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Local coaches, players react to the three-class system

maxwell o'neill, the jamestown sun, n.d.
·5 min read

Dec. 6—JAMESTOWN — The 2023-24 North Dakota high school basketball season will look different than those in the past as the North Dakota High School Activities Association has introduced a three-class system.

The three-class system is separated by enrollment with Class B for schools with 179 students or less, Class A for schools between 180 and 575 students, and Class AA with an enrollment of at least 576 students.

One school that moved up from Class B to Class A is Carrington High School. The Cardinals coaches disagree about the move up, but both acknowledge facing bigger schools will present challenges to their teams.

"I understand what their intentions were," Cardinals boys basketball head coach Jason Otto said. "I think the spread in the enrollment, the way that they divided it up, could've been done a little differently in my opinion. I mean because in the Class B, they say to be competitive you have from zero to 162 1/2 kids. Well no school just has zero kids so you're looking at from basically a 100 to 162 1/2 so they're saying you need to have in that range to be competitive. At the Class A level, where we'll be sitting they say from 162 1/2 to 600 is the spread to be competitive, I guess that just doesn't seem like they put as much thought into that as they could've."

In previous years, the Cardinals were in Region 3 and District 5, but this year Carrington is in Region 2. In its previous district, the Cardinals' furthest trip was to Oakes High School, 122 miles away, and the shortest trip was to Griggs-Midkota about 45 miles away. In its new district, the Cardinals' furthest trip is to Grafton, 147 miles away, and its shortest trip is Four Winds/Minnewaukan which is about 43 miles away.

"The majority of the votes were in and that's where we're going," Cardinals girls basketball head coach Andy Braaten said. "It's gonna affect our travel, we sure like going to the district and region in Jamestown, now we go to the northeast, hopefully, we can develop some good rivalries with northeast region Class A basketball."

Although Carrington is moving up to a new level, Braaten said his team is familiar with most of the teams it will face this season.

"We've played most of them before," Braaten said. "The only ones we really haven't played before are Devils Lake and maybe Valley City. There's some other Class A teams from previous years that are in the new Class A but for the most part we kept five Class B schools on the schedule just for distance and traveling. We kept some of the other old Class B schools that are now Class A on our schedule, there's some more travel but our kids will be up to the challenge."

The LaMoure/Litchville-Marion Loboes will see their schedule take the biggest change. The Loboes now face Sargent County, which was previously in Super Region I. Despite the changes, Loboes girls basketball head coach Ben Holen said he will wait to really form an opinion until he sees the system in action for a few years.

"I'm excited, I wasn't necessarily leaning one way or the other, we're a school that's somewhat solidly in that lower class," Holen said. "So I didn't really follow the back and forth too much when they were coming up with the plan or when they were voting or anything like that but it will be exciting to see with the districts all reorganized and the regions looking different than they have in the past and you get an extra state tournament so there's a lot of pros to it. I suppose with anything there's some cons as well."

One of the biggest changes at the Class B level is the state tournament play-in game between the second-and third-place teams in their region.

"I do like that when you get to regionals the third place game matters now," said Bob Young, Medina/Pingree-Buchanan boys basketball head coach. "If you lose in the regional final you still have an opportunity for a play in game. So, a region can actually have three teams go to the state tournament and I think that's really exciting and I think it gives some opportunities to some teams who may just fall short in the regionals to go to state, but it makes the district tournament and district games throughout the season really important."

The coaches are not the only ones with different views on the changes as the players also have opinions on it.

"I like the new system honestly, it puts those teams in their places," Edgeley/Kulm-Montpelier senior Austin Strobel said. "Last year we had quite a few going into Class A schools in the tournament. To me it didn't seem like a true Class B tournament. It seemed more like a Class A tournament because we had a lot of those teams going up to Class A."

After they proved they can compete with some of the schools that are now in Class A, LaMoure/Litchville-Marion senior Max Musland said he is not very happy about the new system.

"I'm not a huge fan of it just because we know we can compete with those bigger schools," Musland said. "It's fine because we'll still have a chance to make it to state and make a deep run at state. It's just tough when you do compete with those other schools but you still have to go down with those smaller schools. So, it kind of sucks because then when you win, it doesn't mean quite as much in my opinion. But I'm not really 100% sure yet though because we haven't done it."