Placement games will get tryout 
in FVC

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Huntley boys basketball coach Marty Manning remembers the excitement the final regular-season game stirred when he played at Hoffman Estates.

The Mid-Suburban League is one of several conferences that end their basketball seasons with a crossover game between teams from corresponding places in each division – first vs. first, second vs. second and so on down the line.

“We always looked forward to it,” Manning said. “It was one of the biggest games of the year.”

The Fox Valley Conference is giving those placement games a shot for at least the next two years. Boys and girls basketball coaches asked the athletic directors, who in turn recommended the change to their principals. Such scheduling changes normally are done every other year on a two-year basis.

For FVC girls teams, the games are scheduled for Feb. 10. For the boys, the games will be Feb. 24.

“It’s a good idea,” Cary-Grove girls coach Rod Saffert said. “Last year, it just happened to work out that way because we had Grayslake Central scheduled. Some other conferences give plaques to the overall champion.”

While the coaches are not adverse to that, an “overall” champion may have to settle for bragging rights.

“We’re giving it a two-year trial to see how it works,” Crystal Lake Central AD Jeff Aldridge said. “It is not meant to be a conference championship-type game. It is meant to try to get as many competitive games in the crossover as possible.”

The FVC schedules now contain 12 division games, one crossover game and one placement game.

Like Aldridge mentioned, by making the second crossover a placement game, it should make for better competition than some predetermined crossovers.

“It’s a great idea,” Dundee-Crown girls coach Michelle Russell said. “It sets the tone for a true conference champion. I’m all for it.”

Johnsburg boys coach Mike Toussaint witnessed such games in the North Suburban Conference while scouting Warren a few years ago when he was the Skyhawks girls coach.

“We saw Grant and Warren and it was packed,” Toussaint said. “I would think there would be a big crowd. And there are still two division champions.”

Saffert thinks one drawback is having all games on the same night because he would like to see more games.

Manning, in his sixth year as coach, said he heard talk about such games when he took over at Huntley.

“I remember [Jacobs] coach [Jim] Hinkle asking me about it my first year,” Manning said. “Logistics stopped it for a while because we didn’t have an equal number of teams [in divisions].”

Hampshire joined the FVC this year, which enabled the league to have two seven-team divisions for sports and allowed the basketball coaches to get a placement game.