This topic came up in the Cooper-Conner cancellation thread.

 

I'm with Clyde in that I'm curious as to why there would be district games scheduled this early in the season. It's an issue that's gotten worse in recent years in my opinion. This year in the 19th District, we have several district games in December, and next week's schedule is packed full of them. Thomas Nelson, our new school in the area, will have knocked out half of its eight-game district slate before Christmas.

 

I'll go ahead and say it: It's freakin' stupid. It messes up the flow of the season and renders the holiday tournaments pretty much meaningless, as their intention in the past was to give teams a chance to play a lot of games in a short period, thereby getting them ready for January and February, when the real hoops is played. It's especially stupid in HS hoops, where teams can change so much from one month to the next in terms of improvement.

 

For the record, I also hate college conference games being played before New Year's, for the same reasons. December is for holiday tournaments and interesting intra-region and out-of-region matchups. Not district games. If I'm a coach, I'd be pretty uptight if my chance at getting the top seed in the district tournament was flushed down the toilet before January even rolls around and my team hasn't even come close to gelling.

 

Also, I've never heard any decent justification for playing these games before New Year's. So I'd love to hear one if you've got one.

 

Thoughts????

Each district is different. Some have one game that counts and others have both games count toward seeding. Also have to take into consideration KY weather. Do not want to come up the last weeks of the season trying to get cancellations rescheduled.

Each district is different. Some have one game that counts and others have both games count toward seeding. Also have to take into consideration KY weather. Do not want to come up the last weeks of the season trying to get cancellations rescheduled.

 

If the district doesn't seed, then it doesn't really count as a "district game." For the purposes of this thread, I'm speaking about the districts that seed. And if the district seeding is decided by one game rather than two, don't play twice.

 

As far as the weather goes, there's more than enough time to get those games in during January and February. If it's a problem, drop some of the meaningless games (and yes, non-district games are meaningless in the grand scheme of things -- all that matters is district play during the regular season). There are too many non-district games breaking up the January and February schedule anyway, and too many games in Ky HS hoops period.

Some teams like Silver Grove open with their district games (Brossart, Scott and Campbell County) in which they are blown out usually, and then get on with their season against realistic opponents.

Our experience in the 14th District was in the other direction. Warren Central used to play Warren East in the second week of the season every single year. As in every year from the opening of those schools through December 2007. There were many years they played two district games in the month, as recently as 2001. South Warren is the exception, as they play THREE district games in December.

 

Honestly, my only argument for it is to give some spacing between the games. Every team in the district plays a home and home. Central plays Bowling Green two weeks apart. They play South Warren on consecutive Tuesdays. I always liked a little time between the games, but you don't have that any more. Plus in the 14th you have eight district games, so it's just about all they play in January.

 

That said, I'm with you Jim, my desire for some spacing aside. I look at a team like Bowling Green that is facing the prospect of playing a district game six days from now when five of their players, most of them their top players, are playing as I type in the football state title game. I think there needs to be a buffer between the football season and games that shape the basketball postseason.

If the district doesn't seed, then it doesn't really count as a "district game." For the purposes of this thread, I'm speaking about the districts that seed. And if the district seeding is decided by one game rather than two, don't play twice.

 

As far as the weather goes, there's more than enough time to get those games in during January and February. If it's a problem, drop some of the meaningless games (and yes, non-district games are meaningless in the grand scheme of things -- all that matters is district play during the regular season). There are too many non-district games breaking up the January and February schedule anyway, and too many games in Ky HS hoops period.

 

GRC will play all 3 district games in Dec. of which only one of them is played twice. We do play MoCo twice as they are a huge district rival and we play them as a double header with the girls team.

The 31st plays 4 before Christmas and 4 in January. Hard to wait until February. The season ends on the 15th.

Again, I say, pack 'em into Jan/Feb. That's when district games are supposed to be played. Who cares if that's all there is in that month? Like I said, you can play non-district games before New Year's. All you're doing is swapping them around.