Iup basketball

[EyeoftheHawk]

It's all so freaked up now it's hard to keep track. I don't know what's next for Aliquippa football. They are a Class A school by enrollment (and a small one at that). They just went 14-1 in Class 4A and lost in the PIAA final. The WPIAL may move them to the the PSAC next.

The public/private debate in high school sports gets tiresome but it is real problem.

In girls basketball last week I had to laugh when little Homer-Center (near Indiana) drew Kennedy Catholic in the PIAA Tournament. It would be hard to find two programs more different. One is home-grown. One recruits better than most D1 programs.

The boys coach at little Union High School went on a tirade several weeks back about his team losing to a private school full of ringers. His outburst actually got a lot of air time on Yinzer sports radio stations. He wasn't wrong.

I personally think 6 classes has ruined the WPIAL ... not sure the effect out in your parts.

The Kennedy Catholic team is coached by Justin Magestro, father of UPJ’s guard Drew Magestro. I watched the game and got great amusement by how the elder Magestro acted like his team had really done something. No offense to the girls who are just out there playing basketball, but to talk about how hard the girls worked and how they earned it, yada, yada, yada, was laughable. They had a big girl that would average 10-12 points in the PSAC and they just dumped it in to her. I have never coached a high school basketball game in my life and feel confident I could have coached that team to a state championship. Homer Center, a true small school with 100% local talent versus a collection of all-stars. Sorry Mr. Magestro…not impressed.

The Heritage Conference is one of the best in the state for girls basketball (two teams in the state finals this year). Imagine if they put together an all-star team and played in AA classification. That’s essentially what’s happening. It’s going to be up to PA’s sorry excuse for a legislature to step up and deal with it because the PIAA isn’t going to. What’s most likely is we’ll still be having this same discussion next year, and the year after that, and so on. The fix really doesn’t seem that difficult.

[Ship69]

West Virginia has already done this. Privates play up a class or two in the state for this reason. The tiny publics (and in WV there are a gazillion of those) are now winning Single A regularly instead of the Privates that have the same enrollment but a much larger metro area to pull from. Seems to be working o.k.

It might work. They definitely need to do something in Pa. A lot of it depends on the type of area you're talking about. A few years ago I read about a Chicago Catholic school that had access to about 198.000 students in its recruiting footprint. Needless to say, they do pretty well in football even though they play in the highest classification.

[Scrub]

Well, you're either playing by the same rules or you aren't. Best solution if you're not going to have separate playoffs might be to put schools up a class if they're recruiting outside of their geographical areas. In other words, if McDevitt wants to get a player out of Mechanicsburg, you need to consider Mechanicsburg's enrollment as well as Harrisburg's when assigning them a class. They already do this with public schools such as North Penn/Mansfield who combine to field a football program.

West Virginia has already done this. Privates play up a class or two in the state for this reason. The tiny publics (and in WV there are a gazillion of those) are now winning Single A regularly instead of the Privates that have the same enrollment but a much larger metro area to pull from. Seems to be working o.k.

[IUPNation]

Well, you're either playing by the same rules or you aren't. Best solution if you're not going to have separate playoffs might be to put schools up a class if they're recruiting outside of their geographical areas. In other words, if McDevitt wants to get a player out of Mechanicsburg, you need to consider Mechanicsburg's enrollment as well as Harrisburg's when assigning them a class. They already do this with public schools such as North Penn/Mansfield who combine to field a football program.

That’s what I suggested. I see no issue where a small well funded catholic school gets put at the same level as a large high enrollment public school. It’s actually a level playing field.

[Ship69]

Private/Catholic schools should have a different process to be classified than Public schools. There are Catholic schools that are punching bags as well so you can’t lump them as all the same in recruiting players x If a small Catholic high school is recruiting and beating bigger public schools they should be classified based on recent performance and not enrollment. So maybe McDevitt in Harrisburg is put in 5 or 6A.

Well, you're either playing by the same rules or you aren't. Best solution if you're not going to have separate playoffs might be to put schools up a class if they're recruiting outside of their geographical areas. In other words, if McDevitt wants to get a player out of Mechanicsburg, you need to consider Mechanicsburg's enrollment as well as Harrisburg's when assigning them a class. They already do this with public schools such as North Penn/Mansfield who combine to field a football program.

[IUPNation]

Another good reason to have separate championship playoffs for public and private schools, although it's usually worse on the football side.

My local high school, which plays Class 5A in most sports, gets pushed up to 6A in basketball because of all the tiny Christian and other private schools that play basketball. That meant we got Reading in the second game of our district playoffs this year. Fun.

