not going to happen...

It’s time to fix college basketball now, and here’s how

Love that article

Great article. I especially liked this part about scheduling:

Quote:What is the solution?

No guarantee games where Team A can offer a monetary reward to attract Team B only to play at Team A’s home site. Also, schedule all OOC games either home/home or at a neutral site.

“No one will do that” is the most common argument I hear against these solutions.

Why not? Do the New England Patriots buy home games? Do the New York Yankees buy home games? Does your local high school team buy home games?

I rest my case.

Only in college sports and "Championship Wrestling" does competitive parity get thrown completely out the window under the guise of entertainment. Everybody knows Wrestling is fake....and college sports are quickly becoming that way too.

The problem is that the people in charge have absolutely no incentive to change anything.

What he mentions in the article sounds great in theory. However, the Power 5 schools will never give up their competitive advantage and start playing Mid-Majors in their building.

The NCCA could try and change the rules to make it so Power 5 schools have to schedule home and home series with Mid-Majors. However, Power 5 schools would just threaten to leave and form their own competition. This is what they did with football and got the rules changed to favor them.

(04-03-2016 08:19 AM)odubum Wrote:  What he mentions in the article sounds great in theory. However, the Power 5 schools will never give up their competitive advantage and start playing Mid-Majors in their building.

The NCCA could try and change the rules to make it so Power 5 schools have to schedule home and home series with Mid-Majors. However, Power 5 schools would just threaten to leave and form their own competition. This is what they did with football and got the rules changed to favor them.

Quote:There needs to be a serious discussion at every Division I school regarding the financial commitment to remain Division I.
...

If your current model requires student-athletes to leave campus on a regular basis to generate money for the rest of the athletic department perhaps you should reconsider how the program is funded.

^^^This goes for football as well. P5's would not be the ones complaining, G5 teams that need the money to fill holes in their budget will never allow this to change.

(04-02-2016 01:02 AM)HogDawg Wrote:  Great article. I especially liked this part about scheduling:

Quote:What is the solution?

No guarantee games where Team A can offer a monetary reward to attract Team B only to play at Team A’s home site. Also, schedule all OOC games either home/home or at a neutral site.

“No one will do that” is the most common argument I hear against these solutions.

Why not? Do the New England Patriots buy home games? Do the New York Yankees buy home games? Does your local high school team buy home games?

I rest my case.

Only in college sports and "Championship Wrestling" does competitive parity get thrown completely out the window under the guise of entertainment. Everybody knows Wrestling is fake....and college sports are quickly becoming that way too.

Ummm Yankees, Patriots, REALLY? That is LEAGUE PLAY! The leagues in pros schedule those games... JUST LIKE conferences schedule like that for the games between its members. It is NON-CONFERENCE games that are scheduled by schools and unparalleled in the pro's.

His points are extremely valid. As stated, the problem is nobody will change anything. Like everything else, $ controls the system. It just looks bad against the backdrop of "collegiate sports".

Your AD has to be creative. We included a home and home in basketball with our deal for a pay game in football with Michigan

I'd love to see the NCAA dock 3 points for every home team in the RPI formula (assuming they don't already do something similar?). In other words, the home team starts out down by 3 and if they win by 3.5 (oddsmaker talk there) or more, it counts as a win in the RPI and if they don't cover by 3.5 the road team "wins". A 3 point home team win/road team loss is a push. I believe that in itself would go a long way toward changing the "business as usual" shenanigans we call D-I basketball.

Additionally, I'd like to see college hoops play the same game the entire rest of the world plays - 4 quarters versus 2 halves. I think you'd see a lot fewer "free throw fests" than you see today, thus, creating a more interesting game to watch.

I think these things could actually be changed by the NCAA by majority votes since the so-called "power conferences" are far outnumbered by the "mid-majors" and "low majors". Of course, the risk here (a mutual one since it *could* backfire) is the possibility of the "powers" breaking away from the rest of D-I but then again, that's basically the situation right now with the exception of March Madness inclusiveness.

(04-03-2016 03:03 PM)airtroop Wrote:  I'd love to see the NCAA dock 3 points for every home team in the RPI formula (assuming they don't already do something similar?). In other words, the home team starts out down by 3 and if they win by 3.5 (oddsmaker talk there) or more, it counts as a win in the RPI and if they don't cover by 3.5 the road team "wins". A 3 point home team win/road team loss is a push. I believe that in itself would go a long way toward changing the "business as usual" shenanigans we call D-I basketball.

