if you're going to use the Wilson ball in the tournament - you don't want to be breaking in a new football in October).

True, but the NFHS & IHSAA uniform requirements are a bit more stringent (and the teams usually like to look a bit more professional).

I've witnessed it - several years ago, New Pal was hosting the sectional and Mt. Vernon (which had a new coach) and Shelbyville were slated to play. They go out for warmups w/warmup tops on. When they go to the captain's meeting, I notice both teams' captains are wearing white shorts. I look at my broadcast partner and say "this is going to be a problem." MV was supposed to be the visiting team and their coach mis-read the bracket (in his defense, for years, the team in the top of the bracket was the home team and it had recently been switched to the bottom bracket team being the home team) and brought the wrong uniforms. Because they couldn't delay the game for someone to drive to Fortville and bring the correct uniforms, New Palestine's old JV road uniforms were dug out of a storage room and MV had to wear those for the sectional game. I believe that happened again this year at a different sectional site. (In my basketball coaching days, we told our players to ALWAYS bring both uniforms to a tournament, even though the bracket clearly states which ones we're supposed to wear).

Correct. The IHSAA has a contract with Wilson and you can only use the Wilson ball in the tournament (IIRC, they'll provide you the gameballs the week prior to a sectional game so you can break them in during practice), so generally, teams only use the Wilson ball even though you can use any NFHS-approved ball with the NFHS seal stamped on it. Same in basketball - the Wilson Evolution ball has been the IHSAA's sectional choice for decades, so it's the only anyone uses in games or practices.

IMO, Marion would probably remain in that league as it's only a two-county drive to get to Lafayette and Kokomo is one county away. I could see the eastern NCC schools - Richmond, Muncie Central, Anderson - breaking away. All three communities have lost significant population and finances are tight. At some point, the travel is too much.

... and for those who follow the last point and say "but basketball has neutral sites." After the sectional, each basketball host has four teams (so only 1/4 of the crowd would be a "home crowd") - and there is a decent chance the host school or a nearby school from its sectional will be among the four and thus bring a "home crowd." Also, basketball requires a much smaller commitment. Smaller venue means fewer workers (for example, don't have to have a chain crew, there's less need to have people control sideline access, likely fewer concession stands) and they're indoors, rather than working outdoors in November for a game featuring two different teams. The amount of work it takes to put on a football game vs. a basketball game (even a *big* basketball game like a regional or semistate) is astronomically greater.

I like the idea of neutral regionals and semistates *in theory* but in practice, the last three weeks of the tourney are where the IHSAA makes its money to fund operations (sectional revenue is split between the schools). The main problem with going neutral is you limit the casual fans who will travel. Every community has that large throng that will come to a home game, but a significant number of those are the "we're here for the community event" crowd and won't travel. So you essentially have two "road game" crowds, which will hold down attendance a bit. Think of it this way - if we have a neutral site, I'll get, say, 60% of School A's usual home crowd and 60% of School B's usual home crowd. If the game is played at one of the participating schools, we'll get 100% of School A's home crowd and, because of the longer distance, School B only brings 50% of its fanbase. Assume each school's usual home crowd is 2,000 ... the neutral game brings in 2,400 fans (and thus $24,000 in revenue at $10/person). The "home" game brings in 3,000 fans and thus an extra $6,000 in revenue. Those are hypothetical numbers, and it changes. At a smaller, community-based school with a passionate fanbase, the differential between home/away might only be 15-20% of the fanbase. At some suburban schools where there are a ton of entertainment options in town and the fanbase outside of the parents is a bit more casual, a home game might bring in 100% of the fanbase but the road game (or a bad-weather night) might only bring in 20-25%. In theory, I like neutral sites as much as possible (and I think it's time for neutral semistates), but there's an economic reason they don't happen. There's another reason, as well - finding hosts. ADs and administrators are pretty tapped out by November. Assuming a different site for each game, you'll need 24 regional venues and 12 semistate ones. That's a lot of ADs who now have to work an extra few days (and putting on a football game takes a few days of work) and squirrel together game workers (concessions, chain gang, ticket takers, PA/scoreboard, custodial). The host site's expenses are covered and there's a small stipend beyond that, but the reward is primarily in concessions. The small financial reward isn't necessarily worth the work for a lot of ADs to host a neutral game. As a result, the IHSAA would likely have to "rent" facilities at a much larger cost than the typical $150 or so beyond expenses they pay a regional or semistate host now.

