2016-18 conference alignments

BLUEBLOOD · July 07, 2015, 08:51:01 am

Football didn't change much, other than a few schools going up or down in classification. But the "basketball" conferences changed drastically based upon geographical concerns. I have heard that this is "basketball & spring sports". Can anyone confirm that? Also, you have a few instances where 2A schools are in a 1A conference. Is that just for regular season play? Or will those schools play postseason in 1A also?

Kinda confusing for the simple folk.....
$:-\$

SSHornetSB · July 07, 2015, 12:19:52 pm

I looked at the 1A 2S Conference. They have added two 2A schools in there. I am not sure how geographical played any part in it as far as the 1A 2S. Augusta will have to travel to Timbo, Rural Special and Shirley which will be around 90 miles one way. And that is not any where near interstate travel. I do wonder since they are in our conference, are we still required to play twice since they are 2A and if our conference record will count towards the district tournament seating. If the 2A schools are not going to play post season in 1A then how will they be ranked for their 2A district and how will they know who is in their district? It is very confusing to me also.

BLUEBLOOD · July 07, 2015, 12:47:17 pm

I have asked several different people and have gotten several different answers. It would seem to me that a team would play an entire season (including postseason) in the same conference. But that also kind of negates the whole "A" classification system premise. You will have very large (Mt Ida 133 in grades 9-12) playing in same conference with a very small (Umpire 35 in grades 9-12).

I don't know the exact reasoning behind this shuffle other than travel, but if you examine it closely I'm not sure many schools gained any ground in the travel department.

I would be interested to know any insight if any of the Fearless Friday family has any.

HorseFeathers · July 07, 2015, 06:09:03 pm

Quote from: BLUEBLOOD on July 07, 2015, 12:47:17 pm
I have asked several different people and have gotten several different answers. It would seem to me that a team would play an entire season (including postseason) in the same conference. But that also kind of negates the whole "A" classification system premise. You will have very large (Mt Ida 133 in grades 9-12) playing in same conference with a very small (Umpire 35 in grades 9-12).

I don't know the exact reasoning behind this shuffle other than travel, but if you examine it closely I'm not sure many schools gained any ground in the travel department.

I would be interested to know any insight if any of the Fearless Friday family has any.

6A schools cried and cried about having to play 7A schools. So they proposed the mixed classification conferences to "reduce" travel. Cause they were going to have conferences stretching from Siloam Springs to either Texarkana, West Memphis or El Dorado etc.

Some schools did get helped in this business. And some "2A" schools dropped back to where they should have been in the other sports outside of football...

Can you imagine the culture shock when a kid from Augusta Arkansas gets off the bus in Timbo?

SSHornetSB · July 08, 2015, 06:54:31 am

Do you know how the post season will work HF?

LowerAR · July 08, 2015, 08:39:59 am

You are never going to make everyone happy, and you are never going to make it all fair. Couple of years ago Bryant was in the South Conf. and won the Conf. in football but did not make it far in the State playoffs, then after several years of winning the 7A State Softball did not even make the playoffs that year because they were beat by Benton and Sheridan who were beating everyone. Not having to drive a million miles is nice, but playing outside of your ranking for conf. can kill you for state. To make matters worse, many schools do a poor job of scheduling games and want to drive long distances during the week when kids are in school. I don't know how you do it, but someone is always going to get hurt when you mix the school rankings, but I don't like long drives either. Good Luck!

BLUEBLOOD · July 08, 2015, 09:01:59 am

Quote from: SSHornetSB on July 08, 2015, 06:54:31 am
Do you know how the post season will work HF?

Does anyone know (definitively) how the postseason will work? My assumption would be that if you're in a 1A conference all season, you would play in that postseason as well. But we are dealing with AAA here!!!

HorseFeathers · July 08, 2015, 09:09:36 am

Quote from: BLUEBLOOD on July 08, 2015, 09:01:59 am
Quote from: SSHornetSB on July 08, 2015, 06:54:31 am
Do you know how the post season will work HF?

Does anyone know (definitively) how the postseason will work? My assumption would be that if you're in a 1A conference all season, you would play in that postseason as well. But we are dealing with AAA here!!!

No.... the mixed conferences haven't been posted yet. The districts posted on AAA are your postseason assignmnets. I posted a guess at what mixed districts could look like on the killer crossover forum.

Postseason seeding for district tournament will be decided by a coaches vote. Yeah... you read that right. A flipping vote of the coaches. When I get on a computer I'll post a link to where I got that information.

