Heal Point experiment continues

Thursday, January 14, 2010

You haven’t heard that much about it so far, but if you follow high school basketball in New Hampshire – especially Class I basketball – you won’t escape the winter without much discussion about the Heal Point System.

Heal Points were in effect for selective Class I sports this fall and resulted in only a few mild controversies. The system, based on strength of schedule, is borrowed from Maine, where it’s been used for more than 30 years. The idea is to reward teams for playing a tougher schedule.

It was adopted on a trial basis for Class I teams for the 2009-10 school year. Through a somewhat complicated mathematical formula, it ranks teams not only on a win-loss basis, but on the win totals accumulated by the teams they beat.

Before Friday night’s Class I showdown with Milford, Pelham coach Todd Kress talked at length about the point system and how the outcome of an important battle between two unbeaten, highly regarded teams, was magnified by it.

Milford’s victory was huge because it will continue to accumulate points for each Pelham victory for the rest of the season. But the Pythons have a second chance. They play Milford at home Feb. 9.

What’s the big deal? So what if a 14-4 team ends up ranked higher than a 16-2 team in the final Heal Point standings? The big deal in basketball is the importance of home-court advantage, heightened last year by the NHIAA’s decision to move quarterfinal games from a neutral site to the home of the higher seed.

We could easily see a sixth-ranked team, with a better record, hitting the road against a No. 3 team in the quarterfinals. In last year’s boys and girls basketball tournaments, home teams went 27-5 in the quarterfinals.

With schedules now more than ever controlled by travel costs and lost instruction time, the Heal Point System is designed to even out inequities and reward teams that play a tougher schedule.

But whether it’s fair or not will be a debate that should rage for the next couple of months.

Coming up this week

Pelham gets another chance for a Heal Point bonanza tonight when it hosts Class M Campbell, currently 5-1. The 3-1 Pythons have won 65 of their last 66 home games. The Heal system is weighted by division, so if Pelham wins it gets points for all of Campbell’s wins, discounted 14 percent for playing a team from a lower division.

A full explanation is available at the New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association web site (NHIAA.org) in the “What’s New’’ tab . . .

The Bishop Guertin boys put their unbeaten record on the line tonight at Nashua North.

It will be a telling week for the 2-1 Titans, whose only loss was a tough home defeat against a very good Dover team last week. North plays at 3-0 Merrimack on Friday, and the winner will immediately be stamped the most improved team in Class L since last year.

Bishop Guertin, meanwhile, could be hosting a battle of unbeatens Thursday when Dover visits. It’s a rematch of last year’s Class L preliminary round game, won by the Cardinals 81-67.

Groundhog Day

The NHIAA still has three weeks to call off a Class L girls basketball game on Feb. 2 between Winnacunnet of Hampton and Manchester West. In five victories so far, three-time defending champion Winnacunnet, riding a 31-game winning streak, is winning by an average margin of 37.8 points. Nobody had come closer than 31 points so far.

West, 0-5, is losing by an average of 42.6 points per game and has averaged only 17 points per game. Winnacunnet is averaging 69 so far and beat Concord 80-19 in its last game. The West game could be much worse.

Gary Fitz can be reached at 594-6469 or gfitz@nashuatelegraph.com.