Recently, Bounce’s old and annoying (but mostly old) football counterpart Blitz started talking about the potential end or even just changes to the Summit Athletic Conference. See, over on the gridiron, some of the conference’s schools have decided to not play each other anymore and, therefore, have become ineligible for the league title.
But we don’t know what is going to happen, right? The SAC could up severing completely, or it could just go away in football terms as there doesn’t seem to be the same kind of plight on the basketball court, or in other sports that Outside the Huddle doesn’t cover. Or we could end up with a big shake-up like in 2014 when Homestead and Carroll joined the SAC and the now-NE8 was born from the Northeast Hoosier Conference and other teams moved around.
So in that light, Bounce thought about this: what if we just realigned the conferences completely? SAC, NE8, ACAC, NECC. Let’s just flip them all around. From mostly a basketball perspective obviously, Bounce did just that.
So here are MY newly-aligned conference ideas.
THE SAC
Returning: North Side, Northrop, Snider, South Side, Wayne, Bishop Luers
New: Blackhawk Christian, New Haven, Leo, Heritage, Woodlan, Columbia City
A 12-team SAC could be just what the doctor ordered. The conference hasn’t flirted with growth, really. It was at 10 teams when Elmhurst and Harding closed and then added Carroll and Homestead for football and basketball. This evolution would allow for a dozen teams to compete in every sport.
The five FWCS schools (North Side, Northrop, Snider, South Side, Wayne) are an institution. They can’t go anywhere else, right? It just wouldn’t make sense. Bishop Luers, both geographically and competition wise, should stay as well. On the hardwood, where I am focusing, the Knights have competed for titles recently on both the boys’ and girls’ sides. Concordia is an interesting case, but nestled in where it is on the geographic map, the SAC seems like the right move. The Cadets have had some leaner years athletically, but it doesn’t mean that they can’t still compete regularly. And they have proven they can. I think the right place for Concordia to be is in the SAC.
So the add-ons? Blackhawk Christian is a no-brainer. Now that the Braves have a football team, they can compete fully in a conference. There were rumors that the ACAC was considering adding them, but not in boys basketball. That move didn’t make sense, but this one does. The school has competitive teams and while the football program isn’t where it needs to be yet, seeing it compete in a SAC “small division” isn’t a bad idea. This isn’t about football though, it is about basketball, where I think the Braves can be competitive against my other SAC teams.
And the other four to take us to 12? Well, it is fairly well discussed that East Allen Community Schools would like to see its four high schools all in the same conference; as of now Leo and New Haven are in the NE8 while Woodlan and Heritage compete in the ACAC. Could you just shift Leo and New Haven to the ACAC? Leo used to be there, but New Haven is competing on a high level and geographically, it would be nonsense to take a more northern school like Leo and move them down south for conference play.
On the court on the boys side, all four of these schools could be interesting in the SAC and on the girls side you can say the same. New Haven girls basketball has had its struggles, but so have plenty of current SAC teams.
Then you have Columbia City, which has kind of become the outlier in my geographically-centered moves. The Eagles would have three other options here in my opinion: join a fellow Whitley County cohort with either Churubusco in the NECC (my least favorite option), go with Whitko to the Three Rivers Conference (which could bring more travel south than they’d want), or see if the Indiana Northern State Conference intends to expand to more than six teams, especially if it could draw a Warsaw (see below). I think the option for Columbia City in a conference realignment could be bountiful, depending on what makes the most sense for the school. So why not give this one a go?
THE NE8
Dissolve it. That may sound harsh, but the NE8 is one of the more geographically-stunted conferences. For example, it is over an hour drive from the northern most conference team (East Noble) to the southern most conference team (Norwell). Huntington North is oddly off to the west even of Norwell or Bellmont.
I get the basis of this conference. The old NHC that the NE8 was founded out of started in 1989, but in the grand scheme of things 1989 isn’t long enough of history to sustain a conference that features eight teams from six different counties.
For travel and for competition, it makes sense for every team in this conference to move on elsewhere. Sorry NE8 purists (are there any?), this is the move.
THE ACAC
Returning: Adams Central, South Adams, Southern Wells, Bluffton, Jay County
New: Norwell, Bellmont, Concordia
Now here is a question posed to Bounce during the brainstorming for this column: why eliminate the NE8 and not a conference like the ACAC, that at times has seemed more fragile? Well, history is on the ACAC’s side and this is a conference that has been great far more often than it has been on the rocks. Sure, maybe it’s time to just call it the ACAC and have it stand for nothing, especially with my switch that would take the remaining Allen County teams out of the conference. That said, currently the ACAC has just two Allen County teams (of seven) in Woodlan and Heritage.
