The CIF Southern Section has switched its playoff model for boys and girls basketball starting this 2024-25 season — that model is called ‘competitive equity’.

It’s not new to football. The Southern Section has used Calpreps.com’s computer rankings to decide the postseason divisions for the last few years. The computer takes a team’s results from the current season and places teams in playoffs divisions based on their computer rating with the goal to create competitive playoff competition.

That same approach is now being carried out for basketball, instead of taking the previous two seasons and predetermining a team’s division before the season — which was the previous playoff model.

Heading into the 2025 postseason, high school basketball coaches, players, fans and school administrators have been asking fair questions like …

What computer system is being used to create the playoffs divisions? … Will the divisions be different, or the same? … How many teams will be taken in the Open Division? …

All those questions will be answered, right here, right now.

The computer rankings will be provided by SBLive’s Colley Method, according to the CIF Southern Section basketball season preview. The first edition of the computer rankings are LIVE as of December 30 after adequate data has been provided to create such rankings. The computer rankings are updated once a week.

The division format will be the same as past years, according to a CIF Southern Section spokesperson.

The top division will be the Open Division followed by Division 1, Division 2AA, Division 2A … etc.

The Open Division field, which has previously been handpicked by a committte to create the toughest playoff bracket in the Southern Section, will enter a committee-less era in the new competitive equity format.

From 2014-2017, the Open Division field was 16 teams. Since 2018, the field has been eight teams.

Starting in 2025, the Open field will be determined by the computer rankings, just like Calpreps does for football. Also similar to football, the number of teams that create the Open Division field can change pending on how many teams the Southern Section sees fit to compete in the marquee division.

The proverbial line that is created to cut the Open Division will influence the subsequent divisions below … Division 1, 2AA, 2A … 5AA, 5A.

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