Whitman-Hanson athletic director Bob Rodgers has been at the forefront of a movement to eliminate the Margin Of Victory as a component to determine power rankings.

He says there are a legion of compatriots in his concern.

At Tuesday’s MIAA Basketball Committee, Rodgers continued to voice his displeasure with the MOV. He was encouraged by the support he received at the recent athletic director convention.

“I can tell you it was the most well-attended of all the meetings down,” said Rodgers, the head boys basketball coach and athletic director at Whitman-Hanson. “The MOV has really created some hard feelings with these artificial metrics. There were a lot of athletic directors in the room and not one AD raised their hand in support of it at the end.”

Dover-Sherborn boys basketball coach Rick Grady agreed with Rodgers in that the MOV component has forced some coaches to strategize differently late in games.

“One coach said there was a game where he was down six and didn’t foul because he didn’t want (the outcome) to get to 10 (the maximum MOV number),” Grady said. “That’s not what you would talk about to your kids in practice. There is definitely a concern from the coaches about the 10-point margin.”

Rodgers also pushed for basketball to follow the lead of hockey and make all state quarterfinal games contested on neutral sites. While not mentioning them by name, he was clearly alluding to Norwell, a team which won 20 games and was a top-five seed.

“In the Round of 8 (state quarterfinal), one team had to travel three hours (Norwell to Taconic) to play that game and it really diminishes the experience,” Rodgers said. “It would have been better if both schools traveled an hour and 15 or so. That was really a hard ask of a team to travel that far for that level of game.”

Added Malden principal and committee member Chris Mastrangelo, “Maybe I am being nostalgic, but I remember when I was coaching Peabody and we had to play a sectional semifinal at Chelsea and it was great. Both teams coming in on buses and playing there was special.”

The committee voted unanimously to push the quarterfinal neutral site as well as the assigning of officials in that round on to the Tournament Management Committee for further discussion.

In other basketball committee discussion, Rodgers brought up the subject of returning to the TD Garden for the state finals.

“It’s incumbent on this committee to fight for the student-athletes and communities,” Rodgers said. “It’s special unless you are (St. Mary’s girls basketball coach/athletic director and committee chairman) Jeff Newhall and you get there every year.”

Worcester athletic director David Shea expressed concern that, while he loves the nostalgia of playing at the Garden, playing at a facility that is normally 60-70 percent empty doesn’t provide the excitement of a smaller, but quality venue.

“We had two teams play in the finals at the Tsongas (Worcester North boys, Worcester South) and it was like standing room only,” Shea said. “A couple of years earlier, Doherty football played at Gillette, it was empty compared to two weeks earlier where the place was packed.”

Bourne boys basketball/athletic director Scott Ashworth brought up the subject of employing a running time in one-sided games. He pointed to several lopsided scores in contests in the southeastern part of the state and hopes something can be done to rectify part of this.

“Some of these scores have gotten out of control, they really look bad,” Ashworth said. “They use a running clock in football and hockey so I don’t see why we can’t use one in basketball. I received a lot of phone calls from parents concerned that scores were out of control.”

The committee agreed to table the issue for the time being until further data can be obtained.

While the basketball committee were meeting via zoom call, the softball committee did as well. In a short meeting, the only real highlights were the announcement of the postseason dates. The quarterfinals will be played on June 7-8 (June 9 serving as a rain date), the semifinals on June 10-11, with the state finals on June 14-15 at UMass.

Among the venues being looked at for Final Four contests are UMass Lowell, UMass Dartmouth and Worcester State, with Turners Falls as an option provided they are not still competing in the tournament.