AURORA — The soccer committee has recommended a change to the percentages in the RPI formula they use for the postseason, becoming the second sport committee to do so.
After a lengthy discussion that dominated most of the meeting on Wednesday, the committee voted 8-1 to move away from the standard 25/50/25 percentages. Their recommendation is to use 35 percent of a team’s winning percentage, 35 percent of the winning percentage of their opponents, and 30 percent of the winning percentage of their opponents’ opponents.
The recommendation needs to be approved by the Legislative Council at its next meeting in January. If approved, it would go into effect with the 2017-18 school year — meaning the upcoming 2017 girls season this spring would still use 25/50/25.
Baseball has also recommended moving to 35/35/30, but softball and volleyball have opted to stay at 25/50/25, at least through the end of a two-year cycle.
Many times on Wednesday, committee members expressed that they felt a team’s winning percentage was not weighted highly enough under the standard formula, and that the opponents’ winning percentage was weighted too much.
There was also feedback from the coaches association that they wanted to keep the percentages the same through the 2016-18 cycle. However, through continued discussion, the committee ultimately decided to make the recommendation to change to 35/35/30.
They also discussed changing immediately for the girls season in the spring, but opted to not recommend a change in the middle of a school year.
The only other major change made by the committee on Wednesday was a change to the state tournament dates in Class 3A. Starting next fall, the first and second rounds in that class will be spread out. They currently play on a Friday/Saturday schedule with four teams playing at one site.
In the fall of 2017, the boys will play their first round on a Thursday, and the second round that following Tuesday.
For the girls in the spring of 2018, they will play their first round on Wednesday, and the second round the following Saturday.
“That was big, it really was,” said CHSAA assistant commissioner Bud Ozzello, who administers soccer. “We had tried to save them on some travel for our smaller schools, especially the ones in rural areas, so all four teams were (at one location). But we’ve had numerous contact to say that it’s pretty tough to play in an afternoon and turn around and come back and play the next day.”
Again, all recommendations need to be approved by the Legislative Council in January.
AURORA — Softball is looking to keep its postseason structure the same. At least for the 2017 season.
The sport’s committee met on Thursday, and opted to neither change the percentages used in the RPI formula (which helps determine postseason fields), nor the seeding criteria that was put in place prior to the 2016.
“The committee wanted the opportunity to have one more year of data to study before making any changes,” said Bud Ozzello, the CHSAA assistant commissioner in charge of softball.
The 2017 softball season will be the final year of the 2016-18 two-year cycle.
Their recommendation means softball’s RPI formula will likely stay at 25 percent for a team’s winning percentage, 50 percent for their opponents’ winning percentage, and the final 25 percent for the winning percentage of their opponents’ opponents.
The committee also kept the number of automatic qualifiers from each league the same.
“They thought that was important to ensure representation,” Ozzello said.
The softball committee report will need to be approved by the Legislative Council at its January meeting.
AURORA — Baseball was the first sport to use the new RPI format for its postseason last spring, and on Tuesday, its committee recommended tweaks to the percentages used by the formula.
The committee voted to recommend a change from the standard formula to one that puts more weight into a team’s winning percentage.
Noting that the formula uses a team’s winning percentage (WP), opponents’ winning percentage (OWP), and opponents’ opponents’ winning percentage (OOWP), the standard formula used during the 2016 season is:
RPI = (¼ × WP) + (½ × OWP) + (¼ × OOWP)
The baseball committee’s recommendation is to use:
RPI = (0.35 × WP) + (0.35 × OWP) + (0.30 × OOWP)
“The committee spent a great deal of time discussing the weight each segment of the formula should be given,” said CHSAA assistant commissioner Bert Borgmann. “They ultimately felt that more emphasis needed to be placed on a team’s winning percentage and how they did against their own schedule.”
The recommendation to change the RPI percentages for baseball will need approval from Legislative Council at its January 2017 meeting. If approved there, the new percentages would be used for the spring 2017 season.
