1/10/2008 Update

The 2008 National Homeschool Basketball Championships will feature some very exciting additions. We have sent out a number of letters highlighting these additions. We would now like to give you some further explanations of the overall plans.

There are basically two reasons why we have chosen 2008 to implement these plans:

1) Necessity -Some of the changes are due to scheduling conflicts, some are due to facilities requirements, and some are due to continued growth.
2) Progress – The main goal of the NCHBC is to promote and expand the positive influence of homeschool basketball.

We will break the changes/additions into five categories:
1) Opening Ceremony –
The Opening Ceremony has been renamed the to the “National Homeschool Basketball Showcase.” This event will be moved to Wednesday Night in order to work with the church gyms that we use. The Showcase will include the following:
-- State flag procession. (Team must have banner to participate)
-- Acknowledge 2007 top programs
-- Announce the All- Americans
-- Announce the girls and guys “Pete Maravich Award Winner”
-- Three Point Shooting Contest
-- All-Star Game
-- Slam Dunk Contest
Details on how to qualify to participate for the three-point shooting and slam dunk contest will be announced later.
As part of our showcase, we are going to have an All Star game. The first half will be played by the girls and the second half will be played by the guys. The All Star game players will be the 1st and 2nd team All Americans. By putting together this showcase we are going to be able to use this as an opportunity to invite college coaches and scouts from over 500 colleges and organizations, as well as all of the Oklahoma City media. We will hold a special catered reception for the media and college scouts at the Sawyer Center. This will give the coaches a chance to come into town on Wednesday get a sneak preview of the top 36 players and then to go see them play games the rest of the week. One thing that you have to understand is that college scout participation is typically player driven, but if we can create a Showcase Event and an All American selection it will give homeschool basketball players the best opportunity to be recruited for college.

2) All American Selection
I would like to give you a few more details behind the decision to change the way that All-Americans are selected:
Problem:
Through the years each coach was able to select their team’s All American from his team based on the teams place at Nationals. There are a couple of reasons why we could not continue with this approach: First, if a team finished 4th in 6A they would get one All American, while a team finishing 1st in D would get four All Americans. A couple of years ago the team that won D lost to the 4th place 6A team by 50 points earlier in the week. As you can see the All American status was not accurately reflected in this selection procedure. Second, college coaches and scouts would be told a player was a 3 time All American, and they would go to a game and report that player was in not an “All American type” player. This has been the cause for numerous college recruiters to stop attending Nationals as there was no real process for weeding out the top players, and the tournament is just too large to scout all the teams.
Solution:
We are going to continue to allow coaches to select players for recognition at the National Tournament Awards Ceremony – however, we will be calling that award “All Tournament” instead of “All American.” All Americans will then be selected at the Varsity level through the following procedure:

1) Coach will nominate players from his team
2) Coach will provide stats and a game tape
3) Selection Committee will work through a procedure of selecting first team, second team and third team All Americans.
4) All Americans will be recognized at Nationals (see below)
5) Pete Maravich Award --The Pete Maravich Award winner will be the top homeschool player in the country. It will be like a homeschool basketball Heisman Trophy Award. There will be one for the girls division and one for the boys division.
Further Benefits:
By making these changes in our All American Selection process the National scouting boards, college coaches and scouts believe that homeschool players will have a better chance of being pursued for scholarships. This new process also allows us to move forward with another of our long term plans.

3) Division Breakdown
Here is how it will work: Boys 18 Division 1 will have 32 teams. This division will break into 4 classes: 6A, 5A, 4A. 3A -- 8 teams each. While this is very similar to previous years in some aspects there are some specific reasons for these changes which are:

A) This will mean that teams will play a maximum of 5 games. There are a lot of reasons for this that I won’t take time to go into at this point. Teams will have to qualify for Division 1

B) There will be a new classification for Division 3. There have been many changes in the homeschool movement over the last 15 years. There have been some policies that were in place from the early years of this tournament that have affected the goal of an equal playing field the last few years. There were also some rules instituted by the now defunct Wichita Nationals group that have affected how homeschool teams have operated. After much consideration we have concluded that instead of fighting the variety of homeschool teams that the homeschool community would be better served to classify the groups so that they can compete against like minded programs. Division 3 will consist of the following teams:
--- Homeschool teams with some players that attend a Model School (three days at school, two at home)
--- Homeschool teams that want to add players from other teams for Nationals
--- Homeschool teams that are All-Star teams from a state or an area
--- Homeschool teams with players that attend small Christian Schools that does not have a basketball team.
--- Homeschool teams that have players that are too old by National’s eligibility rules but are within their state guidelines. (a number of states have a July1st cut off)
--- Homeschool teams that request a hardship exemption from another guideline or rule.

4) Seeding Through Automatic Bids
Teams will have to qualify for Division 1 -- Here are a list of the boys and girls 18 & under teams that will receive an automatic bids this year to Division 1:

Girls 18 & Under Division 1 automatic bids:
Texas Top 9 (not based on State Tournament)
Gateway Regional Top 9
Nashville Regional Top 3
Cincinnati Regional Top 3
Colorado State Top 1
Arkansas State Top 1
Indiana State Top 1
Nebraska State Top 1
Illinois State Top 1
3 at large bids

Boys 18 & Under Division 1 automatic bids:
Texas 5 (not based on State Tournament)
Gateway Regional Top 5
Michigan State Tournament Top 2
Cincinnati Regional Top 2
Nashville Regional Top 2
Illinois State Top 2
Indiana State Top 2
Arkansas State Top 1
Nebraska State Top 1
Wisconsin State Top 1
9 at large bids

The younger age divisions will be placed on previous years finish and head to head results during the year.

Future Plans – in 2009 we will be increasing the number of regional tournaments. We have begun making arrangement to host the following regional tournaments:

1) Gateway Regional -- Lebanon, MO
2) Red River Regional – Shreveport, LA
3) Indianapolis
4) Omaha, NE
5) Atlanta GA
6) Austin, TX
We hope to announce the official dates for next season’s Regionals by Nationals. The long term goal is to have a minimum of 8 regional tournaments that will be the way that all teams earn their automatic bid for Division 1.

5) Staggered Game schedule
The boys and girls 10 & 12 age groups will play their games Tuesday- Friday. Their Awards Ceremony will be on Saturday at 3:00PM.
The boys and girls 14 age groups will play their games Tuesday- Saturday. Their Awards Ceremony will be on Saturday at 3:00PM.
The boys and girls 16 age groups will play their games Monday –Friday. Their Awards Ceremony will be on Saturday at 7:00PM.
The boys and girls 18 age groups will play their games Monday –Saturday (Wednesday off). Their Awards Ceremony will be on Saturday at 7:00PM.

I hope this will give you plenty to look forward to as you prepare to atten,d Nationals.