The Washington Post - USA (2021-12-25)

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 25 , 2021. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ SU D5

might look like against a typical

high school team. It’s hard to

place any of these teams in a

traditional context.

Dormu sets a feisty tone at

point guard, repeatedly throwing

his body into a mass of bigger

ones near the hoop. The junior

said he was excited when he saw

the team’s schedule and knew

there was no leveling up left to

do. “I love the challenge,” he said.

“It motivates me to be better so I

can go at the top guys and do my

thing.”

The Lakers hold a double-digit

lead for most of the game and

end up winning by 21. It’s a

lackluster debut for the Spar-

tans, but they seem to under-

stand it will take time to adjust.

Senior forward Travis Roberts,

who led the Spartans with

14 points, could take solace in the

loss. After all, the night was

everything he imagined.

“None of us are really experi-

enced playing against teams like

this, so we’re going to have to put

it all together,” he said. “But what

more could you want than this?”

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Wasatch Academy had won the

first game of the night, beating

Legacy Early College in a contest

that went down to the wire and

thrilled the crowd.

Meanwhile, Dan Prete was

busy playing dual roles: Bishop

Walsh coach and event director.

The fourth-year leader shuttled

between the locker room and the

sideline, prepping the Spartans

for battle and answering ques-

tions from sponsors, volunteers

and fans.

Prete, who has coached at

Montrose Christian, St. Andrew’s

Episcopal and St. James, knew

his team was about to embark on

a challenging campaign.

“We have a very talented

group, but at the same time they

haven’t experienced this level

yet, and they’re going to get their

eyes opened wide very shortly

here,” Prete said before the game.

“They’ll have to pay the bills

early, but down the road they’ll

be better off for it.”

From the opening tip, it’s clear

Bishop Walsh is not as big or as

fast as La Lumiere, but it’s hard

to envision what the Spartans

bers of their school community

beyond showing up and playing

basketball.”

Beyond the legitimacy of the

programs, there is the question

that has followed Ghazi and

Paragon for two decades, since

they first put James on televi-

sion: Why should any of this

exist? Ghazi said he has long

faced criticism from people who

see youth sports as a communi-

ty-based activity.

“No one questions the

[15-year-old] figure skater in the

Olympics or the young tennis

player or golfer,” Ghazi said.

“When it comes to individual

sports, nobody complains. But

when it comes to team sports,

everyone thinks they know

what’s best for these athletes....

For the kids who want to partici-

pate at this level, we want to give

them the opportunity. But re-

gional and local opportunities

will always be there.”

Game time

It is close to 9 p.m. by the time

Bishop Walsh and La Lumiere

take the floor at Allegany.

2022 play in the NIBC.

But Ghazi and the other

founders know big names alone

will not foster goodwill across

prep basketball. Schools with

strong, travel-happy athletic

programs are sometimes as-

sumed to be diploma factories,

built on shaky foundations with

questionable aims. The Bishop

Sycamore football team debacle

in the fall further fueled stereo-

types.

But the NIBC aims to fight

that idea by promoting pro-

grams that are attached to repu-

table schools with a long history

of academic success. Each one is

a brick-and-mortar four-year in-

stitution.

“There may be some percep-

tions that high-level athletic pro-

grams somehow are not compat-

ible with high academic and

disciplinary standards,” Kessel-

ring said.

“One of the things we want to

accomplish with this league is to

show otherwise.... I think I

speak for all of our schools when

I say we want our student-ath-

letes to be contributing mem-

sports on a national stage. It was

behind the now-famous ESPN

telecast of a 2002 game between

LeBron James’s St. Vincent-St.

Mary team and Oak Hill. Since

then, the company has put more

than 700 high school games on

ESPN networks.

Thirty-eight of the 40 NIBC

regular season games are set to

be broadcast on ESPNU or ESPN

Plus this winter. As an entertain-

ment option, the NIBC sees itself

as a unique and accessible prod-

uct for basketball fans.

“There is a large group of fans

who know exactly who Mont-

verde is or Oak Hill is or La

Lumiere is, just like they know

Duke or North Carolina or the

Knicks or the Lakers,” Ghazi

said. “And if you go on message

boards or on Twitter, most NBA

fans — especially those fans

whose teams are struggling —

know exactly who the kids in our

conference are and are already

looking at how they could fit into

their team.”