Maxpreps does. I'd use some combination of the two.

When I coached basketball, we tried to dial things back in the offseason because we a) encouraged our girls to play multiple sports, and b) tried to be respectful of their time. We'd do 1-2 open gyms a week in the spring, go hard in June with league play and a couple weekend tournaments, then hit the gym again in the fall 2-3 times a week in the run-up to the season. At the same time, we didn't push our kids into AAU programs. The better kids played AAU, the others didn't. AAU/club was a breeder of bad habits anyway. What happened? Our numbers dwindled, big-time, because those kids got into soccer (where they're expected to be on a travel team to play high school, and play travel year-round) or volleyball (where they're expected to be on a travel team to play high school, and play travel year-round, and where our varsity VB coach at the time used to threaten to cut kids if they played basketball instead of/in addition to club volleyball in the winter) or softball (which is a big deal at our school, and oh yeah, expects kids to play year-round travel). So, in trying to be respectful of our kids' time, we instead lost kids to other sports because basketball was seen as "less important" because we weren't pushing our kids onto year-round travel teams. The program has rebounded, in part because of kids who are dedicated basketball players and because we had age-group (school-based) teams playing in area leagues down to third grade, so because kids are playing "travel" or on "select teams" at younger ages, they're more dedicated and stick with the sport rather than getting plucked away by others. It's absurd.

I believe Rushville is the only one in our area. Their stadium was on a very tiny patch of ground and had an old cinder track. So when they expanded it, they built a new track & soccer facility by their junior high and the football bleachers are right on top of the field. It's a great atmosphere.

Precisely. Even without Sagarins (or MaxPreps ratings in sports where there are no Sagarins), you can seed pretty easily using record, head-to-head meetings, common opponents. Wrestling coaches do it every year.

Remember, football is not the only determining factor in conference affiliation. It's the most important sport, but it's not the only one. If Eugene White was still in charge of IPS, he'd be pushing for Tech to be taken into the MIC (he was trying to turn Tech into an athletic factory and gain MIC admission when he was super). Conference Indiana would likely be a better competitive fit even though the travel (outside of Southport) would only be slightly better than the NCC. Major problem with CI is that IPS isn't exactly flush with cash and you're going to Terre Haute every year, Bloomington every year and Columbus every other year. The Mid-State has a lot of history and tradition behind it and fits neatly into that Johnson-Morgan (and into the small corner of Marion & Hendricks counties to get DC & Plainfield) area. You have a lot of longtime rivals (Franklin-Whiteland-Greenwood, Mooresville-Plainfield, Mooresville-Martinsville). DC & PM feel like outliers who would be better fits in Conference Indiana and the league is getting too big for Greenwood. New Pal is happy in the HHC. Yes, it's a bit of a top-heavy football conference right now, but it's a very competitive league in other sports, is largely geographically compact, et al. However, Mt. Vernon is growing fast and will likely top 2K within the decade. New Pal is also growing quickly and probably will be 1,600+ before long. Most of the other schools in the league have stagnant or declining enrollments, though, and there might be some movement ... problem is, unless the eastern NCC schools (Richmond, Anderson, Muncie Central especially) finally say "enough" and leave the NCC, there really aren't any landing spots for the HHC schools. Shelbyville might fit in the EIAC (and I wouldn't be surprised to see them jump if given the opportunity) but otherwise, most of the conferences in the area are 1A/2A leagues and the HHC's schools are big 3As & 4As.

Westfield is not even close to built out and Carmel is growing north. It's likely their growth isn't going to stop. One thing about Whitestown - a big chunk of it is actually in Lebanon's district. They may see a lot of growth as Whitestown grows. Basically, where I-65 meets (what used to be) SR 334, anything west of that line is Lebanon, and then the line significantly jogs east not far north of there.

