Southern Section Alters Basketball Playoff Structure

The Southern Section decided Thursday to group basketball leagues in postseason divisions solely on school enrollment. The move not only puts the section in conformance with the state tournament but also may result in the inclusion of nearly 100 more teams in postseason play.

The section’s General Council approved the move by a 31-26 vote after rejecting an alternate proposal by the same vote. Five leagues were not represented. The plan takes effect for the 1988-89 school year and is binding for two years.

The rejected plan followed current section form by grouping leagues in various divisions based on competitive strength.

The approved plan is a radical departure, using enrollment as the sole criterion for playoff groupings. Boys’ and girls’ basketball teams will play the regular season in existing leagues that will submit their allotted playoff entries to the section office, which will group those teams in divisions.

The Southern Section, the largest of the state’s 10 sections with 479 schools, was the only one in the state that had not followed California Interscholastic Federation guidelines, which group basketball playoff divisions by enrollment.

The state uses five groupings, four of which have two divisions. Last season, 160 boys’ teams were guaranteed berths in six Southern Section playoff brackets. Under the new plan, an estimated 260 boys’ teams are guaranteed berths in nine playoff divisions, according to Southern Section administrator Dean Crowley.

Division I, which will be divided into 5-AA and 5-A, will include schools with enrollments of 2,400 or more (5-AA) and 2,000 to 2,399 (5-A). Division II will include schools with enrollments of 1,750 to 1,999 (4-AA) and 1,500 to 1,749 (4-A).

Division III will include schools with enrollments of 1,000 to 1,499 (3-A); Division IV, 750 to 999 (2-AA) and 400 to 749 (2-A); and Division V, 150 to 399 (1-A) and 149 and fewer (Small Schools).

Enrollment at all-boys and all-girls schools will be considered as double and the sophomore class of three-year schools also will be doubled. Enrollments will be based on Oct. 1 totals. In addition, private schools will be given the opportunity to move up to a higher division.

In another move, the council discarded geographical names for the section’s nine football conferences and ranked them numerically to indicate competitive strength. Division I is the former Big Five Conference. The other conferences are: Division II (Coastal), III (Southern), IV (Eastern), V (Southeastern), VI (Central), VII (Northwestern), VIII (Desert-Mountain) and IX (Inland).