The committee also recommended changes to the seeding procedures for the Class 3A-5A postseasons. They would like the seeding committee to use the following tools, without implementing any as hard-and-fast rules:
RPI standings
Head-to-head results from non-league games
League standings
Strength of a league
Geography
Additionally, the committee recommended moving to a quadrant format for regionals as opposed to the current true seeding. This means that instead of a straight No. 1 through No. 32 seed, there would be four No. 1 seeds, four No. 2s, four No. 3s, and so on, through four No. 8 seeds.
The quadrant format would allow the seeding committee more freedom in moving teams. It has been used by the basketball seeding committee in the past, and was also used by 5A football in 2014 and 2015.
As far as regional hosts go, they recommended:
No changes to the current 3A format, where there are not automatic hosting spots given to league champions.
No changes to the current 4A format, where the top eight league champions according to the RPI are given regional hosting bids.
A process in 5A where only two teams from one league would be allowed to host. The hope here is to spread the regionals around the state in different leagues.
In 1A and 2A, no changes were made to the seeding process, meaning that district champions will continue to automatically qualify for the regional/state bracket, with at-large spots filled by the RPI. Teams will continue to be seeded by the RPI, with some consideration given to avoiding district matchups.
Finally, no changes were made to the current pitch count rule, but the committee did recommend that teams ease pitchers up to the limits early in the season, rather than maxing out right away.
Again, all of this will need to be voted on and approved by the Legislative Council in January.
AURORA — The volleyball committee met on Tuesday, and while nothing changed for next season, the group is exploring potential changes to the postseason format down the line.
They committee ultimately created a subcommittee that will be tasked with looking at the postseason. Among things that subcommittee will consider:
Keeping the pool play format at state, or moving to a bracket.
The structure of the regional tournaments, as well as the district tournaments at the 1A and 2A levels.
The location of the state tournament, currently held at the Denver Coliseum.
The number of days the state tournament runs. Right now, it’s held over two days.
Geography and travel, and the role they play in the postseason.
The potential of adding a Class 6A in the near future, and what that would look like.
The subcommittee will likely meet in early 2017, and then forward any recommendation to the volleyball committee to consider at its meeting next November.
“We are hoping to spend a year getting feedback across the state with regard to the improvements that can be made to our state tournament and postseason, as well as any ideas on what our state tournament would look like if we were to move to six classifications,” said Bethany Brookens, the CHSAA assistant commissioner who oversees volleyball.
But that’s not to say changes will definitely be made to the postseason structure.
“It’s not a guarantee we’re going to be making any changes,” Brookens said. “We’re only reviewing the whole format and seeing if there are better ways to do things than the way we currently are.”
The committee did have a thorough conversation about the RPI formula, and lengthy discussion about whether or not the percentages in the formula needed to change. But the group ultimately unanimously voted to keep it at the current percentage split of 25 for winning percentage, 50 for opponents’ winning percentage and 25 for opponents’ opponents’ winning percentage. They did want to review the data again after next season, however.
The committee did change the start time of the championship matches from 7 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on the Saturday of the state tournament. This was made because over the course of the past couple of years, the finals have consistently been delayed by late-running semifinals.
The volleyball committee report will need to be approved by the Legislative Council in January.
AURORA — The cross country committee has recommended a change to how teams score at the Class 2A state meet.
Currently, 2A teams can run six total runners, with their first three finishers counting toward their point total. On Monday, the cross country committee recommended changing that to running six and scoring four. The proposal originally came from the Mile High League.
The recommendation now moves forward to the Legislative Council, where it will be voted upon during the January 2017 meeting.
“The change is great to continue the evolution of cross country at the lower classification,” said CHSAA assistant commissioner Jenn Roberts-Uhlig, who oversees the sport. “There is, however, worry and concern for those 2A schools with a low enrollment, and if this will make it harder for them to qualify for the state meet as a team.”