In 247 Sports’ rankings, 24 of

the top 100 and three of the top

five prospects in the Class of

eager for this opportunity. It will
take time for the group to jell, but
this team has time in abundance.
Like most of the NIBC programs,
Bishop Walsh runs a boarding
program for its basketball team,
meaning the group is together
much more than the average high
school squad.
“It feels like getting ready for
college, being here,” said junior
guard Daniel Dormu, who grew
up in the D.C. area and attended
two small private schools in Vir-
ginia before ending up in Cum-
berland. “I’m spending so much
time at the dorm with my team-
mates. We’re all getting ready for
the next level.”
On this night, Bishop Walsh
was set to play Indiana power La
Lumiere in the second game of
the doubleheader. The Spartans
had their cheerleaders and a
sizable group of supporters. Most
everyone else in the gym seemed
to have come out of curiosity.
This was the new reality, and
Bishop Walsh was about to get a
taste of it.

Consistent competition

The NIBC was born from cha-
os. Last winter, the coronavirus
pandemic turned high school
basketball upside down. One of
the first consequences was the
cancellation of most tourna-
ments that required travel. If
there was going to be any basket-
ball played in this climate, it
made the most sense to keep it
close to home.
But that’s not how schools
such as La Lumiere and Bishop
Walsh operate. Those programs
have reached or aspire to reach a
stratosphere that requires them
to travel far to find an opponent
that can push them. Their home
court is a hotel room; their
conference is the country.
So discussions began among a
group of like-minded schools: La
Lumiere, Bishop Walsh, IMG
Academy (Fla.), Legacy Early
College (S.C.), Montverde Acad-
emy (Fla.), Oak Hill Academy
(Va.), Sunrise Christian Academy
(Kan.) and Wasatch Academy
(Utah). They often played one
another at national tournaments
anyway, so why not form a tem-
porary league to salvage some-
thing from the lost winter?
They set up a few events, and
those were mostly successful.
The events required the teams to
stay in a bubble environment,
which has not been replicated
this season but remains a possi-
bility with case numbers again
on the rise. More than anything,
the league gave eight basketball-
hungry schools consistent high-
level competition.
“As we were in the midst of
that, it became more and more
apparent to us that we should
continue it,” said Kasey Kessel-
ring, headmaster at Montverde
Academy. “We’re already playing
each other anyway at different
tournament events, so why not
continue this league moving for-
ward to create some sustainable,
competitive games in the fu-
ture?”
By the spring, those talks had
reached an advanced stage, and
the league found a commission-
er: Rashid Ghazi, president of
Paragon Marketing Group.
Paragon has been at the fore-
front of putting high school

NIBC FROM D1

Md. school

helps start

new age of

prep hoops

KATHERINE FREY/THE WASHINGTON POST

Bishop Walsh men’s basketball coach Dan Prete, top, addressed his team before a game against Indiana power La Lumiere on Dec. 2 in Cumberland, Md. Fans

packed the stands at Allegany College’s Bob Kirk Arena for the National Interscholastic Basketball Conference game, which was broadcast by ESPN Plus.

fall 2020 sports because of covid,

while most of the bowl games

played on, with Alabama trounc-

ing Ohio State before a limited

crowd of roughly 15,000 (20 per-

cent of normal capacity) at Hard

Rock Stadium in Miami Gar-

dens, Fla.

Meanwhile, Sam Houston

State was crowned the 2020-21

FCS champion — but not until

mid-May, after FCS conferences

shifted football from a fall to

spring sport.

The differing responses to

covid, last year and this year,

offer yet another window on the

governance schism in college

football, in which the NCAA has

authority over the FCS champi-

onship but only the semblance of

authority over the Football Bowl

Subdivision and the lucrative

four-team College Football Play-

off that’s bankrolled by a 12-year,

$7.3 billion contract with ESPN.

That CFP revenue is projected

to triple if the playoffs are ex-

panded to a 12-team format, as

expected.