Additionally, I'd like to see college hoops play the same game the entire rest of the world plays - 4 quarters versus 2 halves. I think you'd see a lot fewer "free throw fests" than you see today, thus, creating a more interesting game to watch.

I think these things could actually be changed by the NCAA by majority votes since the so-called "power conferences" are far outnumbered by the "mid-majors" and "low majors". Of course, the risk here (a mutual one since it *could* backfire) is the possibility of the "powers" breaking away from the rest of D-I but then again, that's basically the situation right now with the exception of March Madness inclusiveness.

Good point, I read the women have shot the fewest amount of free throws this season. It also helps with a poor shooting stretch, almost like a mental regroup when the quarter ends and new quarter begins. It seem like Oklahoma went 8 or 10 minutes last night without a basket which lead to a blow out by Villanova

The RPI takes into account home and away games. A home win "counts" for less than an away win.

Two of the last three Ncaa finals have featured a non-P5 team.

(04-03-2016 04:35 PM)cotton1991 Wrote:  The RPI takes into account home and away games. A home win "counts" for less than an away win.

Two of the last three Ncaa finals have featured a non-P5 team.

How so? Please explain (for real). Is it a fair compensation like the 3-point home court advantage the oddsmakers generally use?

(04-03-2016 10:14 AM)IceJus10 Wrote:  

(04-02-2016 01:02 AM)HogDawg Wrote:  Great article. I especially liked this part about scheduling:

Quote:What is the solution?

No guarantee games where Team A can offer a monetary reward to attract Team B only to play at Team A’s home site. Also, schedule all OOC games either home/home or at a neutral site.

“No one will do that” is the most common argument I hear against these solutions.

Why not? Do the New England Patriots buy home games? Do the New York Yankees buy home games? Does your local high school team buy home games?

I rest my case.

Only in college sports and "Championship Wrestling" does competitive parity get thrown completely out the window under the guise of entertainment. Everybody knows Wrestling is fake....and college sports are quickly becoming that way too.

Ummm Yankees, Patriots, REALLY? That is LEAGUE PLAY! The leagues in pros schedule those games... JUST LIKE conferences schedule like that for the games between its members. It is NON-CONFERENCE games that are scheduled by schools and unparalleled in the pro's.

Thank you Captain Obvious.

(04-03-2016 08:52 PM)airtroop Wrote:  

(04-03-2016 04:35 PM)cotton1991 Wrote:  The RPI takes into account home and away games. A home win "counts" for less than an away win.

Two of the last three Ncaa finals have featured a non-P5 team.

How so? Please explain (for real). Is it a fair compensation like the 3-point home court advantage the oddsmakers generally use?

"For Division 1 NCAA Men's basketball, the WP factor of the RPI was updated in 2004 to account for differences in home, away, and neutral games. A home win now counts as 0.6 win, while a road win counts as 1.4 wins. Inversely, a home loss equals 1.4 losses, while a road loss counts as 0.6 loss. A neutral game counts as 1 win or 1 loss. This change was based on statistical data that consistently showed home teams in Division I basketball winning about two-thirds of the time."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rating_Perc...ll_formula

(04-04-2016 09:02 AM)cotton1991 Wrote:  

(04-03-2016 08:52 PM)airtroop Wrote:  

(04-03-2016 04:35 PM)cotton1991 Wrote:  The RPI takes into account home and away games. A home win "counts" for less than an away win.

Two of the last three Ncaa finals have featured a non-P5 team.

How so? Please explain (for real). Is it a fair compensation like the 3-point home court advantage the oddsmakers generally use?

"For Division 1 NCAA Men's basketball, the WP factor of the RPI was updated in 2004 to account for differences in home, away, and neutral games. A home win now counts as 0.6 win, while a road win counts as 1.4 wins. Inversely, a home loss equals 1.4 losses, while a road loss counts as 0.6 loss. A neutral game counts as 1 win or 1 loss. This change was based on statistical data that consistently showed home teams in Division I basketball winning about two-thirds of the time."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rating_Perc...ll_formula

Thank you, I appreciate that clarification. Should it be tweaked from partial wins/losses straight up to a points based system as I've suggested? The incentive is for the big schools to continue scheduling patsies knowing they'll win even if it's a surprisingly close game once in awhile with the current formula versus getting out of their comfort zones.

An interesting article today about Auburn coach, Bruce Pearl's scheduling strategy for OOC games right here. A couple of snippets:

Quote:"We're going to try to play against (teams like) Louisiana-Lafayette, Middle Tennessee, UAB, Mercer, Coastal Carolina, that made the tournament last year because those teams know how to win (and) those teams are well coached," Pearl said. "Those teams RPIs won't kill us. Unfortunately, those wins don't matter as much as I think they ought to but we will maintain that same formula."

