Since Hawk took over, here is what our conference finish would have looked like without divisions:

2003-04: 1st place @ 15-3
2004-05: 2nd place tie @ 11-7 (5 other teams)
2005-06: 6th place tie @ 10-8
2006-07: 5th place tie @ 9-7
2007-08: 2nd place @ 12-4
2008-09: 6th place tie @ 7-9 (3 other teams)
2009-10: 6th place tie @ 8-8 (2 other teams)
2010-11: 2nd place tie @ 11-5
2011-12: 7th place currently

IMO, it's time to scrap the divisions in bball. The MAC is grouped with the Southern, Southland, and Sun Belt as conferences that still use this format.

With one division, it will give more teams incentive to do better. Winning the MAC West is nice and all, but not the end goal.

Does anyone remember the reasoning behind scrapping the 18 game conference schedule? I'd like us to go back to this unless there is a legit reason to stay at 16.

Quote:Since Hawk took over, here is what our conference finish would have looked like without divisions:

Except that WMU would not have been able to feast on all of that "home cookin".

It a lot easier playing CMU, EMU, NIU and the others twice a year, than Kent, Akron, Ohio (etc), twice a year.

(02-17-2012 01:16 PM)ESSSS Wrote:  

Quote:Since Hawk took over, here is what our conference finish would have looked like without divisions:

Except that WMU would not have been able to feast on all of that "home cookin".

It a lot easier playing CMU, EMU, NIU and the others twice a year, than Kent, Akron, Ohio (etc), twice a year.

Exactly.

Agreed. To some extent. I thought someone might mention this. Here is Hawk's record against the East:

2003-04: 4-2 tourny 3-0
2004-05: 5-2 tourny 1-1 -apparently we played buffalo twice but first time didn't count in MAC
2005-06: 2-4 tourny 0-1
2006-07: 3-3 tourny 0-1
2007-08: 4-2 tourny 0-1
2008-09: 1-5 tourny 0-1
2009-10: 2-4 tourny 1-1
2010-11: 3-3 tourny 1-1 post 0-1
2011-12: 1-5

Hawk has gone 25-30 against the East during the regular season. 6-8 against them in the postseason (this is misleading due to 3 of the wins coming in the '04 tourny).

That's a 45% winning percentage against the East in the regular season. Hawk currently owns a 69% winning pecentage against the West. It's reasonable to assume that IF there were only one division, WMU would play 3 extra games against the East per year. If those 3 games were against the West, Hawk wins 2 of them. If those 3 games are against the East, he wins 1.35 every year.

It would be reasonable to say that having one division, would lower WMU's conference win total by 1.65 wins per year. Which would bump their overall standing down 1-2 notches every year. However, this does not take into account the other West teams that have experience a much worse winning % against the East. Because of that factor, I would say our place in the standings would be lowered 1 place most years, and in some years, none at all.

I did this stuff on the fly, so if my numbers or logic is flawed, I apologize.

More concerning is we are 9-21 against the East since Reitz graduated.

In short, the stats above are somewhat misleading due to the fact that Hawk's first 5 years were much better than his last 4 in these categories.

Quote:It would be reasonable to say that having one division, would lower WMU's conference win total by 1.65 wins per year.

Did you determine how many "extra wins" the east teams would average each year?

Flawed analysis no doubt.

Each East team would pick up an extra 2 or 3 games per year against the West. Without crunching numbers, I'm going to say the East winning % against the West is pretty darn close to 75% in the last 9 years. So, it would be reasonable to say that each East team would increase their win total by 2 games each year (or 3 for some).

This would no doubt increase the gap in standings for WMU.

I don't think it would have affected us during the 03-04, 04-05, or 07-08 seasons. We had the horses those years. Last year would have been interesting. Chances are we would have finished a game behind Miami and taken 3rd rather than 2nd. The other 4 years, not including current season, would have probably been much uglier for our Broncos. Maybe a drop by 2 places in standings?

I just took a look at the 2004-05 season. We finished in a 6 way tie for 2nd place at 11-7.

If there were only one division...

It would be reasonable to assume that WMU will play CMU and EMU every year. During this particular season, there were 4 other teams we played twice. Buffalo, BGSU, Ball St and NIU. Because of the 18 game schedule and various weird quirks, we only played NIU once during the previous season. I will use them as the 3rd team from the East that WMU played twice this year. We already played Buffalo twice. That leaves Ball St. and BGSU to be replaced by East teams on our schedule.

Removing BGSU and Ball St. and replacing them with the two absolute best teams from the East would result in playing Miami and Ohio. We actually lost to both of those teams that year. @ Miami 85-60 and @Ohio 89-85. Miami won the MAC that year and we obviously got pounded by them. I would expect that we lose the return game in Kalamazoo, and I would expect to beat Ohio in their return game.

In the game that we "eliminated", we actually best BGSU twice and we lost both times to Ball St.

Long story short, if their were one division, our league record probably would have been the same, 11-7.

However, given that 4 of the East teams tied us at 11-7, as well as Toledo, it would be reasonable to say that at least one or two of those teams would have gained a game on us given an alternate schedule. A third place finish in the MAC in 04-05 would be realistic.