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staff take prudent measures and

follow medical recommenda-

tions to help prevent the con-

traction or transmission of

COVID before, during and after

they travel to the game sites.”

Different schools interpret

that in different ways.

Michigan already had

planned a mass vaccination for

players, coaches and staff to get

booster shots the day before they

left for Florida in advance of

their Dec. 31 semifinal against

Georgia.

The ACC’s testing policy,

which remains in effect for bowl

participants such as Pittsburgh

(in the Peach Bowl), states that

unvaccinated athletes on teams

with a vaccination rate less than

85 percent are tested at least

three times per week. On teams

with a vaccination rate of 85 per-

cent or higher, they’re tested at

least once a week.

Last season, the NCAA took a

decidedly more cautious ap-

proach to the postseason than

did bowl operators. The NCAA

canceled all championships for

moving press conferences to be-

ing conducted virtually),” John-

son wrote. “The Division I Foot-

ball Committee and NCAA staff

will continue to monitor the

situation.”

As for the more prominent

College Football Playoff, its up-

dated covid protocols say all

interaction between the media

and players and coaches will be

conducted remotely, only essen-

tial personnel will be allowed on

the field (no sponsors or guests)

and all workers with field access

must test negative for the coro-

navirus within 72 hours of kick-

off or be fully vaccinated.

The CFP is not prescriptive

regarding the testing of players

and coaches. It directs each

school to use whatever testing

arrangement it had used during

the regular season and arrange

for any testing at the game site.

It also requires each conference

to accept each other conference’s

testing protocol.

In lieu of mandates, it states

schools are “encouraged to en-

sure that student-athletes and

State and North Dakota State

and the preceding playoff games.

That’s because the NCAA runs

the FCS championship in the

same way it runs the national

championships of every varsity

sport other than major college

football.

As of Thursday, the NCAA isn’t

ramping up the testing protocols

it has mandated all season, ac-

cording to Greg Johnson, an-

other NCAA spokesman.

That means for the FCS cham-

pionship game the teams and

their officials must “attest” to

either being fully vaccinated or

having a negative coronavirus

test one to three days before

arrival, based on the type of test.

Beyond that, no additional tests

will be conducted onsite unless

someone develops symptoms in

Frisco.

The medical staff onsite will

conduct the tests, and the NCAA

will cover the expense.

“There may be other opera-

tional areas where adjustments

might have to be made to help

fight the spread of the virus (ex:

The NCAA’s role in those

games is largely symbolic, chief-

ly “certifying” that each bowl

meets minimal standards for

operations.

The College Football Playoff

management committee, which

runs the sport’s national cham-

pionship, updated its covid pol-

icy Wednesday to add precau-

tions and a measure of coher-

ence for the biggest games — the

Jan. 10 national championship

in Indianapolis, the Dec. 31 play-

off semifinals (the Cotton and

Orange bowls) and the Fiesta

and Peach bowls. It also an-

nounced that any semifinalists

that can’t play because of covid-

19 would forfeit, with the oppo-

nent advancing to the champi-

onship.

Meanwhile, more than three

dozen other bowls are following

a combination of local and con-

ference requirements.

Further confounding matters,

the NCAA set protocols for the

Football Championship Subdivi-

sion championship game Jan. 8

in Frisco, Tex., between Montana

— Is full vaccination required?
What about periodic testing? —
the NCAA is silent, deferring to
the policies of the teams’ respec-
tive conferences and to local
authorities.
“Bowls are working directly
with the conferences to manage
protocols based on their local
area and conference/team proto-
cols,” NCAA spokesman Chris
Radford wrote in an email.
The upshot — amid the surge
of the highly transmissible omi-
cron variant that has led to a
pause in the NHL season, the
rescheduling of some NFL
games and the postponement or
cancellation of several NBA and
college basketball games — is a
disjointed, ad hoc set of proto-
cols at the more than 40 bowl
games.
That’s because the NCAA has
nominal authority over bowls,
which are run by conferences
and independent bowl owners,
whether nonprofit or for-profit
entities such as ESPN Events.

BOWLS FROM D1

Bowl games confront covid-19 surge with ad hoc protocols