If the change were to be approved, a team would need to have at least four runners qualify for the state meet. Currently, schools only need three to compete as a team.
The Legislative Council next meets on Jan. 26, 2017 in Aurora.
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Notables
The committee also recommended that each regional have at least three officials. Currently, regionals are only required to have one official.
With talk of potentially adding a 6A classification across the Association, the committee also discussed whether or not the sport would add a fifth class if that happened. No decision was reached, as everything is still in preliminary stages.
The committee forwarded a recommendation for an entry fee to the state meet as the cross country is a non-revenue producing sport. The proposed fee is $50 per team (with separate fees for boys teams and girls teams), or $10 per individual.
Cross country’s state qualifiers will be processed on Monday beginning next season, moving from Sunday.
AURORA — A new subcommittee will look at the way Colorado high school sports are broken into classifications.
During its meeting at the CHSAA office on Tuesday, the Classification and League Organization Committee unanimously voted to create a subcommittee that will explore how the current classification system is working, and if any changes should be made to it.
The group also met on Monday evening, when the topic was first discussed.
“I think it’s an important decision, because it could change basically the face of what high school athletics are in Colorado,” CLOC chair Randy Holmen, the superintendent of Genoa-Hugo School District, said during the meeting.
Any changes the subcommittee were to implement would come with the 2020-22 two-year cycle.
Currently, CHSAA’s entire classification structure is based off of enrollment, and has been since they were first implemented in 1933. (The Association, founded in 1921, didn’t have separate classifications for any sports until football split into Class A and Class B at that time. No other sport used classifications until boys basketball did so in 1938.) So any shift away from an enrollment-only system would be a major event.
Starting with the 2016-18 cycle, CLOC tried to balance an equal number of teams into each classification. That was the first change to the structure, though enrollment remains the determining factor of where teams land.
Among possible changes to classification could be a move to a system that considers success (or lack thereof) in addition to enrollment. CLOC was briefed on a similar system used by California on Monday.
“Are there other things we can look at to do what’s best for kids in a way that’s competitively equitable?” asked CLOC member Larry Bull, the district athletic director of Cherry Creek Schools.
This could include highly successful teams moving up in classification, and teams that have struggled moving down. Historical data could be used in making that decision.
“We’ve classified by numbers alone for so long that it’s hard to think of a different paradigm,” said CLOC member Chris Cline, the athletic director at Northridge. “I think it’s time for a committee to take a look at something beyond just enrollment.”
The subcommittee could also explore adding another classification.
“The conversation needs to be sport-specific,” Bull said.
Holmen agreed, saying, “Individual sport committees need to start talking about this.”
Many of those committees will start meeting as soon as next week.
Ultimately, “This is about starting a conversation about growth, about what it looks like competitively,” Bull added.
The subcommittee will likely be put together in the near future, and then have an initial meeting in January 2017, according to CHSAA commissioner Paul Angelico.
“It’s wide open,” Angelico said of the new subcommittee. “They could do anything from simply adding a class, to using California as a model, to having to apply for your classification, to changing nothing.”
State Reps and the CHSAA staff met on Tuesday. (Troy Rivera/CHSAANow.com)
FORT COLLINS — Students will have direct voice on select CHSAA committees beginning this school year.
That was the result of a meeting between CHSAA staff and the State Representatives during the annual Student Leadership summer camp at Colorado State University on Tuesday.
The student committee members will be selected by the Student Leadership State Representatives with the help of liaison Troy Rivera, the advisor at University High School. The students will be appointed to serve on various CHSAA committees, including certain sports and activities committees, as well as things like the Classification and League Organizing Committee.
“This is something we’ve wanted to work toward,” said CHSAA commissioner Paul Angelico. “We really believe that a student’s voice will carry a lot of weight in that setting, and add a needed perspective to our committees.”
The State Reps are broken into geographic regions, meaning each student will serve as the voice of a given area during the 2016-17 school year.