What gets really goofy is that we finished at 19-12 after losing in the semi's of the MAC tourny. Apparently back then, it was good enough for an NIT berth where we beat Marquette and then lost an OT game at home against TCU. (I remember TCU having a bunch of dudes who looked like they were on steroids). I'm not sure a third place finish would have gotten us in the NIT that year. There were 5 teams in the East that won a minimum of 19 games, and two of them had 20 or more. With a different schedule, at least 3 or 4 of them would have improved on their win totals and probably taken our spot in the NIT.

It would be reasonable to say that having two divisions really benefitted the Broncos in 2004-05 and probably gave them an opportunity that wouldn't have been there. Although, our non conference schedule was somewhat impressive:

Wins: Loyola, Detroit, @Charleston, @IUPUI, @ Virginia Tech, South Alabama, @ Alaska
Losses: @New Mex St, @ Portland, @USC, @ Northern Iowa

Take this info with a grain of salt, it's all hypothetical...

Next up is the 2010-11 season. We finished 1st the West with an 11-5 record. Kent was 1st in the East @ 12-6, Miami was 2nd at 11-5.

We played all the West teams twice. Again, assuming we will always play CMU and EMU twice, that leaves NIU, Ball St. and Toledo. Combined, we went 5-1 against those 3 teams, only losing @ Ball St.

Let's assume that one of those 3 teams would still have been a home and home series. That means we would need to replace 2 games on our schedule with East teams. I'm going to replace the NIU and Toledo games for argument purposes. If we replaced them with a return visit to Kent, we probably lose that game. We couldn't beat them on our home floor, I don't know what could have changed @ kent. If we were to replace the last game with a home game (because the other one was @ Kent), that leaves Miami (2nd place), Akron, or BG. One of those three teams would have to come to Kalamazoo. It's safe to say that we would have beaten BG and Miami, as we beat them both at their place. Akron is a whole different can of worms.

Worst case scenerio, the scheduling people hate us and it's Akron. Given history, we would have lost that game and finished at 10-6 in the West. Although, it is worthy to note that Akron lost @EMU and @ NIU last year.

Miami went 5-1 against the West, and Akron went 4-2. Given another 2 games against the West, both most likely would have won an additional game or two.

If there was only one division, we probably would have finished in a tie for 3rd with Akron and/or Ohio, and maybe even Buffalo or BGSU.

The extra loss on our schedule and bump down in the standing probably wouldn't have affected our postseason appearance in the CIT.

I'm not going to bother breaking down our other seasons. Frankly, Reitz senior year is the only one that matters. Given two more games against quality East teams, our RPI might have been good enough for an NIT appearance...but we'll never know.

Anyhow, here is my conclusion:

As I mentioned before, the MAC needs to do the following:

1. Return to 1 division. At least 1/2 the teams in the MAC have been given false hope by thinking it's really great to win the West or the East. Ball St, EMU, Toledo, CMU and NIU have all had coaching changes and have shown little "fight" against the East over the last decade. Administrations would be more likely to act if a team consistently finishes in 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, or 12th place in the MAC. As it sits now, those teams are finishing 2nd thru 6th in the West most years. Would progress have been more swift without the false hope of a garbage 3rd place finish when in reality the team was the 9th best in the league?

2. A return to the 18 game league schedule. I say this because it is vital to eliminate those 2 extra non conference games. Our programs can't be trusted with scheduling 14 quality non conference opponents. If we played 18 league games, do you think Akron would have scheduled Hiram or North Carolina A&T? Do you think WMU would have scheduled Hope? We are a one bid league because we aren't beating quality opponents in enough head to head matchups. Eliminating two of the weaker non conference opponents (hopefully), doesn't change the win column for Akron, but it probably helps it's RPI this year.

These experiments have gone on long enough.

WOW.....Another boring day at the office?

(02-20-2012 03:47 PM)okgc Wrote:  WOW.....Another boring day at the office?

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Driving me nuts.

(02-20-2012 03:07 PM)EA3 Wrote:  I'm not going to bother breaking down our other seasons. Frankly, Reitz senior year is the only one that matters. Given two more games against quality East teams, our RPI might have been good enough for an NIT appearance...but we'll never know.

Anyhow, here is my conclusion:

As I mentioned before, the MAC needs to do the following:

1. Return to 1 division. At least 1/2 the teams in the MAC have been given false hope by thinking it's really great to win the West or the East. Ball St, EMU, Toledo, CMU and NIU have all had coaching changes and have shown little "fight" against the East over the last decade. Administrations would be more likely to act if a team consistently finishes in 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, or 12th place in the MAC. As it sits now, those teams are finishing 2nd thru 6th in the West most years. Would progress have been more swift without the false hope of a garbage 3rd place finish when in reality the team was the 9th best in the league?

2. A return to the 18 game league schedule. I say this because it is vital to eliminate those 2 extra non conference games. Our programs can't be trusted with scheduling 14 quality non conference opponents. If we played 18 league games, do you think Akron would have scheduled Hiram or North Carolina A&T? Do you think WMU would have scheduled Hope? We are a one bid league because we aren't beating quality opponents in enough head to head matchups. Eliminating two of the weaker non conference opponents (hopefully), doesn't change the win column for Akron, but it probably helps it's RPI this year.

These experiments have gone on long enough.

Agree, don't like the divisions. Hate to admit it, but the Big Conference That Can't Count has it right.

I can agree with divisions is basketball better than those stupid football divisions so they can have league playoffs. Dumb & Only for the $$$$