What good does it do to win the Monterey Bay League title if you also have to win the league tournament after the regular season to avoid sharing it?
The MBL tournament -- which begins tonight -- may give teams a second shot at life.
But winning a league tournament should not include a share of the MBL title.
MBL girls champion Seaside stands to gain nothing this week by facing teams it has already beaten this year.
Then again, if you're two-time MBL boys champion Monterey, you've got a chance to three-peat after finishing third during the season.
I'm all for the winning team in the tournament getting an automatic spot into the postseason. But not a share of the title.
John Devine has been writing about high school sports in Monterey County since, well, practically since he was an athlete at King City in the days just after leather helmets. In PrepNation, John has even more in-depth analysis of the latest results and news he's brought to you in The Herald and in his weekly videos.
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4 comments:
It rewards teams that overcome early setbacks and/or continue to improve and peak later.
Teams, especially from small schools, often start their season without a full squad and it takes time to get up to speed.
Tournaments are exciting and the chance to share the title creates motivation for an upset and an opportunity to hang a banner in the gym.
Co-Champions are just a part of high school sports.
Then why even play for a league title? Treat it like a track meet. It all comes down to one meet.
They do it in college as well, so why not in high school?
Don't believe that the reward for winning the MBL Tournament is like what they do in college.
Take the Big East for example.
In the Big East there is a regular season title. Team with the best league record at the end of the regular season is declared the Big East champ.
Then they go on to play the Big East Tournament. League results are used for seedings. The Tournament Champion gets an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. But they are not declared co-champion for the league/regular season.
And that is what makes the MBL Tournament different. The end of season tournament winner (assuming it is not he same team that won the regular season title) is declared co-champion for the whole season.
Perhaps it is semantics, but I agree with John that is seems silly that with a few lucky breaks and some great basketball that Christopher High, with their 4 and 8 league record this year, could win the end of season MBL Tournament and hang a banner in their gym as co-champion of the MBL this year. Co-champion with the 11 and 1 Watsonville Wildcats.
Ultimately the problem for the MBL is that rewarding a team with a share of the league title is about the only reward they can hold out there to ensure the teams have something to play for in the tournament. (The MTAL Tournament went away after one year because it had no reason to exist other than giving the teams a few more "meaningless" games to play after the end of the regular season.) CCS has a set of rules by which they determine who gets into the post-season...and winning a tournament held after the regular season ends is not one of them.
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