An Updated Look at the IHSA Multiplier and How It Has Failed Miserably - and Other College Basketball News

It's an interesting time to look at the IHSA Multiplier again..

as many know the IHSA was a success-penalty aimed at private school to slow them down and prevent them from being so successful in state tourney play...the expansion of the classes was also aimed at allowing more opportunity for the majority public schools to get titles.

-First - has it worked?
Some will say yes, but in reality - easily done checks of who has been winning state titles in various sports, shows that the multiplier has had very little effect on preventing private schools from dominating certain sports.
The idea was to bump the privates up to higher classes so the smaller schools would have more chances.

Let's just look at a few representative sports and the sports that are most popular.


1)Baseball - almost all state champs in baseball have always been the public schools...
In 2007-2008 they went to 4 classes from two..
In the four seasons since, a private school has won one of the smaller classes (1A & 2A) twice & the larger classes (3A & 4A) once.
(there were also four MORE private runner-ups)

BUT in the prior full decade (10 seasons!)!!!! Only one private had won in any class in any year!! (Niles Notre Dame on 03-04, Class AA)
...so CLEARLY the Multiplier has NOT accomplished it's desired effect in baseball.


2)Boys Basketball - in the past four seasons since going to 4 classes, two privates have won the smaller classes.
In the prior DECADE before that it had only happened twice (Hales 02-03, Leo 03-04)


3)Football -
the only classes that were ever in question were 2-5 where schools like Joliet Catholic and New Lenox Providence Catholic used to dominate before the Multiplier.
BUT - the Multiplier hasn't even worked here where the MAIN purpose of it was intended to force the privates up a class or two so they wouldn't win.

Again - it didn't work...Joliet Catholic again got to the title game again last fall in Class 5A and faced YET ANOTHER private school (Lombard Montini) - so anyone who doesn't see that instead of always dominating Class 4A - now the Catholic privates simply dominate 5A!
In Classes 2-5A 13 title game participants were private since 2008, compared to the exact same number the previous four seasons - and if you go back into the 1990's before all the talk of eight classes and the Multiplier - then in the final four-year span before those changes came - between 1997-2000
THERE WERE ONLY 11 PRIVATES THAT WON ANY OF THE SIX CLASSES.
So again -- the expansion to eight classes plus pushing the privates up to higher classes has resulted in NO perceptible changes.


4)Boys & Girls Golf
We've now had five years experience with expansion to 3 classes plus the multiplier -
In those five seasons - fifteen of the 28 teams awarded either champion or runnerup trophies were private!!
That's essentially the exact same percentage as was seen in the prior 5 seasons under 2 classes and before the Multiplier (11 of 20)

It's even more noticable in Girl's Golf...
Past 5 seasons with 2 classes - 10 of 20 champs & runnerups were private.
The preceding 5 seasons only 3 of 11 were.

5) Boys & Girls Soccer
Here we really see the futility of the Multipler!

Past four seasons under the Multiplier and a 3-Class system -
Boys - 12 of 24 teams in the title game were privates
Girls - 8 of 18 were privates

in the preceding four seasons it was 6-16 for boys and 6-16 for girls
so - once again - the percentage of title game participants that are privates is UNCHANGED by all the manipulating and new rules.


6) Girls Volleyball - now get ready for some really stunning facts...

-They went to five classes under the Multiplier in 2007, so in the past FIVE SEASONS...
16 of 32 title game participants were privates...including 5 of 8 this current season.

In the comparable five seasons before that in TWO Classes,
only 6 of 20 final game participants (Champs & Runnerups) were privates.
So...the Multiplier has been a CLEAR failure.

And on and on it goes - in every sport....
In fact -

Here's the kicker
In Girls Swimming and Diving -- there was NO PRIVATE school champ nor runnerup all the way from the beginning of the state playoffs in 1975, through 2001 (25 seasons)
.......and only ONE in first 28 seasons - up to 2004!!!!!!

Then the multiplier kicked in and guess what??
I don't have an explanation for it - but since the Multiplier in Girls Swimming and Diving...
SEVEN TIMES in the past 9 seasons there's been a private school among the Champs or Runnerups with four champions being private!!
Whoa - the Multiplier sure BACKFIRED here, I guess...


So I think we proved it didn't work -- so how do the other schools feel about it...

Many are NOT happy and want further rule changes...

as expected many are not happy - they see the IHSA as incessantly meddling with something that was already working just fine and now it's got even more serious problems...

http://www.newstrib.com/articles/sports/todays-n-t-sports/default.asp?Article=28235&aname=Column%3A+Are+IHSA+changes+needed%3F

http://www.pantagraph.com/sports/columnists/kindred/article_efdc0772-9c77-11e0-b138-001cc4c002e0.html

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-06-16/sports/ct-spt-0617-prep-ihsa-changes-20110616_1_ihsa-multiplier-charter-schools

But to me the funniest part of this whole Multiplier thing is this....
The Multiplier itself is EXACTLY what the public school folks demanded -- they pushed and pushed until they got their way...
and even when they were told that we all KNEW they wouldn't be happy with the outcome -- they still said it WAS WHAT THEY WANTED!!!
So are they happy that they got EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANTED???

Well - read for yourself...of course not -- they want more, and more, and more --
I guess the only thing that'll make the public school crowd happy is to either BAN all private schools - something that has been resoundingly a failure elsewhere
as so many of the most prominent and wealthiest citizens then no longer support the public schools and their playoffs costing state organizations MILLIONS...
Or just give the trophies to the public school just for participating NOT for being actually any good at anything!! ..yeah...that'll surely make them happy!

http://www.morrisdailyherald.com/2011/06/02/multiplier-is-a-good-thing-ihsa-but-its-not-enough/aagujrq/



Some College Basketball News....

Coastal Carolina has their 3rd player arrest since summer
Their top scorer now arrested but we see the coach really defending him

http://www2.scnow.com/news/grand-strand/2012/mar/05/ccu-hoops-ellis-responds-gradnigo-arrest-ar-3356627/


Texas State head coach's home was robbed and ransacked by two former Texas State players!

http://www.newschannel10.com/story/17083288/2-ex-players-arrested-in-heist-of-tsu-coachs-home

So...the odd part in this story is...why did the head coach have $500K in stuff just sitting in his home to be stolen?


Drexel star was arrested and suspended a couple days ago..
http://thetriangle.org/2012/03/02/basketball-star-arrested-and-suspended/

He probably cost his team the game last night
http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/boxscore?gid=201203050172


YAHOO ARTICLE PROVES THE NCAA LOOKS THE OTHER WAY WITH THIS STUFF...
anyway -- why are all the cheaters always being caught by the bloggers instead of the NCAA?

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/news?slug=dw-wetzel_syracuse_basketball_investigation_030512


Watch ESPN2 tonight at 8PM -- Coach Jim Molinari has his WIU Leathernecks in the Summit League Championship game at 8PM!!
Go MO!!!!