Rest of the Conference Realignment

Here's the realignment for classes 3A and down.

3A

The North Suburban picks up the left overs of the old Classic Suburban
Spring Lake Park
Totino-Grace
Fridley
Columbia Heights
North Branch
Chisago Lakes
Hill-Murray
Mahtomedi

Absolutely loaded for football

The Missota gets the short end of the stick as its the leftovers
Hutchinson
Holy Angels
Red Wing
S. St. Paul
Benilde-St. Margaret's
St. Louis Park
Northfield
New Prague

I hate Hutchinson in this league and Red Wing had nowhere else to go. BSM and AHA would be fun games. St. Louis Park might be too big for this league. Still loaded for football.

In 2A, the Tri-Metro stays the same, except the 3 smallest schools move down to 1A conferences.

Blake
Breck
De La Salle
Minnehaha
Brooklyn Center
Concordia (Roseville)
St. Croix Lutheran
St. Paul Academy
St. Anthony

De La Salle fits well here size wise, but I wouldn't mind seeing them in the Minneapolis City to balance this league and that league at 8 teams.

Where are the rest of the Tri-Metro teams? They move down to 1A leagues, an east/west split of the MCAA.

New Life
CHOF
St. Bernard's
St. Agnes
Mounds Park
Trinity
Bethany
Concordia (Bloomington)

Good basketball here with Bethany/Trinity/New Life and St. Bernard's

In the west half we have
Rivers Christian
Meadow Creek Christian
Maranatha Christian Academy
West Lutheran
Heritage Christian
Providence Academy
Southwest Christian
PACT
Spectrum

For football these would combine for 1 league as most of these schools co-op with a big school co-op with each other or don't play. In basketball, they'd be separate. CHOF, PACT and Spectrum are de facto MCAA basketball members anyway since they play just about everybody in the league for non-conference games so add them in and play a real home and home schedule on each side.

I didn't deal with the issue of Lester Prairie/Holy Trinity. They would move west somewhere, just like I should have done with Hutchinson

4A Conference Realignment

As promised here is my proposal for realigning the metro conferences. Main factors.

1) Size, none of this 3A school playing a 1A nonsense (that's you Tri-Metro).
2) Rivalries, existing rivalries need to be kept.

So here we go

Split the Northwest Suburban into these 2 leagues

Andover
Anoka
Coon Rapids
Blaine
Cambridge-Isanti
St. Francis
Elk River

Maple Grove
Osseo
Park Center
Champlin Park
Armstrong
Cooper
Wayzata

Gotta have Armstrong/Cooper and maybe Cambridge-Isanti vs St. Francis could be something in addition to the Andover/Anoka rivalry.

Stillwater
Forest Lake
Roseville
Centennial
Mounds View
Irondale
North (St. Paul)
White Bear Lake

I'd like to see each pair of teams here become rivalries. Stillwater/FL, Roseville/Centennial and especially the last 2 including Mounds View/Irondale. Irondale/Centennial might evolve too.

The Suburban East stays largely the same

Tartan
Woodbury
Park
Hastings
Cretin-Derham Hall
Henry Sibley
St. Thomas Academy
Simley

Existing rivalries + the addition of Sibley/STA.

Split the Lake Conference and add in the suburban Missota schools that have outgrown that league

Burnsville
Prior Lake
Eagan
Rosemount
Lakeville N
Lakeville S
Apple Valley
Eastview
Farmington

We stay south of the Minnesota River for these schools to add Prior Lake and Farmington while keeping the Apple Valley and Lakeville rivalries.

For the rest of the lake we have the following
Hopkins
Minnetonka
Eden Prairie
Chaska
Shakopee
Jefferson
Kennedy
Richfield
Edina

Hopkins, Minnetonka, EP for basketball, OUCH! And I didn't even mention the other tough hoops teams in the league. Minnetonka/EP in football is huge We keep Kennedy/Jefferson and add Richfield/Edina and Shakopee/Chaska which should be nice rivalries. I wanted Hopkins to play with their other Classic Lake rivals (Armstrong et al) so that we'd have 8 teams in both instead of 7 and 9, but the Hopkins/EP/Minnetonka rivalries were too much to pass up.

Due to rivalries and tradition, the St. Paul City and Minneapolis City do not change, but I was tempted. Roseville and/or CDH in the St. Paul City were considered.

Restore the Catholic Spirit

The Catholic Spirit Christmas tournament is always one of the top events of all the local holiday tournaments. In the past few years, its gotten away from its private school roots. So here's my proposal for restoring it.

East Division
De La Salle
Hill-Murray
Totino-Grace
Cretin-Derham Hall

West Division
Holy Angels
Benilde-St. Margaret's
Breck
St. Thomas Academy

I would almost take these 8 teams and make them a conference, but Cretin is too big for any of them and Breck isn't big enough.

New coaches on the north side

I find it interesting that both Minneapolis North and Minneapolis Patrick Henry are looking for head coaches now. Brett McNeal at North looked really disinterested last year and in the last couple of years they haven't done nearly the amount of run and jump that I saw previously. Like all the standout city teams, they depended on their defense due to the mickey mouse offense they ran (see also Johnson, for the St. Paul equivalent). When was the last time North actually won a big game excluding the rivalry game against Henry. North plays a tough schedule, but look at their record over the last couple years against the premier teams on their schedule, not good. A team that had PJ Hill (going to Ohio St) and Romain Martin (Ohio Valley frosh of the year last year) should have been much better than it was.

But at least North tried to run something that looked like offense. Henry is still the class of the Minneapolis City, but I hope they get somebody in there who actually knows an X from an O. I once saw the Henry JV team inbound the ball and not touch it with no pressure with under 30 seconds to go and a 1 pt lead in a game. But at least we didn't have listen to Larry McKenzie yank guys and scream at them for the most minor of mistakes.

All that being said, there's a lot to be said for relating to players and I think McNeal did that well at North. It will be interesting to see what the schools do for new coaches. North gets the advantage of not having game 1 until after Christmas, but they also are in tough section 6AAAA with Hopkins and Minnetonka

Look for these posts before the season

No I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, but the summer is a quiet time. Before the season starts, look for my posts on the following.

Conference previews for all of the metro conferences (except the Metro Lakes, because quite frankly, who cares).

Schedule analysis including games you won't to miss.

My preseason predictions for the metro sections

My conference realignment plan for the metro area.

And as a potential bonus, while I'm realigning the metro, I might just realign the sections too.