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NJCAA Expanding National Basketball, Soccer Tournaments
The National Junior College Athletic Association approved changes to the postseason tournament structure in both basketball and soccer. The changes were announced following the organization’s spring board of directors meeting in Colorado Springs.
For soccer, the organization has expanded the national tournament field from eight schools to 12. The change will be implemented slightly differently for men’s and women’s soccer.
For women’s teams, the sport will be broken into 12 districts. Each district winner earns a place in the national tournament field.
“I think the change is good,” said Trapper women’s soccer coach Kaylin Olivas. “The NCAA does it where if you win your conference tournament, you automatically qualify for the national tournament and I think this is an attempt to emulate that.
“It’s a good thing because, as a coach, it gives you something to point to and say, if we win this, then we’ll be at nationals. It will increase the competition level throughout the sport, I think.”
On the men’s side, the sport will continue to have just eight districts. Each year, four of those districts, one of which will be the district hosting the national championship tournament, will have the opportunity to choose one at-large team each. Those four additional teams will be combined with the eight district winners to form the field of 12.
Barring changes in district membership, the Trappers’ district is slated to serve as the national tournament host in 2014, when Arizona’s Yavapai College was awarded the rights to host the event.
Expansion is also the name of the game for the national basketball tournament. The Division I field is heading to a24-school field for both the men’s and women’s national championship events.
The current 16-district format will remain in place, ensuring that the champion of the Region IX championship tournament advances automatically to the national tournament. Each year, four districts will receive the right to select a second member as an at-large selection to the national tournament. The remaining four spots in the national tournament field will go to four teams selected by national committee as being deserving of at-large placement in the tournament field.
The expanded size of the national tournament field forces the NJCAA to make a format change for the national event, however. The tournament, which has historically been run as a modified double elimination with games for third, fifth, seventh and even ninth place, will change to a straight single-elimination format, with the exception of a third-place game.
“There’s some good and some bad,” said Trapper women’s basketball coach Janis Beal. “The positive is that it gives eight more teams the opportunity to attend and compete at the national tournament. The negative is that you lose that sort of unique double elimination format where you got to go and play at least two games. Now you’re looking at a one-and-done sort of deal for some of those schools.”
Tournament teams will be seeded 1-24 on a bracket by a national committee with the top eight seeds each receiving a first-round bye.
In addition to approving changes to the national tournament formats for soccer and basketball, the NJCAA also revisited a policy change from last spring regarding the use of non-U.S. citizen student athletes.
The governing body ultimately chose to leave in place a policy change approved last year. That change limits the number of non-U.S. citizens on athletic teams to no more than one-fourth of the roster size for that particular sport.
Previously, teams had been limited to having more than one fourth of their scholarships going to foreign athletes. The change was prompted by concerns that some schools were circumventing the spirit of the regulation by allowing additional non-U.S. citizens to join rosters as walk-ons or by receiving non athletic scholarship monies to be on roster.
The change is designed to level the playing field for all schools within the division. It had encountered resistance from some, who questioned if reducing opportunities for some students was in line with junior college principles.
Then-Northwest College athletic director Andy Ward went on record last spring at the time of the change noting the policy change would have “virtually no impact” on the college’s athletic programs.