The NCHSAA Board of Directors, at its spring meeting held on April 29th-30th, adopted the format for the individual and dual-team championships.
The actions of the NCHSAA over the course of the last six months track closely with the Realignment Priniciples adopted by the NCHSTCA Board last summer, with one major exception.
That exception was the decision by the Board of Directors to adopt the Bylaw Committee recommendation that the individual state tournaments be limited to eight singles players and eight doubles teams in each classification. This was a recommendation presented to the Board of Directors over the objection, and against the better judgment, of the NCHSTCA.
Here's how the NCHSAA's actions match up with the principles that have guided our advocacy for the last ten months.
Broad Participation in State Tournaments - The state did adopt a 48-team bracket for dual-team tennis, along with other bracketed sports. This means that, in most classifications, the vast majority of teams will participate in the state tournament.
For the individual tournament, as mentioned above, we believed that a 16-entry state tournament was both preferred and eminently feasible. Moreover, it was the overwhelming position favored by respondents to our realignment survey. We advocated for that position to the very end of the process, and are disappointed that our counsel on this question was rejected.
Equitable Access to the State Tournaments - The Board of Directors did adopt a plan which allows roughly the same proportion of schools access to the state tournament, regardless of classification. In 8A, 24 of 32 schools will qualify for the playoffs. In 1A-7A, 48 of a potential 64 schools will be selected for postseason play.
Better Early-Round Experiences for All Schools - Because the brackets were set at 24 and 48, they will be naturally staggered, with the top sixteen teams receiving first-round byes. This will result in better, more evenly competitive first-round matches for the rest of the field.
Conferences Based on Geography and Local Rivalry - As we expected, conferences were created with a premium placed on reducing travel and preserving local rivalries. This resulted in more than 80% of schools being assigned to some kind of split conference.
Ending Preferential Seeding Based on Conference Standing - The NCHSAA Board of Directors eliminated the automatic qualifying and preferential seeding processes currently in force, and voted to create brackets strictly by the RPI standings calculated by MaxPreps. While it would be exceptionally rare for a conference champion to be rated outside the top 48, in that rare case, the conference champion would not receive an automatic berth in the playoffs.
Seeding and bracketing will also be based solely on RPI ... and the process of moving teams up in the seeding list based on conference standing was abolished.
Finally, the RPI formula itself was modified. The current formula is 30% (team's winning percentage), 40% (opponents' winning percentage), and 30% (opponents' opponents' winning percentage). The new formula is 40/40/20 ... 40% (team's winning percentage), 40% (opponents' winning percentage), and 20% (opponents' opponents' winning percentage).
The impact of this change will be to slightly increase the value of a team's raw overall record, and slightly reduce the value of a team's strength of schedule.
In Conclusion
This has been a long and arduous process for the Board, its committees, and the NCHSAA. We commend them for their hard work and dedication to high school sports.
Most of what we had hoped for has come to pass. For that, we are grateful.
The one disappointment is the size of the state individual tournaments. We had hoped for the opportunity to allow more of our players to have a state championship experience.
Instead, the Board felt compelled to limit the state championships to about the same number of students as at present, even though we demonstrated the viability of a 16-entry tournament,
We'll discuss this issue at our summer workshop in June, and will report to our membership and the coaching community at large on our continuing advocacy efforts on behalf of NC high school tennis.
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