The meeting between the State Reps and the CHSAA staff also worked toward further collaboration between the Association and students, including things like social media, and a contest which is taking shape.
AURORA — Faced with a growing gap when it comes to inequity in competition, the hockey committee is proposing a new alignment structure which would split the sport into four tiered divisions.
The ultimate goal of the plan is to encourage growth of the sport and provide stability for current programs.
In short, the proposal separates each division based upon a team’s performance according to their average in the RPI (Rating Percentage Index) standings over the previous two seasons. The top eight teams would be placed into one division, the next eight into a second, a third group of eight into another, and the final group of eight into a fourth.
This mix includes two new teams, Fort Collins and Crested Butte, who will begin play in 2016-17. Slight changes were made in order to balance travel and geography.
“We kept competitive balance and travel at the forefront,” said Bud Ozzello, the CHSAA assistant commissioner who oversees hockey.
And competitive balance has been a problem.
Currently, the sport is split into two conferences: the Peak and the Foothills. The Foothills has been dominant in recent years, producing the sport’s champion for the past five seasons. In fact, the Peak hasn’t even had a state finalist since Lewis-Palmer won the second of back-to-back championships in 2011.
Hockey’s state tournament is currently set up as a preset bracket, with the No. 1 seed from the Foothills Conference meeting No. 8 from the Peak, and No. 1 from the Peak facing No. 8 from the Foothills. These matchups continue all the way until the No. 4 from the Foothills faces No. 5 from the Peak, and vice-versa.
This past season, the Foothills Conference went 7-1 against the Peak in those first-round matchups, and outscored their opponents 53-8. The lone win was No. 1 Peak seed Mountain Vista beating No. 8 Foothills seed Aspen 4-3.
But beyond that, and perhaps more striking, was the problem in the regular season which affected both the conference and non-conference schedule. Out of 298 regular season contests, 63 games (or 21.1 percent) were decided by eight or more goals. And 35 (11.7 percent) were decided by 10 or more.
So the issue is not only the current alignment, but also the competitive difference between the top teams and the teams that have struggled. As a result, many inside the hockey community felt the competition disparity needed to be addressed.
In fact, the topic turned into a five-hour conversation among the coaches association a few weeks ago, in which they hatched the idea of tiering the conferences. That model took hold at hockey’s committee meeting last week, where they then tweaked it to use the two-year average of the RPI.
According to the committee’s proposal, each team would play two games against division opponents, accounting for 14 matchups of the 19-game regular season. That leaves five open games, and the committee recommended a mandate that teams cannot schedule conference opponents during the non-conference slate.
The thought here was that the eight-team divisions would produce a much more competitive regular season if teams were playing like opponents 14 times. This would cut down on the amount of blowouts that permeate the schedule.
In terms of the postseason, teams that win their division — according to in-conference points (two for a win, one for a tie, none for a loss) — would get an automatic bid to the state tournament. Head-to-head would be the top tie-breaker in that scenario.
Then, in order to be sure a deserving team is not left out of the postseason, the hockey committee also recommended an expansion to a 24-team tournament. They modeled it after a format girls lacrosse uses (though that sport has a 20-team postseason field), giving the top eight seeds a first-round bye, and having seeds Nos. 9-24 play in the first round.
This format would leave 20 at-large bids, and those spots would be filled according to the final RPI standings of the regular season. Seeds Nos. 1-16 would be placed onto the bracket according to those same RPI standings, while seeds No. 17-24 could be slightly changed from those standings when taking geography and first-round division opponents into consideration.
The idea to split the sport into four divisions first became a topic at hockey’s committee meeting in 2015. The group had been looking at various options since then, but the tiered concept caught fire in recent weeks.
“We really have to give credit to the coaches association, who brought that proposal forward to help deal with competitive balance,” Ozzello said.
