Commentary: Here’s some crazy ideas for high school basketball
The Grand Rapids Christian bench goes wild during a Division 2 state title game on Saturday, March 16, 2024 at The Breslin Events Center. (Photo | Lenny Padilla).
COMMENTARY
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - I’ve got a few ideas.
You’re going to think I’m crazy. But hear me out.
Fans love high school basketball, so what can we do to make it more interesting?
Most of these will never happen. But no one ever thought there’d be a 3-point line until it happened in 1988. There’s the new rule doing away with and-one free throws and the MHSAA has expanded to 22 games recently. So you never know what might happen.
Here’s some ideas rattling around in my head.
FRIDAY NIGHT DOUBLEHEADERS
Expand the number of games in the regular season from 22 to 30. Then play conference doubleheaders on Friday nights.
High school kids, who play travel ball, play as many as three games in a day. So that shouldn’t be a problem. Teams could add two players to the roster from the JV team on Fridays to give them some added depth.
This also wouldn’t make the season any longer, since they’d still be playing the same number of dates. Just more games.
In Michigan high school baseball, teams play three conference games. A doubleheader at one school and a single game at the other. So conference teams still each get a home game.
A PLAY-IN GAME
Districts are a crapshoot.
Sometimes there’s a district with four ranked teams in it, so only one will survive.
So why not have a play-in game. One open spot into the regionals.
After all the districts are played out, the losing teams are sent to a one-day knockout tournament to win one at-large spot into the regionals.
So have four sites, one each for Divisions 1-4. Have it at a college venue or a really large high school. The winning team likely would have to play three or four games in one day to win.
Then they get to advance to regionals.
So it’s basically the losers bracket.
Merritt Alderink and Khi Anderson of Zeeland West basketball in a regional game on March 5, 2024. (Photo | Lenny Padilla).
POSTSEASON FREE AGENTS
Here’s another option for the postseason.
All the district champions would be able to add a player to their roster from teams that lost in districts.
Players willing to do that could put their names into a pool. Then the district champs go through an NBA lottery-style process. Then pick one player from the pool to their playoff roster.
DEALING WITH UNRULY FANS
If you’ve ever been to a high school sporting event, you’ve seen some poor fan behavior. Whether it is the parents of students, people get out of hand at games.
So when it comes to basketball, here’s an idea.
If a referee (or administrator) hears a fan berate the officials, they get a warning. Maybe issue a yellow card like they do in soccer. And if the fan does it again, then they have to come out of the stands and shoot two free throws in between quarters. If they miss either one, they get ejected from the gym.
Also, the same goes for student sections. Some are pretty clever. But others are down-right vulgar and say some pretty wicked things to opposing players and referees.
If the refs - or administrators - hear anything mean-spirited, the student section gets a warning. If they do it again, the entire student section is ejected. And if this happens again at another game, the school loses two home games. Their games will be played on the road instead.
Veteran referees such as Arnulfo Perez, left, and Andrew Otten have had to deal with a lot of unruly fans in their careers. (Photo | Lenny Padilla).
PRIVATE SCHOOL CONFERENCE
If you or your kid go to a public school, you’ve likely complained about the dominance of some of the area private schools.
I brought this up before when the Ottawa-Kent Conference had to re-align last year.
Why not have a conference made up of the six largest private schools in Grand Rapids.
Below is the graphic of my suggestion.
All the large private schools have a lot of similarities sports-wise and the public schools have complained about their dominance on the court/field for decades. The only thing that isn’t ideal is that Holland Christian would be a long drive for most teams.
TRADE DEADLINE
This would never happen, but it’s fun to think about.
There’s a trade deadline for the four major professional leagues. So why not in high school? Or even college, now that I think about it.
At the halfway point of the season, teams could make one trade.
If your team has a bunch of guards and you need a post player, then you could make a deal with a willing team. Or maybe you lose your starting forward to injury and you need someone to make a deep run in the postseason.
Although, I don’t think parents would want to see their kid in the uniform of a rival.
MIXED GENDER GAME
How about having two games per season where the boys and girls play on the same team?
They could play on a weekend night. Each team would have to have at least two girls on the floor at all times. Or rotate quarters. Have one quarter that the boys play and the next quarter the girls play. So each would play two quarters. That might work better since each gender plays with a different sized ball.
HOME STUDENTS ARE FREE
Why do schools charge their own students admission? I’ve never understood this.
Let your own students in for free. Everyone else has to pay like normal.
It’s already costing parents and students a lot of money to go to every game.
Let’s be honest, the kids are going to spend money at the concession stand anyway. So this really isn’t going to affect the school’s bottom line.
If you have a student ID for the home team, you should get in for free.
OFFICIATING CLASSES
The bigger high schools in the state should offer a PE class in officiating.
Kids could learn the rules of every sport and get school credit for officiating youth sporting events.
This also would help boost the officiating numbers eventually for high school.
It also could make kids more understanding when they go to a game and see the refs doing the best they can. So not to boo them as much.