(SNIP!)

Pearl said he's willing to play the "top 50" opponent at home, on the road or in a neutral site, with a handful of other home games to schedule.

Given his affinity for teams who finished in the top three of their leagues during the regular season, that are geographically close and who played in the NCAA Tournament, UALR, Florida Gulf Coast, North Florida, Chattanooga and Georgia Southern are all on Pearl's radar.

Auburn already has numerous games schedule for 2016-17, including at UAB for the second of a four-game series. Pearl would like to play other in-state teams, like Samford, Troy and South Alabama, but not until their RPIs improve.

"UAB's math, the history of the series, all makes great sense," Pearl said. "I'd love to Samford but because of their math I can't right now. Would love to play Troy, but because of the math I can't right now." ...

This guy GETS it. How can (or should it even be) the RPI formula be tweaked to get more "major school" coaches to think this way?

(04-03-2016 10:14 AM)IceJus10 Wrote:  Ummm Yankees, Patriots, REALLY? That is LEAGUE PLAY! The leagues in pros schedule those games... JUST LIKE conferences schedule like that for the games between its members. It is NON-CONFERENCE games that are scheduled by schools and unparalleled in the pro's.

This is a great point that inspires an idea. Perhaps we should look to another group of leagues that is somewhat similar... UEFA.

Each national league in Europe is allocated a number of berths in the UEFA Champions League, based on that leagues performance. England, Germany, and Spain each get four berths while countries like Kazahkstan get one.

So, here's what I propose: Allocate bids to the conference based on the previous year's RPI. The top 5 conferences get 4 bids each. 6-9 each get 3, 10-18 get two, and 19-32 get one. Additionally, each Final Four appearance grants an additional bid for that team's conference in the next year.

One bid must go to the conference tournament champion, however conferences may elect to grant additional bids based on either the regular season standings or tournament results. To prevent this decision from being made situationally, the conference must disclose their method for determining representatives prior to the season.

The selection committee is abolished and replaced with a seeding committee, whose sole purpose is to seed the representatives from each conference.

Under this proposal, here's how next season's tournament bids would be allocated:

Six bids (4, plus 2 FF bonuses)
ACC

Five Bids (4, plus 1 FF bonus)
Big XII, Big East

Four Bids
Pac 12, Big Ten

Three Bids
SEC, A10, AAC, CAA

Two Bids
MAC, Summit, MWC, MVC, WCC, Big West, Ivy League, Sun Belt, SoCon

All other conferences receive one bid.

No more controversy. Every team knows what they have to do to qualify for the tournament before the season begins. Conferences have a very strong reason to improve their performance and scheduling.

(04-03-2016 03:03 PM)airtroop Wrote:  Additionally, I'd like to see college hoops play the same game the entire rest of the world plays - 4 quarters versus 2 halves. I think you'd see a lot fewer "free throw fests" than you see today, thus, creating a more interesting game to watch.

Im pretty sure this will come in the next few years, it happened this year in the woman's game. One other thing Id like to see at least for the men is to knock another 5 seconds off the shot clock and get it as close to the NBA shot clock as possible. The one thing I hate to watch is only 2 players touch the ball once it crosses the time line and then shoot the ball with 5 or less on the shot clock.

(04-04-2016 11:10 AM)49erlew Wrote:  One bid must go to the conference tournament champion, however conferences may elect to grant additional bids based on either the regular season standings or tournament results. To prevent this decision from being made situationally, the conference must disclose their method for determining representatives prior to the season.

I believe that's already the case. The Ivy League doesn't have a conference tourney. The regular season winner gets the auto bid.

(04-04-2016 11:03 AM)airtroop Wrote:  Thank you, I appreciate that clarification. Should it be tweaked from partial wins/losses straight up to a points based system as I've suggested? The incentive is for the big schools to continue scheduling patsies knowing they'll win even if it's a surprisingly close game once in awhile with the current formula versus getting out of their comfort zones.

As far as a points scored system based on a bettors line, the wiki article said this:

"The RPI lacks theoretical justification from a statistical standpoint. Other ranking systems which include the margin of victory of games played or other statistics in addition to the win/loss results have been shown to be a better predictor of the outcomes of future games. However, because the margin of victory has been manipulated in the past by teams or individuals in the context of gambling, the RPI can be used to mitigate motivation for such manipulation."

One thing that is stupid about the system is that a home win by a good rpi team against a bad rpi team can actually lower the good team's rpi.