http://www.cleveland.com/sports/college/...cart_river

Quote:Scuttlebutt: Word is the Mid-American Conference will return to an 18-game basketball schedule next season, which means there will be some games that will be two teams’ only meeting while other teams will meet twice.

There is also an administrative push to keep the divisions in place. If so, then most traditional rivalries will remain intact, home-and-home. So while Toledo and Bowling Green will remain in the East (BG) and West (UT) Divisions, they will return to playing each other twice. It will be interesting to see how this affects Buffalo, which has built a strong allegiance to the MAC East, but has no true East rival.

It’s Miami-Ohio, Kent-Akron, BG-Toledo, but no natural rival for the Bulls.

I'm not a fan of this at all. The last thing the MAC teams trying to upgrade their schedules and RPI need is to play more games against other MAC teams. Also, why keep divisions if you're going to an 18-game schedule? How does that work? Either keep things the way they are, or eliminate divisions and move to 18 games. I think the push to keep divisions is coming from the MAC West schools, so they have something to play for late into the season.

(03-15-2013 11:20 AM)uakronkid Wrote:  http://www.cleveland.com/sports/college/...cart_river

Quote:Scuttlebutt: Word is the Mid-American Conference will return to an 18-game basketball schedule next season, which means there will be some games that will be two teams’ only meeting while other teams will meet twice.

There is also an administrative push to keep the divisions in place. If so, then most traditional rivalries will remain intact, home-and-home. So while Toledo and Bowling Green will remain in the East (BG) and West (UT) Divisions, they will return to playing each other twice. It will be interesting to see how this affects Buffalo, which has built a strong allegiance to the MAC East, but has no true East rival.

It’s Miami-Ohio, Kent-Akron, BG-Toledo, but no natural rival for the Bulls.

I'm not a fan of this at all. The last thing the MAC teams trying to upgrade their schedules and RPI need is to play more games against other MAC teams. Also, why keep divisions if you're going to an 18-game schedule? How does that work? Either keep things the way they are, or eliminate divisions and move to 18 games. I think the push to keep divisions is coming from the MAC West schools, so they have something to play for late into the season.

It depends entirely on how you build out the schedule..

The new tournament format helps the top 4 teams avoid playing crap (check)

If you schedule some of those home and homes, or even third game by preseason RPI you can help even more.

This year was awful but *USUALLY* the MAC cranks out 4-5 respectable (top 150) RPI teams.

Go to a play everyone once (11 games) and set the other seven up like this

11+3 Thee more in strength Quadrent (1-4,5-8,9-12)
14+2 Two "rival" games
16+2 Top 4 play two from the Middle, Bottom 4 play two from the Middle, Middle teams play one up one down

(03-15-2013 11:20 AM)uakronkid Wrote:  http://www.cleveland.com/sports/college/...cart_river

Quote:Scuttlebutt: Word is the Mid-American Conference will return to an 18-game basketball schedule next season, which means there will be some games that will be two teams’ only meeting while other teams will meet twice.

There is also an administrative push to keep the divisions in place. If so, then most traditional rivalries will remain intact, home-and-home. So while Toledo and Bowling Green will remain in the East (BG) and West (UT) Divisions, they will return to playing each other twice. It will be interesting to see how this affects Buffalo, which has built a strong allegiance to the MAC East, but has no true East rival.

It’s Miami-Ohio, Kent-Akron, BG-Toledo, but no natural rival for the Bulls.

I'm not a fan of this at all. The last thing the MAC teams trying to upgrade their schedules and RPI need is to play more games against other MAC teams. Also, why keep divisions if you're going to an 18-game schedule? How does that work? Either keep things the way they are, or eliminate divisions and move to 18 games. I think the push to keep divisions is coming from the MAC West schools, so they have something to play for late into the season.

I would think the other matchups would be WMU-CMU, Ball State-NIU and Buffalo-EMU.

(03-15-2013 11:27 AM)OUVan Wrote:  

(03-15-2013 11:20 AM)uakronkid Wrote:  http://www.cleveland.com/sports/college/...cart_river

Quote:Scuttlebutt: Word is the Mid-American Conference will return to an 18-game basketball schedule next season, which means there will be some games that will be two teams’ only meeting while other teams will meet twice.

