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The proposal to increase South Dakota high school basketball games from 20 to 22 was rejected with an 89-23 vote. The SDHSAA Board of Directors will consider feedback before their upcoming meeting.
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Apr. 17âMITCHELL â The South Dakota high school basketball regular season is staying at 20 games.
A proposal to increase the number of allowed regular-season contests to 22 games for both girls and boys basketball failed by a 89-23 vote at the South Dakota Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association spring conference.
The original proposal was drafted by Rapid City Christian activities director and head boys basketball coach Kyle Courtney and was approved by a 4-2 vote from the South Dakota High School Activities Association basketball advisory committee in February. It was the only proposal out of six presented to the advisory committee to reach the SDIAAA conference.
The vote from the SDIAAA members is non-binding. The SDHSAA Board of Directors will take that feedback and input from SDHSAA staff into consideration before voting on the proposal during their April 22-23 board meeting. Proposed sport rule changes need to pass two rounds of SDHSAA Board of Directors voting before being formally approved.
Class AA schools voted 15-3 against the plan to allow up to 22 games. Class A schools voted 34-6 against it, and Class B schools opposed it 40-14.
Even still, Dell Rapids Superintendent Donavan DeBoer, the advisory committee's administrator representative, predicted the proposal would receive minimal support among administrators once it reached the SDIAAA conference.
"I would be more apt to vote for 18 games than 22 games," DeBoer said on Feb. 4. "I don't think the superintendents would support spending two more nights on buses with referees and workers in the landscape of where we're at dollars-wise in education right now."
Asked to gauge the proposal's popularity among the state's activities directors at the SDIAAA conference, Mitchell High School AD Cory Aadland replied plainly: "Not very."
Among Class AA schools, only three schools supported the 22-game proposal: Pierre, Rapid City Stevens and Sioux Falls Lincoln.
In Aadland's view, there were two main elements working against the proposal. To start, Aadland echoed DeBoer's sentiments about spending more on athletics.
"Financially, it would be tough to add games and incur more expenses during a time when there's not really any extra money to go around as it is," Aadland said.
Additionally, the existing season can get compressed when scheduling changes become a factor. Rescheduling one game is fairly easy, but each one thereafter compounds the challenge, according to Aadland.
According to the proposal's rationale, South Dakota plays fewer games than almost any other state, and even when compared to states with similar numbers of games, South Dakota has a shorter postseason. Under the proposal's guidelines, it would have been optional, not mandatory, for schools to add contests up to the 22-game limit.
Mitchell boys basketball coach Ryker Kreutzfeldt acknowledged the difficulties and agreed that now is not the right time to expand the schedule. However, in a world where the schedule extended to 22 games, Kreutzfeldt said he would like to see those games not affect the seed-point calculation. In his eyes, that change would afford programs a little extra scheduling flexibility and encourage more interesting matchups, whether cross-class with Class AA teams involved or with out-of-state schools at events like the Hoop City Classic.
The proposal was rejected by a vote of 89-23 at the SDIAAA spring conference, with strong opposition from all class schools.
The current number of regular-season games allowed for South Dakota high school basketball is 20.
The SDHSAA Board of Directors will review the feedback and vote on the proposal during their meeting on April 22-23.
The proposal was drafted by Kyle Courtney, the activities director and head boys basketball coach at Rapid City Christian.
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"As a coach, you're definitely interested because I don't think we play enough games. I'm pretty sure that South Dakota plays some of the fewest amount of games nationally, so you'd like to give kids a chance to play more games, and that's what the kids want, too," Kreutzfeldt said. "But I also know that right now is not the best moment to try and get this passed. It's one of those things that was never going to pass in the current climate of education."
A number of other notable proposals from sport advisory committees were put before the SDIAAA membership during its spring conference, with each high school athletic director eligible to vote:
* A football proposal to more finely divide seed-point classifications in Class 11B and nine-man divisions for playoff seeding received widespread support with 116 of 118 votes in favor, including unanimous support from Class 11B, Class 9A and Class 9B schools.
* Two other football plans â using crews of seven officials instead of five in the final three rounds of the postseason, and requiring field microphones be available for football referees â didn't receive approval. The seven-official plan was voted down 109-23 and the microphone proposal was voted down 100-32.
* A proposal to add a third-place game to the state soccer playoffs received only 6 of 19 votes among Class AA schools, while Class A soccer schools supported the idea 10-0.
* A proposal to extend the current SoDak 16 format for the Class B volleyball postseason and re-seed statewide with 32 teams remaining was voted down by Class B schools with a 34-21 margin.
* Schools widely supported discontinuing the state dual wrestling championships as currently sponsored by the SDHSAA. Class A schools supported ending the format by a 26-6 margin, while Class B schools voted 55-9 in favor of the change, which would be effective this school year, meaning the SDHSAA would not sponsor another dual championship. A dual wrestling task force is looking at making the dual tournament an event sponsored by the South Dakota Wrestling Coaches Association and take place during the regular season.
Mitchell Republic's Marcus Traxler contributed to this report.