The state's largest prep basketball classification has had to deal with the challenges of scheduling in the first year of the current two-year cycle.
In the 6A-West Conference, there will now be nine teams with the addition of Fort Smith Northside joining what was the eight-team West. Prior to this cycle, Northside was in the Central conference, which split the two Fort Smith schools as Southside remained in the West.
The last time the 6A-West had a nine-team conference was in the 2005-06 school year when Springdale Har-Ber, a year before playing varsity football, participated in the other varsity sports, including volleyball, basketball, baseball, softball and soccer. The conference used a 16-game schedule that year. The following year, Russellville moved east to 7A-Central, leaving the 7A-West with a standard eight-team format.
In basketball, perhaps more than the other non-football sports, has to deal with all sorts of scheduling challenges which were not around 17 years ago. There are now four cities with two schools in the conference, making balancing home dates on Tuesday and Friday nights a challenge as most schools want to have Homecoming or Colors Day on a Friday.
Conference athletic directors sought input from league coaches, and eventually all the kinks were ironed out.
"There were some criteria that everyone agreed upon at the outset," Southside boys basketball Coach Stewart Adams said. "With the four cities with two teams, let's make sure if one team is home, then the other is on the road. Everyone wanted at least four Friday home games because that is when you have your Homecoming. Also wanted to try to balance the open dates, keep consecutive home or road dates to a minimum. You cannot make it perfect, but we wanted to hit those most important criteria first."
Springdale athletic director Wayne Stehlik said the new schedule hit those key marks.
"I was so impressed with the work the coaches did in creating this schedule," Stehlik said. "They worked on several models until they came up with this one that all of us would accept."
The schedule does have some unique twists, said Adams.
"The team you play the first week may not be the first time you play the second time through," Adams said. "The main things were the two-school cities' home-road schedule and each team getting four Friday night home games."
The new schedule, along with the newly passed Arkansas Activities Association rule that now allows a 30-game regular-season schedule, gives more flexibility to schools trying to fit a 16-game conference slate within that 30-game limit.
"I love the new format on how we can manipulate our schedule to play 30 games," Bentonville girls coach Tom Halbmaier said. "If you have a young team, 30 individual games will be a benefit because you can do some coaching between games. Plus, you rarely get three games in a row during a state tournament, so you may not want to play in an in-season tournament that has a format of three games in three days."
A new wrinkle is the open date, with nine teams and 18 playing dates, each team will have two open dates and balancing that was also a complication.
"I like the bye dates," Halbmaier said. "It could give a team a chance to schedule a game and fill in the date. I am already looking at those open dates and seeing what kind of teams I could add to the schedule."
One place the 6A-West teams could find games may be in the 6A-Central, which has only seven teams. Each team will have 16 games and two open dates in the 18-game schedule.
The coaches and athletic directors also decided not to play any three-game weeks, which was the case back in 2005. So instead teams are going to play two conference games in December -- Dec. 20 and Dec. 22.
"We didn't want the three-game weeks because we may get that situation (because of potential winter weather)," Adams said. "The weather is usually a little better before January 1, so we decided to get two games in December. There are a lot of small-school conferences that play league games before Christmas, so doing this is not unique."
With COVID-19 cancellations in 2021 and winter postponements in 2022, Stehlik said moving games to December made sense.
"We knew that the coaches would make one schedule with games in December and another schedule with three-game weeks starting in January," Stehlik added. "The last two seasons of cancellations were a lesson for all of us that having flexibility is important. We had no problem with conference games in December."
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None2022-23 6A-West Basketball Schedule
Friday December 17, 2022
Bentonville West @ Bentonville (boys)
Saturday December 18, 2022
Bentonville West @ Bentonville (girls)
Tuesday December 20, 2022
Springdale @ Fayetteville
FS Southside @ Bentonville West
Rogers Heritage @ Springdale Har-Ber
Bentonville @ Rogers
Thursday December 22, 2022
Springdale @ Rogers Heritage
Rogers @ Springdale Har-Ber
Bentonville @ FS Southside
FS Northside @ Bentonville West
Tuesday January 3, 2023
FS Southside @ Springdale
Springdale Har-Ber @ FS Northside
Fayetteville @ Rogers
Friday January 6
Springdale @ Bentonville West
Bentonville @ Springdale Har-Ber
Rogers Heritage @ FS Southside
FS Northside @ Fayetteville
Tuesday January 10
West
Springdale Har-Ber @ Springdale
Rogers @ FS Northside
Bentonville West @ Rogers Heritage
Fayetteville @ Bentonville
Friday January 13
Springdale Har-Ber @ Fayetteville
FS Southside @ FS Northside
Rogers Heritage @ Bentonville
Bentonville West @ Rogers
Tuesday January 17, 2023
Rogers @ Springdale
Springdale Har-Ber @ FS Southside
FS Northside @ Bentonville
Fayetteville @ Rogers Heritage
Friday January 20, 2023
Springdale @ FS Northside
Bentonville West @ Springdale Har-Ber
FS Southside @ Fayetteville
Rogers Heritage @ Rogers
Tuesday January 24, 2023
Bentonville @ Springdale
Rogers @ FS Southside
FS Northside @ Rogers Heritage
Fayetteville @ Bentonville West
Friday January 27, 2023
Springdale @ Springdale Har-Ber
FS Northside @ Rogers
Rogers Heritage @ Bentonville West
Bentonville @ Fayetteville
Tuesday January 31, 2023
Fayetteville @ Springdale Har-Ber
FS Northside @ FS Southside
Rogers @ Bentonville West
Bentonville @ Rogers Heritage
Friday February 3, 2023
Rogers Heritage @ Springdale
Springdale Har-Ber @ Rogers
FS Southside @ Bentonville
Bentonville West @ FS Northside
Tuesday February 7, 2023
Springdale @ FS Southside
FS Northside @ Springdale Har-Ber
Rogers @ Fayetteville
Bentonville @ Bentonville West
Friday February 10, 2023
Bentonville West @ Springdale
Springdale Har-Ber @ Bentonville
FS Southside @ Rogers Heritage
Fayetteville @ FS Northside
Tuesday February 14, 2023
Springdale @ Bentonville
FS Southside @ Rogers
Rogers Heritage @ FS Northside
Bentonville West @ Fayetteville
Friday February 17, 2023
Fayetteville @ Springdale
Springdale Har-Ber @ Rogers Heritage
Bentonville West @ FS Southside
Rogers @ Bentonville
Tuesday February 21, 2023
Springdale @ Rogers
FS Southside @ Springdale Har-Ber
Bentonville @ FS Northside
Rogers Heritage @ Fayetteville
Friday February 24, 2023
FS Northside @ Springdale
Springdale Har-Ber @ Bentonville West
Fayetteville @ FS Southside
Rogers @ Rogers Heritage