http://www.sbnation.com/ncaa-basketball/...-2013-ohio

Taylor Perry predicted to be "rookie of the year"! Now that is interesting.

I think he nailed the all-MAC team.

I find it a bit odd that he would pick Tyler Perry over Conner Tava, who was on at least one dream team from several all state lists.

(06-20-2012 09:25 AM)EA3 Wrote:  http://www.sbnation.com/ncaa-basketball/...-2013-ohio

Taylor Perry predicted to be "rookie of the year"! Now that is interesting.

I think he nailed the all-MAC team.

We need to have a thread in here that talks about the (in my opinion) horrific seeding formula for MAC Men's Basketball. I'm not against the straight-seeding formula, but then if you're going to do that, the divisional alignments need to be consistent with that formula.

For example:
Old format (division winners each earn top 2 seeds) - Division alignments stay East vs. West (how they currently are)
New format (straight-seeding) - One mega-division makes more sense (this way the seeding matches the division structure)

Currently, there is no incentive to win the division. Perfect example was this past season, the first season that this new formula was integrated. EMU wins the MAC West and get s a 5 seed. Now how is that fair to EMU? This played their schedule and beat everyone up, but were only "rewarded" with a 5 seed?

I know the Cleveland/Ohio-heavy MAC looooves this formula because in their eyes, there's nothing wrong with it. All the Ohio teams (MAC East) greatly benefit from it. Just a huge disparity right now in the conference in my eyes. Hugely favors the MAC East and once again the Cleveland Ohio MAC powers that be. Which again, comes back to me thinking we need some new members in the MAC from big cities that have more pull. Right now, Cleveland has got all of the control and it's only going to continue to favor the Ohio teams and the MAC East.

Perhaps this is a whole other bucket of worms that I've just opened... but I think it's worth discussion.

Thoughts?

I can't be the only one that sees a problem with it.

You are ignoring the whole problem with having 2 divisions in bball in the first place.

List of conferences in D I with two divisions:

MAC
Southern
Southland
Sun Belt

We shouldn't be doing anything to associate ourselves with those 3 conferences.

The Big 10 got it right when they added Nebraska and only went to divisions for football. The Big East has/had 16 friggin' members in bball, yet they never went to the division format.

Scrap the divisions and your problem is solved.

In the meantime, we probably wouldn't be complaining if we were a top 2 seed. In fact, this format actually benefits a strong team from the West due to the weaker schedules we play. Unfortunately, we didn't have any teams that would be classified as "good" last year.

Let's just do it in football too... Top 2 teams make the conference championship, leaving the east out to dry 2 out of every 3 years

Quote:I find it a bit odd that he would pick Tyler Perry over Conner Tava, who was on at least one dream team from several all state lists.

I'm not sure many people would pick Taylor Perry as the Bronco rookie of the year

A few sleepers that could sneak into that All-MAC team:

Julius Brown (Toledo) and Abdel Nader (NIU). Offutt is the only one I could really see slipping out of there.

(06-20-2012 10:07 AM)BrianPersky Wrote:  

(06-20-2012 09:25 AM)EA3 Wrote:  http://www.sbnation.com/ncaa-basketball/...-2013-ohio

Taylor Perry predicted to be "rookie of the year"! Now that is interesting.

I think he nailed the all-MAC team.

We need to have a thread in here that talks about the (in my opinion) horrific seeding formula for MAC Men's Basketball. I'm not against the straight-seeding formula, but then if you're going to do that, the divisional alignments need to be consistent with that formula.

For example:
Old format (division winners each earn top 2 seeds) - Division alignments stay East vs. West (how they currently are)
New format (straight-seeding) - One mega-division makes more sense (this way the seeding matches the division structure)

Currently, there is no incentive to win the division. Perfect example was this past season, the first season that this new formula was integrated. EMU wins the MAC West and get s a 5 seed. Now how is that fair to EMU? This played their schedule and beat everyone up, but were only "rewarded" with a 5 seed?

I know the Cleveland/Ohio-heavy MAC looooves this formula because in their eyes, there's nothing wrong with it. All the Ohio teams (MAC East) greatly benefit from it. Just a huge disparity right now in the conference in my eyes. Hugely favors the MAC East and once again the Cleveland Ohio MAC powers that be. Which again, comes back to me thinking we need some new members in the MAC from big cities that have more pull. Right now, Cleveland has got all of the control and it's only going to continue to favor the Ohio teams and the MAC East.

Perhaps this is a whole other bucket of worms that I've just opened... but I think it's worth discussion.

Thoughts?

I can't be the only one that sees a problem with it.

I agree that there is no incentive to win the division but I think the reason that divisions still work is that it cuts down on travel costs and gives most of the rivalries a chance to play each other twice. In regards to tournament seating and being fair to EMU- EMU had a conf record of 9-7 which tied BGSU for 5th overall, and they had the advantage of only playing the top 4 teams one time. I would argue that its unfair to put the 5th best record in the 2nd seed.

