NCHSAA Board to rule of basketball postseason play, football/basketball skill development Thursday

The N.C. High School Athletic Association board of directors will discuss a number of items at the winter meetings, which began Wednesday. The board will take action on the items Thursday.

The board will discuss whether to allow teams to play in national postseason events after the state championships. Myers Park High contested the NCHSAA’s rule prohibiting any such games last season. Myers Park’s girls’ basketball team had been invited to a national tournament on the condition it won the NCHSAA title, but the school could not accept.

The board has several proposals from its members on changing the postseason formats. One proposal is to change playoff seeding in some sports to using MaxPreps’ computer rankings instead of overall records and conference finishes. Basketball coaches are proposing to change its format as well.

With so many proposals, the board likely will table some and seek more input from the athletics directors association.

Football and basketball coaches are seeking changes to the skill development period. Football, which first began using the 10-day skill development period last year, is hoping for more flexibility to pick which 10 days to use. Schools were limited to the 10 days leading up to exams, but that did not work for every school, depending on its calendar.

Basketball coaches hope to increase the number of players allowed in its skill development from four to eight. The current rule is one less than a team, so 10 in soccer, eight in baseball and so on.

It will be the first board meeting since Que Tucker became interim commissioner over the summer.

This story was originally published December 3, 2015 at 10:40 AM with the headline "NCHSAA Board to rule of basketball postseason play, football/basketball skill development Thursday."