IHSAAtv.org was PPV-only throughout the tournament, and it's now PPV (and exclusive) for the semistate round in both football and basketball (and they redid the basketball tournament to take a round away from the regional and move it to the semistate, thus tripling the number of semistate games and PPV-exclusive games) The part you don't know - the rights fee to do a video webcast is $300/game, paid by the broadcaster (it's more - often double - for a linear TV broadcast, and it's $72 for a radio/Internet audio broadcast ... the audio fee is up from $50 three years ago). The broadcaster is required to air the game without paywall for the sectional and regional. So the IHSAA gets its money, but it comes directly from the broadcasters. As long as the IHSAA believes it's making more money off that than it can off, say, a 50/50 split of PPV revenues, then they'll continue to charge the rights fees and require the games be freely aired. But I expect that to change in the near future - the 2021 basketball tournament was PPV-only (but that year was also limited capacity in many gyms and the PPV was seen as a way to recoup $$ and production costs for the broadcasters).

Looks really nice. Too bad they weren't really able to stay in the Big 8 (or the Big 8 wasn't really able to stay together) ... they were a perfect fit in the league despite being on the other side of the Wabash River.

They weren't bumped via the Success Factor. SF points only apply to schools that have already been bumped, not to schools who were in a class on enrollment. Merrillville could've won two straight 6A state titles and dropped to 5A if its enrollment dipped below the line. But Cathedral wins two sectionals or one regional, it'll stay in 6A.

There was a day when few of the high majors bothered with Indiana - Rex Grossman basically recruited himself to Florida because Steve Spurrier's initial response to him was "we don't recruit Indiana." So, as a result, the top kids went to IU and Purdue (or Notre Dame got the guys they wanted, but they've always recruited nationally), so you'd see guys like Rod Woodson stay in-state. Bill Mallory's best teams at IU were built on recruiting in-state kids + getting guys from less-heavily-recruited areas (they had a lot of guys from upstate New York & Canada). Nowadays, with national recruiting and Ohio State/Michigan jumping in and recruiting the state much more heavily, it's much more difficult for IU & Purdue to recruit the state and bring in those blue-chip players who might have flown under the radar (getting Omar Cooper was a really good recruit for IU, and his HS teammate Donaven McCulley in the previous class). I know there were some guys Tom Allen *really* prioritized this cycle who went out of state. Tom Allen has a really, really good relationship with the state's high school coaches, but he also works his connections in Florida very well and has had a really good pipeline coming from Tampa. IU signed its best-ever class this offseason, even without a lot of Indiana kids. I don't follow Purdue much, but it seems most of their kids are out-of-state, as well, unless you have a kid like Karlaftis who grows up in Lafayette and Purdue is his first choice. That said, it's *really* difficult to sign guys when you just went 2-10. However, recruiting is cyclical - two years ago, IU had been getting pretty much all of the top in-state kids except some of the Lafayette-area ones. Purdue has done a bit better in-state - Strickland, Allen, et al - in this cycle, but the pendulum will likely swing again. Also appears IU is prioritizing the transfer portal - they had a huge portal class this offseason - which may affect HS recruiting a bit more as there are fewer scholarships available for incoming freshmen if you're bringing in 10-12 portal guys a year.

IMO, it's less that NBC has lost interest and more that it's using its valuable properties to try to push subscribers to get cable so they'll have to watch NBCSN (or now, USA Network) and now, they're trying to push Peacock subs. Last week's IndyCar race was also Peacock-only for the same reason - trying to push subscribers by forcing the diehards to buy an extra service. They're usually lower-rated events (like an IndyCar street race in Toronto or ND's games against MAC schools).

Did they move with Jayson West?

There is a significant number of ex-Warren (and Franklin) Township families at New Pal & Mt. Vernon but the volume hasn't quite been as large as Lawrence-> HSE, North Central-> Carmel, BD->Avon and Pike->Brownsburg/Zionsville.