There is also an administrative push to keep the divisions in place. If so, then most traditional rivalries will remain intact, home-and-home. So while Toledo and Bowling Green will remain in the East (BG) and West (UT) Divisions, they will return to playing each other twice. It will be interesting to see how this affects Buffalo, which has built a strong allegiance to the MAC East, but has no true East rival.

It’s Miami-Ohio, Kent-Akron, BG-Toledo, but no natural rival for the Bulls.

I'm not a fan of this at all. The last thing the MAC teams trying to upgrade their schedules and RPI need is to play more games against other MAC teams. Also, why keep divisions if you're going to an 18-game schedule? How does that work? Either keep things the way they are, or eliminate divisions and move to 18 games. I think the push to keep divisions is coming from the MAC West schools, so they have something to play for late into the season.

I would think the other matchups would be WMU-CMU, Ball State-NIU and Buffalo-EMU.

Great match up Reggies offense against an effective zone team... F-me..

I thought this was already a done deal.

Going to an unbalanced schedule, but keeping divisions makes no sense, especially since seeding is not division dependent anymore. The division standings will mean absolutely nothing, and everyone will keep a tally of the overall standings anyway, which are the ones which have meaning.

(03-15-2013 11:41 AM)axeme Wrote:  Going to an unbalanced schedule, but keeping divisions makes no sense, especially since seeding is not division dependent anymore. The division standings will mean absolutely nothing, and everyone will keep a tally of the overall standings anyway, which are the ones which have meaning.

I agree.. and threw something up real fast

http://www.ubbullrun.com/2013/3/15/41085...ould-do-it

Rule #1 Everyone plays the entire conference through one time. (11 Games)

You just have to give everyone a shot through the entire conference, otherwise whats the point of a conference right? Rotate home and away games here by year. So that gets you to 11 games.

Here is the tricky part. MAC Tournament seeding are based only on this first pass through, the remaining seven games are played only for tie breakers and to increase the conference chances at securing more than one bid.

You still want your best teams to have byes in Cleveland and not to lose out because the cannibalize themselves.

Rule #2 Divide the MAC into preseason Tiers (Three Games)

Tier 1 Ohio - Akron - Kent - Toledo
Tier 2 EMU - WMU - Buffalo - Bowling Green
Tier 3 Ball State - Miami - NIU - CMU

The only really wonky preseason pick was Ball State. The Cards ended up the number five seed in the conference. and were in the preseason maybe eight or nine. But here are three more games you play against teams likely to be in your weight Class.

The team that hosts these games is the one who was on the road for the first 11. these three games get you up to 14 total and still needing four more.

Rule #3 Play the teams you hate (Two Games)

Everyone gets two rivals and no I don't have a clue as to how you work that out.

Here is the trick. This could be the third time you play these teams, but hey would a third Toledo Bowling Green game really be a bad thing? It would help attendance and further foster the kind of atmosphere we all want. A third Kent Akron Game! Awesome!

So how do you work out home or road? Well these are rival games so rotate it by year. In any even this take teh teams from 14 to 16 conference games so we need two more.

Rule #4 Invade your neighbor (Two Games)

If a team in located in a tier where they don't belong, lets say Ball State this season, then give them a crack at the other two tiers. Each team plays one non rival from each of the other tiers. You can try to do this by playing the top tier 1 team playing the top tier 2 and tier 3 teams. If they cant because of the rival rule then just bump them up or down.

That's two more games and you get to 18, hopefully boosting the RPI of the conference a bit by giving the top teams quality opponents and the bottom teams beatable opponents. It would also give the lower teams a chance to boost their RPI with a win.

The MAC needs to play more conference games because it's so hard to get OOC games. UB played two D-II games this year.

If the MAC went to 14 teams, it could play 19 conference games.

Could mean UMASS is coming on all sports, and MAC keeping at 13 even for basketball. Gives you 12 teams to play in basketball. 6 teams you play twice (12 games) and 6 teams you play once (6 games). 12 + 6 = 18

I f we're keeping divisions, we'll play all divisional teams twice, 4 cross-division teams once, and two of them twice. I'll bet that's the setup. Do away with divisions and we would be able to come up with better schedules.

I would think this was in response to losing the two games the ESPN bracket busters provided each year for scheduling.