With the EACS schools together, the new ACAC makes more geographic sense as well. Adding in Norwell gives you all three Wells County schools when you already have Bluffton and Southern Wells involved. Adding in Bellmont gives you all of Adams County with South Adams and Adams Central. That half-dozen already gives you 75 percent of the new field.
Seven teams makes even less sense than having an odd number like the NECC currently has (on the basketball side). A six-game conference season is, in my opinion, weak when it comes to hoops. Yes, you have the conference tournament and that adds some luster to the ACAC, but it’s still tough when you have just six games to determine a conference champion.
So what about the other two teams in my new ACAC? Jay County is here to stay and to me, it’s for one major reason: there really isn’t anywhere else to go that makes more sense. The Patriots shifted to the ACAC the last time conferences were realigned in 2015 and they have done well on the basketball side. No move makes sense for Jay County.
Concordia, well look at the recent news, that is happening anyway.
THE NECC
Returning: Angola, Fremont, Prairie Heights, West Noble, Central Noble, Churubusco, Garrett, Eastside, Lakeland
New: East Noble, DeKalb, Lakewood Park Christian
This may be one of the most simple conferences because outside of a couple of schools and their current 11-team format, I am mostly alright with the NECC.
So it is simple, especially with my NE8 dissolution plan: bring in the one remaining Noble County School and bring in the one remaining DeKalb County public school – obviously Hamilton is not an option here. Now you have all of Noble County in one spot with the addition of East Noble and the addition of DeKalb does the same thing with the public schools in DeKalb County, as the Barons join Garrett and Eastside.
So the only real wildcard here is Lakewood Park Christian. In a world where it is time for Blackhawk Christian to join a conference, the same could be said for the Panthers. Last season, the boys played five NECC schools and the girls basketball program played six. This conference alignment would also help the small school with travel and it’s not like it’s the only 1A school that would be in the NECC. No football? No issue. Westview doesn’t have football right now, so the only thing this does in the football format is make one division six teams to the other’s five.
On the basketball court though, once again a 12-team conference makes a world of sense to Bounce. Odd number team conferences just have never sat right with me.
INDEPENDENT/OTHER CONFERENCE
New Independent: Homestead, Carroll, Bishop Dwenger
Homestead and Carroll are already independent in everything that is not football and basketball, and their new schedule on the gridiron, which helped spur this whole discussion, essentially makes them independent there too with the lack of ability to win a conference title. So just leaving an area basketball conference makes as much sense as anything for those two programs, who are the newest in the SAC anyway.
As Blitz pointed out – linked at the top of this column – schools like Homestead, Carroll AND Bishop Dwenger like the autonomy of making their schedules whatever they want them to be. On the football side, it means scheduling more powerhouse teams and that is likely a similar case for basketball, outside of Bishop Dwenger. But that also means that the Saints basketball programs can schedule as they want to without having to deal with the pressures of the SAC where the boys have not won a title since 2007 and the girls have never.
Stay Independent: Canterbury, Smith Academy
Lacking a full athletics offering keeps these two schools independent, although Smith Academy is growing at a solid rate that would allow it to pop into a conference at some point in the future.
Move to A New Conference: Fairfield, Westview, Huntington North
Fairfield is the easy one here. It is an outlier in Elkhart County, away from any NECC school. A move to the Northern Lakes Conference makes total sense. Is it the same type of Northern Lakes that exists now? I would say you may as well reorganize that too, so it is more northern, where right now Warsaw seems out of place even though you’d want the Tigers in a strong conference.
In that kind of same light, a move for Westview to the NLC makes some sense to me, as well.
Adding Huntington North anywhere by some of the same lines; it is either go east into the ACAC or west into the Three Rivers Conference. For me, having Huntington go compete in the ACAC makes more sense, but it also would give them a 9 team conference in my realignment with recent news of Concordia to make the move. This one is an outlier and a stretch, but to me finding a correct home for the Vikings is difficult.
Stay in Other Conference: Whitko, Hamilton, Warsaw
While Whitko could make a play for a conference other than the Three Rivers, with my idea of Columbia City moving out of the NE8, it wouldn’t make a ton of sense for Whitko to move. So we will keep it in the Three Rivers Conference.
Hamilton just popped out to do its own thing recently, and has had some success. So the Marines will stay put in the Hoosier Plains Conference.
I alluded to it above being that Warsaw isn’t making a lot of sense on the map to stay in the NLC, but it is such a staple I am not sure that I’d move it now. Though a move to the Indiana Northern State conference doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility if that conference wants to grow out of its current six team format.
These opinions represent those of Bounce and Outside the Huddle. No opinions expressed on Outside the Huddle represent those of any of our advertisers. Follow Bounce on Twitter at Bounce_OTH
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