MIAA New Divisions

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Thoughts???

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Thoughts???

Where are the listed? link

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Where are the listed? link

In the older thread that already discussed this.

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Thoughts???

Girls? Is this a done deal? Winchester, Beverly, Central Catholic , going down to D2 ?

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It's been discussed in other threads. The change isn't what was needed. More divisions means more winners, which isn't a positive. But more champions may translate to more tourney revenue, which may be a reason behind the change.

The better move would have been to erase the problem of having d2 schools in one region actually being bigger than the d1 in other regions. The way to fix it is to sort all the schools statewide by size, and assign the biggest 1/3 to d1, middle to d2, etc. Then to make the 4 regional groups, the West would be the most westerly 1/4 of D1s, the South the most southerly 1/4, etc.

Another fix needed is to equalize the number of tourney wins it takes to be champion. The change takes a step in that direction, but a more solid way is make the tournament bracket 16 teams in each division and region.

A third step would be to incorporate strength-of-schedule to determine seeding, which not only has the broader world widely adopted, but other MIAA sports use, and boys soccer uses in western Mass.

A bigger overhaul that's been put forth is to move to something like MIAA's hockey tournament.

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It's been discussed in other threads. The change isn't what was needed. More divisions means more winners, which isn't a positive. But more champions may translate to more tourney revenue, which may be a reason behind the change.

The better move would have been to erase the problem of having d2 schools in one region actually being bigger than the d1 in other regions. The way to fix it is to sort all the schools statewide by size, and assign the biggest 1/3 to d1, middle to d2, etc. Then to make the 4 regional groups, the West would be the most westerly 1/4 of D1s, the South the most southerly 1/4, etc.

Another fix needed is to equalize the number of tourney wins it takes to be champion. The change takes a step in that direction, but a more solid way is make the tournament bracket 16 teams in each division and region.

A third step would be to incorporate strength-of-schedule to determine seeding, which not only has the broader world widely adopted, but other MIAA sports use, and boys soccer uses in western Mass.

A bigger overhaul that's been put forth is to move to something like MIAA's hockey tournament.

The Winchester parents don't think that the girls will be going down to d2 ????

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The better move would have been to erase the problem of having d2 schools in one region actually being bigger than the d1 in other regions. The way to fix it is to sort all the schools statewide by size...

Isn't that what the addition of D4 is really about - the point you make about the D2/D1 schools just applied to the current D3s, but where the real disparity in size and talent is more pronounced? Thus a slew of D3 in other regions now D4 because they really weren't comparable to those other D3 counterparts...and to a lesser extent the other movement between divisions, mostly a smaller number of teams shifting down a division?

I think generally from what I looked at, it made quite a bit of sense in terms of competitive balance.

I do agree with you that seeding and especially qualification standards for making the tournament could be improved.

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Isn't that what the addition of D4 is really about - the point you make about the D2/D1 schools just applied to the current D3s, but where the real disparity in size and talent is more pronounced? Thus a slew of D3 in other regions now D4 because they really weren't comparable to those other D3 counterparts...and to a lesser extent the other movement between divisions, mostly a smaller number of teams shifting down a division?

I think generally from what I looked at, it made quite a bit of sense in terms of competitive balance.

I do agree with you that seeding and especially qualification standards for making the tournament could be improved.

From browsing scores, it's not apparent that there's a more pronounced disparity in certain divisions. It does seem that adding a division, for EMass only, is an attempt toward better size parity. It's just that a more positive step was readily available, but not taken, that of taking the biggest 1/3 of schools statewide = d1, the next 1/3 = d2, etc. If you're new to HS soccer, this is what many would intuitively think is the system. Straightforward, easy to understand, objective, fair.
What would be MIAA's reasons not to do this? One might be allegiance to its geographic Districts, but since it makes exceptions to these, let's hope that's not relevant. A second that's been raised occasionally is additional tourney travel, for example if the West section became much larger in area because the number of high schools among the 1/3 largest in the state are fewer and farther between. This is questionable for a few reasons: within the South, it's already up to a 2-hour drive from one end to the other, so that kind of drive should be acceptable in other regions. Second, even for nearby games, teams get out of school at noon to play, so there's not necessarily more school time missed for a team that's traveling a little further than schools that are relatively close. Third, there are many more lighted fields now than however long ago it was that soccer's geographic Sections were established. Scheduling more tournament games at night might increase attendance as well.