BLUEBLOOD · July 08, 2015, 09:19:44 am

Quote from: HF on July 07, 2015, 06:09:03 pm
Quote from: BLUEBLOOD on July 07, 2015, 12:47:17 pm
I have asked several different people and have gotten several different answers. It would seem to me that a team would play an entire season (including postseason) in the same conference. But that also kind of negates the whole "A" classification system premise. You will have very large (Mt Ida 133 in grades 9-12) playing in same conference with a very small (Umpire 35 in grades 9-12).

I don't know the exact reasoning behind this shuffle other than travel, but if you examine it closely I'm not sure many schools gained any ground in the travel department.

I would be interested to know any insight if any of the Fearless Friday family has any.

6A schools cried and cried about having to play 7A schools. So they proposed the mixed classification conferences to "reduce" travel. Cause they were going to have conferences stretching from Siloam Springs to either Texarkana, West Memphis or El Dorado etc.

Some schools did get helped in this business. And some "2A" schools dropped back to where they should have been in the other sports outside of football...

Can you imagine the culture shock when a kid from Augusta Arkansas gets off the bus in Timbo?

I support a 2A school that is touched by this change. The culture shock will be with our basketball program. We will now play in conference with 1A "basketball" schools. It will take some time to adjust but in the long run it will help us improve (or kill the program). For baseball & softball, this adjustment will push the "basketball" schools to improve their programs.

It's not a bad thing necessarily, but in some instances it goes against the whole "classification for level competition" idea.

SSHornetSB · July 08, 2015, 09:28:37 am

I guess I am still a little confused. We have two 2A teams in our conference. If they are just going to leave 1 and 2A together I can understand how the seating would work. If they are going to put the 2A back together for post season then how will they know who is in who's district for 2A since they have all been playing in different 1A conferences. I guess if AAA has a list out there somewhere of the two a districts then that is where the coaches vote would come in to seat them for the tournament? I wonder what was the goal of this new venture for AAA? The conference that Augusta is in is sure a lot closer for all of those teams over there. I saw where Wonderview and that conference will have to travel to Marvell in the new conference. That's a haul and if you do it during the week it is really bad on the kids.

BLUEBLOOD · July 08, 2015, 09:44:03 am

Quote from: SSHornetSB on July 08, 2015, 09:28:37 am
I guess I am still a little confused. We have two 2A teams in our conference. If they are just going to leave 1 and 2A together I can understand how the seating would work. If they are going to put the 2A back together for post season then how will they know who is in who's district for 2A since they have all been playing in different 1A conferences. I guess if AAA has a list out there somewhere of the two a districts then that is where the coaches vote would come in to seat them for the tournament? I wonder what was the goal of this new venture for AAA? The conference that Augusta is in is sure a lot closer for all of those teams over there. I saw where Wonderview and that conference will have to travel to Marvell in the new conference. That's a haul and if you do it during the week it is really bad on the kids.

If I understand correctly, this link will show you the postseason assignments for Fall '16-Spring '19. The regular season "area" schedule will be mixed (1A/2A, 3A/4A, 5A/6A) with regards to geography of the competing schools. The list of "area" groups hasn't been released (maybe not finalized yet).

http://members.ahsaa.org/public/userfiles/2016-2018_Classifications_And_Conferences.pdf

Please correct me if I'm wrong. For a look at what it COULD be like, go to Killer Crossover forum and look at HF's predictions for "area" groups.

Sportsnutt · July 08, 2015, 10:49:45 am

Quote from: SSHornetSB on July 08, 2015, 09:28:37 am
I guess I am still a little confused. We have two 2A teams in our conference. If they are just going to leave 1 and 2A together I can understand how the seating would work. If they are going to put the 2A back together for post season then how will they know who is in who's district for 2A since they have all been playing in different 1A conferences. I guess if AAA has a list out there somewhere of the two a districts then that is where the coaches vote would come in to seat them for the tournament? I wonder what was the goal of this new venture for AAA? The conference that Augusta is in is sure a lot closer for all of those teams over there. I saw where Wonderview and that conference will have to travel to Marvell in the new conference. That's a haul and if you do it during the week it is really bad on the kids.

If you are referring to Midland and Augusta as the 2A teams, they will be 1A in all sports other than football. If you look at the enrollment numbers, they fall into 1A but they have to play 2A in football since there is no 1A football. The old rule was they would play 2A for all sports but that was changed and it is now only football. So, both Midland and Augusta would be at your district tournament.

As mentioned, these are not the conferences that will play during the season. The conferences will be announced later.

BLUEBLOOD · July 08, 2015, 10:57:54 am

The coaches voting for district seeding is a very mmmm....interesting topic. But we can save that for another thread. If you think all-conference & all-state voting is wide open for criticism, you "ain't seen nothing yet"!!!