Private/Catholic schools should have a different process to be classified than Public schools. There are Catholic schools that are punching bags as well so you can’t lump them as all the same in recruiting players x If a small Catholic high school is recruiting and beating bigger public schools they should be classified based on recent performance and not enrollment. So maybe McDevitt in Harrisburg is put in 5 or 6A.

[hawks16]

The boys coach at little Union High School went on a tirade several weeks back about his team losing to a private school full of ringers. His outburst actually got a lot of air time on Yinzer sports radio stations. He wasn't wrong.

I personally think 6 classes has ruined the WPIAL ... not sure the effect out in your parts.

I work in New Castle. Mark Stanley, to be fair, said the same things when they beat the same charter school the year prior in the district playoffs. And the Union girls team won the state title in Class 1A over a private school, Lourdes Regional. There are a couple players over here I think could make a splash in the PSAC. Oddly, not a ton of D2 players seem to come out of this part of the WPIAL.

[Ship69]

So maybe The Yinzerlands need to read the room. There are too many dinky school districts in the Picksburgh area. Eastern PA isn’t the problem.

There should not be any Single A programs in Allegheny County. Enough of keeping it because of the past. The Western PA of the past is gone. It’s a new day. Consolidate and start fresh..no more keeping Dinky High School so they can keep trotting out the 1965 WPIAL champions every year…

Clinging to the past assures you have no relevant present or future. See Flyers, Philadelphia who cannot get past 1974 or 1975.

Well, either consolidate or win the classifications you're playing in. There's nothing wrong with being 3A or 4A state champions.

[IUPNation]

It isn't a coincidence that there was only one district to vote against the move 6 classifications. I agree that it destroyed what was the mystique of the WPIAL (and although that wasn't the actual reasoning, I'm sure it made the decision makers within the PIAA happy that it knocked them down a peg). Heck, in no other part of the state was winning a district championship more important than winning a state title.

The move watered down everything so much. The move was primarily done to appease eastern PA, where they have merged school districts, have larger districts overall, and there's far more people. I think there's like 10 schools that play 6A football in the WPIAL.

So maybe The Yinzerlands need to read the room. There are too many dinky school districts in the Picksburgh area. Eastern PA isn’t the problem.

There should not be any Single A programs in Allegheny County. Enough of keeping it because of the past. The Western PA of the past is gone. It’s a new day. Consolidate and start fresh..no more keeping Dinky High School so they can keep trotting out the 1965 WPIAL champions every year…

Clinging to the past assures you have no relevant present or future. See Flyers, Philadelphia who cannot get past 1974 or 1975.

[Ship69]

It's all so freaked up now it's hard to keep track. I don't know what's next for Aliquippa football. They are a Class A school by enrollment (and a small one at that). They just went 14-1 in Class 4A and lost in the PIAA final. The WPIAL may move them to the the PSAC next.

The public/private debate in high school sports gets tiresome but it is real problem.

In girls basketball last week I had to laugh when little Homer-Center (near Indiana) drew Kennedy Catholic in the PIAA Tournament. It would be hard to find two programs more different. One is home-grown. One recruits better than most D1 programs.

The boys coach at little Union High School went on a tirade several weeks back about his team losing to a private school full of ringers. His outburst actually got a lot of air time on Yinzer sports radio stations. He wasn't wrong.

I personally think 6 classes has ruined the WPIAL ... not sure the effect out in your parts.

School enrollments aren't declining as much in our area as they are in the West (Cumberland County is the fastest-growing county in the state), which makes it an entirely different story. I think our District 3 has only about a half-dozen (or fewer) 1A football schools in the whole region. One of those is Steel-High, which actually has been pretty successful in the football playoffs. The most common football class in our area is 5A, where last I looked the District had about 30-some schools. We do have a few 6A such as Cumberland Valley Reading, Central Dauphin, etc. I think the big schools around Philly account for a lot of the 6A schools.

I certainly come down on the separate playoff side of the public-private dispute. One of my wife's cousins was a coach and AD for years at a small District 5 high school and has many tales of being raided by an area Catholic school. Bishop McDevitt in our area recruits shamelessly. They're on the east shore of the Susquehanna River in Harrisburg and have brought several players in from the West Shore over the years. I remember them getting the Robinson kid out of Mechanicsburg who later played running back at Penn State. And he didn't go there for the "Catholic education" as Trinity Catholic High School is located within the boundaries of the Mechanicsburg school district. I believe this past year's McDevitt team has three players going to the Big Ten and another to Virginia Tech. Their sophomore QB was all-state. And for all that, they play at 4A, same level as Aliquippa has been forced into, and don't even play in the toughest division of the Mid-Penn Conference. I don't know how they get away with it. In our 4A district playoffs they played Manheim Central, a highly respected public program that has won a state championship and a bunch of district championships, and beat them 40-0. After the game, the Manheim Central coach just shook his head, chuckled, and said, "That was a nice 6A team we played out there today."

