Hoosiers getting Hysterical over charter school hoops teams

Melvindale Academy of Business and Technology won the Class C championship game at the Breslin last year but was stripped of the title because they had a player who was, how shall we put this, a high school redshirt senior. Had the title stood, Melvindale ABT would have been the first charter school in Michigan to win a state basketball championship.

 

Crimson, I also believe Marvin coached all those kids in AAU from sixth or seventh grade on.

Best Bowman story of all time: At the regional, which in Indiana is a two-games-in-a-day affair, they were smacking around some gnat, with the defending state champs to take on at night, and their best player gets his second technical. He's done, out of the game and the nightcap. They were seriously ridiculous techs - a hanging on the rim and a slapping the backboard that were both borderline. And supposedly the official told the coach that he wasn't in danger after the first one because it was not an "unsportsmanlike" technical.

Bottom line: They lost the night game. Bowman even talked a little while about getting a court injunction to replay the game with him on the floor, but didn't end up filing. That could have been interesting, considering some of the shenanigans that go on in Northwest Indiana politics. I wouldn't put it past a friendly judge to give them what they wanted.

But, agreed. You get what you wish for. Did nobody think that kids were going to figure out how to circumvent the system when you have four freaking classes for what? 500 schools?

 

There was an explosion of "the racist IHSAA is out to get the black schools" and "the Indy-based IHSAA can't handle a Region team winning" conspiracy theories coming out of NW Indiana after that regional.

Bottom line, if you've already got one tech, don't put yourself in position to get another when you're up by 50 points.

When the IHSAA went to 4 classes, there were 95-96 schools in each class. Now, with the proliferation of private/charter schools, there are about 105, but four classes are way too many. Whatever system you have, people will try to take advantage of it.

Within Indianapolis, there is a concerted effort from the superintendent to funnel *all* of the athletes to Tech High to create an athletic powerhouse.

 

Things may start getting interesting in Michigan if this school actually gets started and starts bringing in kids with high school eligibility ...

http://www.mlive.com/news/jackson/index.ssf/2009/09/new_school_in_leslie_will_cate.html
New school in Leslie will cater to athletes
By Mike D. Lammi
September 17, 2009, 11:50PM

The old Leslie Union School on Woodworth Street has been vacant for five years but could soon house a college preparatory school for standout student-athletes.

Erika Ernst, provost of Ernst Preparatory School, said Thursday the school would initially be open to recent high school graduates who might need a boost in test scores or academics, need more time to better their athletic skills or need more exposure to get different offers from colleges.

The school is also intended to attract international students looking for athletic exposure in the U.S., she said. ...

 

Interesting twist on this one: The AD is Michael Talley, former U-M basketball player. The head coach is Michael Talley, former U-M basketball player. (His son, Michael, is the star player). So, the AD didn't do a very good job checking on basketball players' eligibility.

Oh, and it's the same Michael Talley who was signaling time out from the bench when Chris Webber called the phantom time out in the Final Four. Yeah, that Michael Talley - Michigan's Mr. Basketball at Detroit Cooley - who got pushed to the bench when the Fab Five arrived.

 

The Ernst family. What a shock.

Go back and check the links on my previous post in this thread, about the Walter French Academy bankrupcy/academic decertification/charter school revocation fiasco. I am sure this new school will exhibit the same brilliant commitment to academics (they'll probably hand out crayons at the door).

I occasionally covered both Erika Ernst and her brother Steve, while they played in high school (always on teams coached by their dad, Jerry) in the mid-to-late 1980s. The offenses of these teams consisted of the "Give and Go" play: "Give the ball to my kid, and go rebound."


Scroll down the story and this whole deal looks even more bat-brained than you might expect: as of Sept. 17, classes had not begun yet, the building was still not open for occupancy.

I'm sure that game against Oak Hill will be a night to remember. As I recall, a decade or so down the line, it was a couple of nuclear blitzings at the hands of Oak Hill which started to send the Walter French experiment down the toilet.

I also suspect that online academic regimen will be amazingly rigorous. : :

 

Or go to Illinois and Iowa, where class basketball reigns supreme!

 

Ohio has divisions, but it's the same thing as classes. We have four for boys and four for girls. Publics and privates all in the same tournament. I don't know if the charter schools have sports (we don't have any in our area).