By TOM WILLIAMS

It was a pretty good year for basketball in the Cape-Atlantic League. Generally, most years are pretty good because it is a good basketball league. You can read about the top performers in 2022-23 HERE.

It is the league that started a championship game between conference champions in the early 1990s, then expanded it to a tournament of six, then eight and, this year, to all 21 teams. A few other leagues and counties have followed the CAL’s lead.

Before the CAL championships started in 1992, the last league playoff in South Jersey was in the old South Jersey Conference. It matched the South Jersey South champion (almost always Atlantic City) against the South Jersey North winners (usually Camden or Bishop Eustace).

In recent years, the CAL has changed its philosophy of alignment and scheduling in an effort to create fair and balanced competition. They tried the “snake” alignment and it was a failure. Now the league is aligning its sports almost every year based on previous years results.

Before continuing, lets make one thing clear. The athletics directors of the CAL are motivated by that idea of fair and balanced competition. Each of the men and women who direct the CAL schools’ athletics care deeply about their programs and the league programs, as well. They want the high school sports experience to be memorable for the athletes, coaches and fans.

There are disagreements among them and with outsiders, including this outsider. But these suggestions are offered with respect for what they have accomplished in the past. Because, after all, we all have the same goals.

Let’s return CAL alignment to one based on school enrollment. It worked for decades and it is still the best – and least complicated – process.

Focusing on basketball, here is the circulated alignment for 2023-24, based on the results of previous seasons. The goal is apparently to get the seven best teams in one conference, the next seven in another and the bottom seven in the third conference. It’s obviously not purely based on the last two seasons, as you can see by the won-lost records after each team.

Just a couple observations. The Wildwood Catholic boys are part of the “top” conference again, though its dominant player graduates and eight teams had more wins over the last two seasons. And Mainland is still not playing with the “big boys” despite having the third most wins among all the teams and returning most of its team that won the CAL Tournament two years ago and set a school record with 24 wins this season.

Here is what the 2023-24 girls basketball alignment looks like.

As you can see, the girls alignment is pretty much consistent with records over the past two seasons.

But, if enrollment was the determining factor in alignment, here is how basketball conferences would look.

These conferences are loaded with rivals.

The American Conference includes Vineland, Millville and Bridgeton, plus EHT, Atlantic City and Atlantic Tech. The National has Absegami, Cedar Creek and Oakcrest, plus Mainland and Ocean City. And the United Conference includes Lower Cape May, Middle Township, Cape May Tech and Wildwood Catholic – all four of the teams from Brian Cunniff Territory.

It conforms with The McGarry Approach, too – start by putting Millville-Vineland, Mainland-Ocean City and Lower Cape May-Middle together in the same conferences and the rest will fall into place.

The Non-Public schools, by the way, would be divided by their enrollment figures with the largest in the American, the second largest in the National and the other two in the United.

This alignment is easy to do – the NJSIAA gathers the enrollment figures for you every two years. It is possible there could be an occasional change because enrollment figures sometime change.

Based on casual conversations, if you polled the CAL basketball coaches they would likely prefer enrollment-based alignment rather than a system they don’t completely understand based on results of previous years.

A couple more things.

The 21-team CAL Tournament was great and one of the things that makes it great is the way the semi-finals and finals are staged. Why not stage the quarter-finals the same way?

The four boys quarter-finals could be played at Atlantic City on Saturday and the girls at St. Augustine on Sunday. Then the boys semi-finals at Egg Harbor Township on Tuesday and the girls at Millville on Wednesday. The preference here is that the championship doubleheader be in an arena where you only get to play if you get to the championship game – like Stockton or the Wildwoods Convention Center. But EHT and Absegami both proved the last two years that they are capable of giving the championship games the staging they deserve.

And because the CAL has two pretty significant basketball people among its alumni, how about if the boys play in the tournament to win The Chris Ford Trophy and the girls compete for The Cathy Rush Trophy? Lets remind everyone these great ambassadors of basketball played their high school ball at Cape-Atlantic League schools.

Before wrapping up, a couple suggestions to ease the scheduling pressure created by NJSIAA changes.

First, start the season on Monday or Tuesday, rather than Thursday, so teams can get another game in the first week.

Second, allow the three days of “tryouts” before Thanksgiving to count toward a player’s required six days of practice before scrimmaging. By the way, who came up with this six practice rule? Some players might need eight days to get in playing shape, or 10. Many others will show up the first day ready to play. Remember, AAU teams play in the fall.

Finally, add a week at the end of the regular season so teams don’t have to stuff so many games into their schedules and the state tournament doesn’t start on a holiday. This year, the four South Jersey public school champions were all decided before March 1, sort of changing March Madness to February Foolishness.

This was about basketball but it can be applied to most other sports, as well. There are, of course, factors like cost and availability to factor in. These changes could make the high school sports experience safer, simpler and more enjoyable.

But it’s just one person’s opinion.