[IUP24]

It's all so freaked up now it's hard to keep track. I don't know what's next for Aliquippa football. They are a Class A school by enrollment (and a small one at that). They just went 14-1 in Class 4A and lost in the PIAA final. The WPIAL may move them to the the PSAC next.

The public/private debate in high school sports gets tiresome but it is real problem.

In girls basketball last week I had to laugh when little Homer-Center (near Indiana) drew Kennedy Catholic in the PIAA Tournament. It would be hard to find two programs more different. One is home-grown. One recruits better than most D1 programs.

The boys coach at little Union High School went on a tirade several weeks back about his team losing to a private school full of ringers. His outburst actually got a lot of air time on Yinzer sports radio stations. He wasn't wrong.

I personally think 6 classes has ruined the WPIAL ... not sure the effect out in your parts.

It isn't a coincidence that there was only one district to vote against the move 6 classifications. I agree that it destroyed what was the mystique of the WPIAL (and although that wasn't the actual reasoning, I'm sure it made the decision makers within the PIAA happy that it knocked them down a peg). Heck, in no other part of the state was winning a district championship more important than winning a state title.

The move watered down everything so much. The move was primarily done to appease eastern PA, where they have merged school districts, have larger districts overall, and there's far more people. I think there's like 10 schools that play 6A football in the WPIAL.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Another good reason to have separate championship playoffs for public and private schools, although it's usually worse on the football side.

My local high school, which plays Class 5A in most sports, gets pushed up to 6A in basketball because of all the tiny Christian and other private schools that play basketball. That meant we got Reading in the second game of our district playoffs this year. Fun.

It's all so freaked up now it's hard to keep track. I don't know what's next for Aliquippa football. They are a Class A school by enrollment (and a small one at that). They just went 14-1 in Class 4A and lost in the PIAA final. The WPIAL may move them to the the PSAC next.

The public/private debate in high school sports gets tiresome but it is real problem.

In girls basketball last week I had to laugh when little Homer-Center (near Indiana) drew Kennedy Catholic in the PIAA Tournament. It would be hard to find two programs more different. One is home-grown. One recruits better than most D1 programs.

The boys coach at little Union High School went on a tirade several weeks back about his team losing to a private school full of ringers. His outburst actually got a lot of air time on Yinzer sports radio stations. He wasn't wrong.

I personally think 6 classes has ruined the WPIAL ... not sure the effect out in your parts.

[Ship69]

In the recent PIAA boys and girls finals..The Philadelphia Catholic League went 4-1 in the title round. West Catholic for the boys and Lansdale Catholic, Archbishop Wood and Archbishop Carroll for the girls for the win and Roman Catholic lost to Reading on the boys side.

Hopefully IUP can recruit a few players from the PCL…

Another good reason to have separate championship playoffs for public and private schools, although it's usually worse on the football side.

My local high school, which plays Class 5A in most sports, gets pushed up to 6A in basketball because of all the tiny Christian and other private schools that play basketball. That meant we got Reading in the second game of our district playoffs this year. Fun.

[IUPalum]

He's going to be a major headache for the rest of the PSAC West.

I think the question for SRU is can they get enough of a quality supporting cast around him based on their somewhat limited scholarship numbers. Assuming they do also sign Ike Herster and have Lashon Lindsey returning ... that's probably three full rides right there. Average year SRU probably has 4.5 to 6 equivalencies. So, that probably means building the rest of the roster spread over 2-3 equivalencies.

I'd guess a change of scenery (and coach) is going to do wonders for Herster. Khalid Gates may regret leaving.

Gates leaving probably opened the fund to get Austin.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

TribLive said two years of eligibility and he'll play as a grad student. What the TribLive article didn't say is why he left the Duquesne program. Connect the dots, but his older sister died in January 2020. He was a star at Kennedy Catholic (Joe's alma mater), scoring 1,971 points and winning four state titles. Played in the shadow of Oscar Tshiebwe.

He's going to be a major headache for the rest of the PSAC West.

I think the question for SRU is can they get enough of a quality supporting cast around him based on their somewhat limited scholarship numbers. Assuming they do also sign Ike Herster and have Lashon Lindsey returning ... that's probably three full rides right there. Average year SRU probably has 4.5 to 6 equivalencies. So, that probably means building the rest of the roster spread over 2-3 equivalencies.

I'd guess a change of scenery (and coach) is going to do wonders for Herster. Khalid Gates may regret leaving.