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Nw8p29

Isn't that what the addition of D4 is really about - the point you make about the D2/D1 schools just applied to the current D3s, but where the real disparity in size and talent is more pronounced? Thus a slew of D3 in other regions now D4 because they really weren't comparable to those other D3 counterparts...and to a lesser extent the other movement between divisions, mostly a smaller number of teams shifting down a division?

I think generally from what I looked at, it made quite a bit of sense in terms of competitive balance.

I do agree with you that seeding and especially qualification standards for making the tournament could be improved.

What kid wants to play D4 anything!!

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From browsing scores, it's not apparent that there's a more pronounced disparity in certain divisions. It does seem that adding a division, for EMass only, is an attempt toward better size parity. It's just that a more positive step was readily available, but not taken, that of taking the biggest 1/3 of schools statewide = d1, the next 1/3 = d2, etc. If you're new to HS soccer, this is what many would intuitively think is the system. Straightforward, easy to understand, objective, fair.
What would be MIAA's reasons not to do this? One might be allegiance to its geographic Districts, but since it makes exceptions to these, let's hope that's not relevant. A second that's been raised occasionally is additional tourney travel, for example if the West section became much larger in area because the number of high schools among the 1/3 largest in the state are fewer and farther between. This is questionable for a few reasons: within the South, it's already up to a 2-hour drive from one end to the other, so that kind of drive should be acceptable in other regions. Second, even for nearby games, teams get out of school at noon to play, so there's not necessarily more school time missed for a team that's traveling a little further than schools that are relatively close. Third, there are many more lighted fields now than however long ago it was that soccer's geographic Sections were established. Scheduling more tournament games at night might increase attendance as well.

D1 South is still too big; You will most likely still need prelim games. This will probably be the case in D2 South as well. No question all divisions should be separated into evenly divided regions so that every team plays 4 rounds to win sectional championship.

Look at Volleyball for a model.

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D1 No question all divisions should be separated into evenly divided regions so that every team plays 4 rounds to win sectional championship.

Look at Volleyball for a model.

Agreed! Teams that get a bye to the quarterfinal??????.....completely unfair to teams that have to play a preliminary and first round game to get to the quarterfinal game

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D1 South is still too big; You will most likely still need prelim games. This will probably be the case in D2 South as well. No question all divisions should be separated into evenly divided regions so that every team plays 4 rounds to win sectional championship.

Look at Volleyball for a model.

It's surprising how MIAA lets each sport do their own thing, so that when a sport like volleyball has a fairer model, or lacrosse and western Mass. soccer employ strength of schedule for seeding, MIAA doesn't have other sports adopt the improvements. It would help the public understand high school sports much better, and from the educational perspective, improve fairness and opportunity.

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MIAA is a waste and pathetic. Do away with it.

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D1 South is still too big; You will most likely still need prelim games. This will probably be the case in D2 South as well. No question all divisions should be separated into evenly divided regions so that every team plays 4 rounds to win sectional championship.

Look at Volleyball for a model.

The point was to draw the lines for the regions so that South isn't any bigger than the other regions. True that you could still have prelim games if the qualifying standard remains a .500 record, but the likelihood of having prelim games would be the same for all regions if this proposal were adopted.

A separate step that could be taken is to re-visit the qualifying standard of a .500 record, and change to 1) the top 16 teams in each region or 2) the top 64 statewide. But the .500 qualifying standard seems popular, so it seems less important to change that, and more important to simplify how schools are assigned to size divisions and how the regions are defined.

[fattydaddy]

Thank You!