Montclair Prep Blasts Format for Playoffs : High school basketball: Abrams believes his 15-6 team deserved postseason berth.

An angry and frustrated Howard Abrams, coach of the Montclair Prep boys’ basketball team, criticized the Southern Section playoff system Monday, saying his team was unfairly omitted from the playoffs that begin tonight.

The Mounties, a free-lance team that finished 15-6 and played 18 games against teams that advanced to the playoffs, did not receive a berth because there were none allotted to free-lance teams in Division IV-A.

“Tell me we’re not supposed to be in and I can stand it,” Abrams said Monday. “Tell me we didn’t win enough games, but don’t tell me there aren’t any spots left.”

Of the teams that received berths in Division IV-A, five have losing records and three others finished the regular season at .500. All of those teams qualified automatically by placing in the top half of their respective leagues.

Southern Section Commissioner Dean Crowley said Montclair Prep was excluded because of the size of Division IV-A, which uses a 16-team bracket with a 20-team limit. The majority of divisions use 32-team brackets. Division size is based on the number of schools that share similar enrollment levels.

Under section guidelines, free-lance teams are ineligible for a 16-team bracket with a 20-team limit. The division’s eight wild-card teams (12 teams draw automatic berths) must be drawn from league teams, Crowley said.

“We followed all of our rules and all of our guidelines,” Crowley said. “They are a free-lance team and free-lance teams are not part of the pool we draw from to fill the wild-card spots.”

That answer provided little comfort for Abrams. “Their concept is that they’re not splitting the atom,” he said. “Somebody should say this isn’t right.”

Crowley denied that the ruling was related to Montclair Prep’s history with the Southern Section. Montclair Prep had been banned from postseason play in all sports for the 1991-92 school year because of recruiting violations in the football program.

“Absolutely not,” Crowley said. “The football thing, that’s in the past. They are a free-lance team and they’re not in a league and it’s just a difficult thing.”

Two seniors on the basketball team, Aaron Mintz and Jack Pollon, went to the section offices in Cerritos immediately after practice Monday morning to plead the Mounties’ case, but changed no minds.

Montclair Prep twice beat Sierra Vista (13-10), which earned a Division II-AA berth, and also posted victories over playoff teams Campbell Hall, Crossroads and Maranatha. Montclair Prep lost by one point to highly regarded St. Francis.

Last Thursday, the Mounties lost to Whittier Christian, 57-44, but practiced Friday to prepare for the playoffs. The team met at the usual time again Monday morning, unaware that the season was over.

Crowley intimated that he will suggest a rule change next season that would give an automatic berth to free-lance teams that win somewhere between 65% and 75% or more of its games. He wasn’t certain on the exact percentage he would propose. However, that does little to appease the Montclair Prep seniors who are now turning in their uniforms.