The new approach, Ozzello added, was done “with the vision of how we’re going to grow hockey.” He noted that hockey is one of a few unique sports in the Association which features “large district teams competing against smaller school teams.”
Next season, the sport will have 32 teams — the most it has ever had. It is entirely feasible that hockey hits 40 teams within five years, as a number of new schools and areas have inquired about starting programs, and a few school districts that currently have teams have explored adding an additional program.
“We really want to encourage growth in the sport, as well as maintain teams that have historically played hockey,” Ozzello said. “I really think this group is on the right track because they’re thinking outside the box to deal with some of the unique issues the sport faces.”
Ultimately, this proposal from the hockey committee will need to be approved by the Legislative Council at its next meeting. If that happens, the new alignment and postseason structure would begin with the 2016-17 season.
The complete proposed alignment is below.
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Proposed hockey alignment for 2016-17
Foothills
Peak
Pinnacle
Highlands
Regis Jesuit
Resurrection Christian
Standley Lake
Valor Christian
Ralston Valley
Aspen
Air Academy
Mullen
Monarch
Doherty
Steamboat
Castle View
Mountain Vista
Battle Mountain
Liberty
Rampart
Cherry Creek
Heritage
Summit
Palmer
Dakota Ridge
Cheyenne Mountain
Fort Collins*
Coronado
Lewis-Palmer
Columbine
Chatfield
Pueblo County
Denver East
Pine Creek
Kent Denver
Crested Butte*
* – Indicates new varsity program starting play in 2016-17.
VMAC hosted the 4A girls swimming and diving state meet last weekend. (Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)
AURORA — The plan for the addition of a Class 3A state meet in girls swimming is taking shape.
The swimming and diving committee met on Wednesday at the CHSAA office, and spent a big portion of that meeting talking about how to approach the new third classification for girls, which was approved by the Legislative Council last April. Ultimately, they decided to recommend the addition of a third day of competition, and a rotation-based schedule whereby two classifications will compete at the same site during the weekend.
Those host sites are still to be determined, but it is likely that they will continue to be held at EPIC in Fort Collins and VMAC in Thornton.
“There were a lot of moving parts the committee had to consider, but we think they’ve come up with a plan that will work for all classes, but also ensure that we can showcase each of them,” said CHSAA assistant commissioner Bethany Brookens, who oversees swimming and diving.
Going forward, the swim committee recommended that one meet begin its prelims on Thursday, and hold finals on Friday. The other two meets would remain on the Friday/Saturday schedule for their respective preliminaries and finals.
For the 2017 girls meet, the plan is to have 5A and 3A swim together, with 4A at another site. The 5A meet would begin with both swim and dive prelims on Thursday, and then come back for swim and dive finals on Friday. 4A and 3A would swim prelims on Friday, have dive prelims on Saturday morning, and then both finals on Saturday evening.
The classes would rotate in 2018, so that 3A and 4A would be together, with 3A moving to the Thursday/Friday schedule. 5A would be at its own site.
Then, in 2019, 4A and 5A would be together with 4A going Thursday/Friday. In that season, 3A would be on its own.
“We want to ensure equity in the execution of these state meets, so that’s why we decided to rotate each of the classes through each scenario,” Brookens said.
Boys swimming will remain with its current two-classification format.
This plan needs to be approved by the Legislative Council at its April meeting.
Members of the CHSAA basketball committee talk through various playoff format changes. (Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)
AURORA — The basketball committee met at the CHSAA offices Thursday to discuss the inclusion of RPI into the next two-year cycle (beginning with the 2016-17 school year) and how it will change playoff formatting in the five classes.
But playoff formatting in Class 4A and 5A proved to be the big change of the day as each class is slated to move to a 64-team bracket beginning in 2017. The move must be approved at the next Legislative Council meeting in April.
The move to a bracket that includes almost every team in the state is driven by the idea that any team in 1A, 2A and 3A can qualify for state through a district tournament. A 64-team bracket would give a 4A or 5A team who had ineligible players or injuries at the start of the year, a chance to play themselves into contention once the tournament started.
