Posted by SGAstumpJ on February 14, 2023 at 22:29:15:
In Reply to: Re: CIF Playoffs - Small School Edition posted by cupboard is bare on February 11, 2023 at 23:35:04:
: : : Shalhevet, Valley Torah, and AGBU.
: : : 3 small schools, we’re talking 200 students a pop, with local talent, winning basketball games in highly competitive divisions.
: : : We’ve had the opportunity to watch Coleman at Shali (Div 2) through the years, phenomenal. We watched Kopooshian at AGBU (Div 2), another basketball savant, and finally Schwartzberg (Div 2), incredibly gifted basketball mind. What these 3 have done with their programs, RESPECT.
: : Schools like this and many others under 1000 students(St John Bosco, Aquinas, St Paul,Etc.) are why the system changed last decade to no longer value attendance. You get these Schools with a strong feeder program and having fewer students doesn't mean much when the entire program has played basketball since they could walk.
: : Who else remembers seeing St John Bosco, Renaissance, SGA, etc. embarrass the lower divisions for years. It's much better seeing these teams compete against other top teams. Those were some great highlt competive wins
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: I know there is no perfect formula to get teams where they belong competitively, but it would be a miracle if any of the "ethnic" small schools ever make a semifinal in any division higher than 3A. There just isn't enough consistent basketball talent in those communities to be competitive. Next year, all three schools mentioned by the original poster will be lucky to get within 25 of their 1st round opponent.
For what it's worth, AGBU is in the 2A semifinals and Valley Torah and SGA ran into each other in the 3A quarterfinals tonight.