I also disagree that having divisions greatly benefits the East. If anything the West benefits more from divisions because they only have to play the strongest teams one time. The West went 6-30 vs. the East last year. The only way the East benefits is by minimizing the RPI hit.

side note regarding RPI- here's the final RPI numbers for 2011-2012.

045 Ohio
055 Akron
079 Buffalo
106 Kent State
157 Bowling Green
205 W Michigan
243 E Michigan
246 Toledo
247 Miami
255 Ball St
277 C Michigan
334 N Illinois

Overall the MAC is ranked 17th (out of 32) in conference RPI. If the East and West were their own conferences the East would be 8th, between A10 and MVC, and the West would be 29th, between Southland and American East.

Divisions or no divisions we need all of the teams with a 200+ RPI to improve.

Spot on with that.

I would add that the travel cost is very minimal. Currently we play 10 west division games and 6 east division games. Go to one division and it should be 8 and 8. Two games against west opponents would be eliminated, one home and one away. They would be replaced by 2 current east teams, one at home and one on the road. It's conceivable that the travel cost would only be increased by one road trip that is longer. Heck, Toledo and EMU could potentially lower their travel budget under that scenario.

I get what you're saying about travel costs, but I don't think that should stop them from making the MAC (we're talking basketball only) one big mega-conference like the Big East. The MAC is in such a confined geographical area (maybe with the exception of Buffalo, but even then it's not as far as you think for most schools...) that costs shouldn't be prohibitive. Especially considering that everybody only rides buses to away games. Nobody is buying plane tickets. And if it's that bad, then setup the schedules in a way that can accommodate that. Maybe NIU only plays Buffalo once and CMU only plays Ohio once. But that's okay because the rivalries that you want to setup have already been established within the divisions and there's no reason to stray from that.

I don't know, maybe I'm old school, but I just don't see the point in winning your division if there is no reward for it, no matter what the strength of the division is. Tell me a sport where a division winner doesn't get rewarded? A 5 seed is no reward.

By having this straight seed formula, it is only going to make the MAC East more powerful and better each year. It's going to harder for schools in the West like us to recruit good players too.

"We shouldn't be doing anything to associate ourselves with those 3 conferences." -100% agree with that statement

(06-21-2012 07:24 AM)BrianPersky Wrote:  I get what you're saying about travel costs, but I don't think that should stop them from making the MAC (we're talking basketball only) one big mega-conference like the Big East. The MAC is in such a confined geographical area (maybe with the exception of Buffalo, but even then it's not as far as you think for most schools...) that costs shouldn't be prohibitive. Especially considering that everybody only rides buses to away games. Nobody is buying plane tickets. And if it's that bad, then setup the schedules in a way that can accommodate that. Maybe NIU only plays Buffalo once and CMU only plays Ohio once. But that's okay because the rivalries that you want to setup have already been established within the divisions and there's no reason to stray from that.

I don't know, maybe I'm old school, but I just don't see the point in winning your division if there is no reward for it, no matter what the strength of the division is. Tell me a sport where a division winner doesn't get rewarded? A 5 seed is no reward.

By having this straight seed formula, it is only going to make the MAC East more powerful and better each year. It's going to harder for schools in the West like us to recruit good players too.

"We shouldn't be doing anything to associate ourselves with those 3 conferences." -100% agree with that statement

I don't disagree with you. There are two problems at the core of this situation.

1. The MAC's stubborness to stay with a 2 division format despite it's unpopularity.

2. The MAC needs to return to a 2 bid league. This format gives our best team a chance to get an at large bid if they get upset in the semi's or finals. It's not necessarily fair to division winners, but it is a good thing for the league as a whole. Returning to a 2 bid league is more important in the long run.

agree

Quote:2. The MAC needs to return to a 2 bid league. This format gives our best team a chance to get an at large bid if they get upset in the semi's or finals. It's not necessarily fair to division winners, but it is a good thing for the league as a whole. Returning to a 2 bid league is more important in the long run.

You're purposely skipping a few steps for the sake of brevity, aren't you?

(06-23-2012 01:19 PM)DesertBronco Wrote:  

Quote:2. The MAC needs to return to a 2 bid league. This format gives our best team a chance to get an at large bid if they get upset in the semi's or finals. It's not necessarily fair to division winners, but it is a good thing for the league as a whole. Returning to a 2 bid league is more important in the long run.

You're purposely skipping a few steps for the sake of brevity, aren't you?

In regards to returning to a 2 bid league? Yeah, there are a few more things that can be done to help us get there. None of which I mentioned in that post.

If you are referring to something else, I'm not sure I follow.