“If you look at those other classes, everyone has a chance to play their way into the tournament,” committee chair Paul Cain said. “In 4A and 5A, we don’t have those opportunities, so if you have some kids who were or ineligible at the start of the season, they may never get that chance to play their way into the tournament. This provides that chance.”
Unlike what is seen in NCAA basketball tournament every year, the 4A and 5A state brackets will not pit the best team in the field against the worst. Seeds 1-16 will be given a double-bye in the tournament and seeds 17-32 will be given a single-bye.
That means in the first round of the tournament, it will be the No. 33 team hosting No. 64, No. 34 hosting No. 63 and so on. The seeding committee does have the latitude to adjust the bracket for geographical considerations.
For 5A, the plan to play the Great 8 at the Denver Coliseum and the Final 4 at the Coors Events Center in Boulder went unchanged.
“We’ve been back and forth over what the membership wants and it’s been kind of a split,” Cain said. “We thought this was a way to do it so that we weren’t matching that 1 vs. 64. We put in those byes so some of the other schools can work their way into the tournament.”
The seeding will be determined based on RPI, but league champions will automatically be placed within the top 32 seeded teams in order to receive at least one bye. If a league champion happens to fall outside the top 32, they will be placed in and the lowest non-automatic qualifier will be placed outside of that window.
From an administrative and coaching standpoint, there is hope that a bigger bracket will encourage participation in the waning months of the season. Coaches and players will be able to track their RPI status daily, so knowing that there is potential of postseason play will hopefully provide motivation from those teams on the bubble.
“What we were seeing and hearing from coaches and from programs was that kids were excited about participating in the postseason, but if they knew they were out of the postseason, that really caused some problems for coaches to keep kids excited about playing basketball,” CHSAA assistant commissioner Bert Borgmann said. “That’s not what we wanted. We want that excitement to continue. By expanding to the 64-team bracket, that gives some of the others a chance to do that.”
Borgmann added that the first round matchup should pit teams with similar records and similar abilities against each other which ideally results in competitive games early in the tournament.
It is still possible for this proposal to be amended as it gets in front of the Legislative Council, but the group that proposed the change saw a chance for more student-athletes to get recognized on a higher state.
“I think the basketball committee saw this as an opportunity to put more teams on center stage and this is a way to do that,” Borgmann said. “And they get to do that against teams who are similar in ability the chance to do that, certainly in the first two rounds.”
Other playoff format changes
The bracket in 3A will remain at 32 teams. District tournament champions and runners-up will automatically qualify for state with the rest of the field determined by RPI. The seven district champions and the top RPI team will host the first weekend of the tournaments. Seeds 9-23 will be determined by straight RPI with seeds 24-32 being geographically based.
There were no changes to the district format for 2A. For regionals, they will take four teams from each district, with the exception of District 3 who will only take three. Whichever district they are pitted against in regionals will then take five teams. The teams are seeded in regionals by RPI. The top two teams from each region will then head to state.
There were no major changes to the playoff format for 1A, but seeding will be done by RPI.
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Notables
In addition to expanding the state bracket to 64 teams, there was discussion to add a third- and fourth-place game for 4A.
There was talk of expanding 3A to a 48-team bracket. Committee members wanted to continue the discussion while seeing how RPI factors into the current playoff format. They are leaving the possibility of expanding the bracket open for future committee meetings.
The Colorado High School Coaches Association broached the subject of adding a 45-second shot clock. A formal rule change proposal would have to be submitted to and approved by CHSAA and then submitted to the National Federation of High Schools.
There was casual talk in 2A about moving to a Final 4 format, but the discussion was not discussed among the entire committee.
A conversation involving the potential move of championship sites was had. One idea that was pitched was moving the 4A and 5A Final 4 to the Denver Coliseum, the site that is currently used for the 5A Great 8.
