HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania high school basketball playoff system will remain the same "unless we're ordered to change it," PIAA executive director Brad Cashman said Monday.

Cashman's statement is in response to a movement among some high school coaches and administrators who favor separate public and private school postseason tournaments.

"This push rears its ugly head at the end of every basketball season," Cashman said. "Basketball is different from most sports in that a couple of players can make a team a powerhouse.

"Football, soccer — most other sports require numerous good players to do that."

Cashman said that while the PIAA is aware of the push to change the present system, "we are not in agreement with it."

Thirty-eight of the past 44 Class A and AA basketball champions have been private schools. Nine of the 16 state finalists this year were private school teams, as were five of the eight state champions.

Still, Cashman insisted the system is fair.

"Athletic classification is based on enrollment, so schools are facing opponents of similar size," he said. "Most of the private schools in Pennsylvania are Catholic schools.

"Most of those schools that win state titles have an outstanding feeder system in place through the CYO. Those kids are playing in the same system from first grade on up. A lot of the public school systems don't have that.

"In most cases, players on those Catholic high school teams are not immediate transfers from public school systems. That is very, very rare."

While Cashman understands that certain administrators merely want to introduce legislation that would enable the PIAA to legally consider establishing separate public and private school tournaments, he says the PIAA will not consider it.

"We have fair and equal competition among schools now," he said. "If the General Assembly ordered us to change it, obviously, we'd have to do it.

"But that's the only way."