BLUEBLOOD · July 08, 2015, 11:35:29 am

Wording from the proposal in "Basketball, Baseball & Softball" section:

Classifications will be assigned to districts for regular season play as follows:
7A ‐ will consist of 7A schools only
6A & 5A ‐ will combine conferences into districts with no more than ten teams per district.
4A & 3A ‐ will combine conferences into districts with no more than ten teams per district.
2A & 1A ‐ will combine conferences into districts with no more than ten teams per district.

Each district shall play a double round‐robin schedule. After district play, 6A, 5A, 4A, 3A, 2A, and 1A teams will return to their conference to participate in a conference tournament. Coaches from each assigned conference will meet to seed teams in the conference tournament.

HorseFeathers · July 08, 2015, 11:41:20 am

Thanks for finding that.... my alma mater isi hector...and I'm just as curious as the rest of you as to how bad this turns out... who knows it could be the best thing since sliced bread?

Anyway, the schools like western yell, midland, Augusta etc are indeed dropping back to 1a..it was like that pre-2006..most of hector's football conference played 1a winter and spring sports..

BLUEBLOOD · July 08, 2015, 12:43:06 pm

Quote from: HF on July 08, 2015, 11:41:20 am
Thanks for finding that.... my alma mater isi hector...and I'm just as curious as the rest of you as to how bad this turns out... who knows it could be the best thing since sliced bread?

Anyway, the schools like western yell, midland, Augusta etc are indeed dropping back to 1a..it was like that pre-2006..most of hector's football conference played 1a winter and spring sports..

The more I learn, the more benefit I can see. Always a challenge to do the right thing by everyone. It's hard to know what to do with "small" schools and there are "tweeners" in all classifications. Gotta draw the line somewhere whether it be enrollment numbers or lines on a map. My children are coming into high school sports and these conference alignments (3 year cycle) will definitely impact my oldest's high school athletics career. May not be pretty on the hardwood, but could be a great thing on the diamond to play in 1A!!!

HorseFeathers · July 08, 2015, 02:05:20 pm

Cycles are two years

BLUEBLOOD · July 08, 2015, 02:13:50 pm

Quote from: HF on July 08, 2015, 02:05:20 pm
Cycles are two years

My bad. So fall '16 through spring '18?

HorseFeathers · July 08, 2015, 02:14:30 pm

Yes sir

BLUEBLOOD · August 24, 2015, 03:23:35 pm

http://members.ahsaa.org/public/userfiles/Twitter/2016-18_combined_Districts_for_web.pdf

Here they are!!!

ridgerunner14 · January 04, 2016, 03:24:53 pm

k

HorseFeathers · January 04, 2016, 03:34:01 pm

Quote from: ridgerunner14 on January 04, 2016, 03:24:53 pm
Quote from: HF on July 07, 2015, 06:09:03 pm
Quote from: BLUEBLOOD on July 07, 2015, 12:47:17 pm
I have asked several different people and have gotten several different answers. It would seem to me that a team would play an entire season (including postseason) in the same conference. But that also kind of negates the whole "A" classification system premise. You will have very large (Mt Ida 133 in grades 9-12) playing in same conference with a very small (Umpire 35 in grades 9-12).

I don't know the exact reasoning behind this shuffle other than travel, but if you examine it closely I'm not sure many schools gained any ground in the travel department.

I would be interested to know any insight if any of the Fearless Friday family has any.

6A schools cried and cried about having to play 7A schools. So they proposed the mixed classification conferences to "reduce" travel. Cause they were going to have conferences stretching from Siloam Springs to either Texarkana, West Memphis or El Dorado etc.

Some schools did get helped in this business. And some "2A" schools dropped back to where they should have been in the other sports outside of football...

Can you imagine the culture shock when a kid from Augusta Arkansas gets off the bus in Timbo?

Or when a kid from Timbo gets off a bus in Augusta??

Haha true that

Sweet · January 10, 2016, 06:26:49 pm

Quote from: BLUEBLOOD on July 07, 2015, 12:47:17 pm
I have asked several different people and have gotten several different answers. It would seem to me that a team would play an entire season (including postseason) in the same conference. But that also kind of negates the whole "A" classification system premise. You will have very large (Mt Ida 133 in grades 9-12) playing in same conference with a very small (Umpire 35 in grades 9-12).

I don't know the exact reasoning behind this shuffle other than travel, but if you examine it closely I'm not sure many schools gained any ground in the travel department.

I would be interested to know any insight if any of the Fearless Friday family has any.

Look at the numbers. I know schools like Dierks and Mineral Springs are 1A size but play football. In the past they have been moved up to play 2A in all sports. Foreman and Spring Hill used to fall below the 1A numbers but I'm guessing they grown enough to be legit 2A. Had this change been a couple of years ago when SH was 1A size Taylor and Nevada County trophy cases would be missing a few state trophies.