(11-02-2018 05:45 AM)odu09 Wrote:  

(11-01-2018 08:34 PM)_sturt_ Wrote:  

Quote:Moreover, with top seeds hosting games on their home sites, the conference's best teams are more likely to avoid early upsets. Yes, that gives an advantage to the higher seeds. But shouldn't the regular-season mean something? if you've finished in the first division of the league standings, you've earned a chance to play at home.

If that's a valid concern, then just dispense with anything but a 4-team tournament, why don't you?

I don't think that's a valid concern, and in fact, the great thing about tournaments is that every school gets to show up and have a legit shot at post-season glory.

I believe in this scenario, you'd have 10 teams making it into the tournament. Isn't that enough? Last year the 11th place team went 6-12 in conference, 12-19 overall. Should that team and those below it complain about not getting their chance at post season glory? Or should they have taken care of that during the regular season?

I agree that they have no right to complain.

I just think, zooming out from any individual school, there's a bigger picture at-stake if we're really wanting to see the conference be a "real" conference where there is a sense of unity and synergy, and thus build a sense of integrity (ie, as we might also speak of the "integrity" of a building's foundation and frame).

To me, you want every school represented. It's that one revenue sport event that a conference puts on that every fan of every school in the group can come to, and even if their own team hasn't had that great of a year, they can just come and enjoy some basketball while rubbing elbows with fans from other schools. It really is a sports-form of what we otherwise would call a "convention." And I think conferences are smart to exploit that opportunity to bring folks together from every school.

Maybe that's just me, but that's how I think of it, having been to conferences' tournaments that were well-attended.

"Well, but this dual division tournament concept doesn't get everyone in one place."

Right. Ideally, we could do that. But we see the folly in thinking we can do that, given the geography of our footprint.

So? We do the next-best thing. We keep it all within a day's drive and get 7 schools' fans together in one place for a few days.

Harry Minium's news from yesteryear, TODAY!

(11-01-2018 08:43 PM)LouisvilleHilltopper Wrote:  

(11-01-2018 07:55 PM)banker Wrote:  Conference officials don't want to be forced to have to leave Texas and possibly have to stay in a place like Bowling Green, Huntington or Hattiesburg. It's beneath them.

Funny thing is, there’s probably as many or more accessible hotels in Bowling Green as in Frisco. And for those wanting a more “uppity” experience, Nashville is just down the road...

Somehow I doubt it. ~2.5 million people live within 25 miles of Frisco, which has been one of the nation's fastest growing cities for years.

There's a ton of money in Frisco/Grapevine/Plano, I didn't attend the tournament out there, but have been to the Star and Legacy Hall, there's as much to do in those two developments, separated by a couple of miles, as there is in the whole of Bowling Green, probably Murfreesboro too come to that.

That's a larger population within 25 miles of Frisco than the whole of the Nashville metro and that doesn't even take into account that "just down the road" to Nashville from Bowling Green is ~60 miles, Frisco is half that distance to Dallas.

I'm not saying the general conversation is wrong, neutral site for our tournament is obviously not a smart move, but if I'm a conference or school administrator, looking at a business trip, the choice between Frisco and the majority of cities in this conference is pretty easy.

Idea i threw around a while back

clt says this will not impact Charlotte until next year, sadly

Two divisions, round robin play, two division winners meet for title & ncaa bid at team with best conference record ‘s arena. Conference title means something again.

(11-02-2018 04:25 PM)MAN4UAB Wrote:  Two divisions, round robin play, two division winners meet for title & ncaa bid at team with best conference record ‘s arena. Conference title means something again.

That's sounds great - if you play in the west. You can't play a round robin, home and home, format with 14 teams.

(11-02-2018 06:50 PM)banker Wrote:  

(11-02-2018 04:25 PM)MAN4UAB Wrote:  Two divisions, round robin play, two division winners meet for title & ncaa bid at team with best conference record ‘s arena. Conference title means something again.

That's sounds great - if you play in the west. You can't play a round robin, home and home, format with 14 teams.

You would play round robin home and home in your division. Play other division teams to fill out schedule along with some ooc teams. Btw, the west may not remain the weaker division.

(11-01-2018 02:10 PM)Jack Bauer Wrote:  Yep. It should be at the numer 1 teams home arena. You want the best team with the best opportunity to advance to the NCAA tourney.

Exactly. Like what happened last year.

The problem is that planning does take some time and you may not have a #1 seed until the last conference games are played. I always wondered why the previous year's champ doesn't host. This gives the conference a full year to prepare and gives the regular season champions a bonus for the next season.

(11-01-2018 02:10 PM)Jack Bauer Wrote:  You want the best team with the best opportunity to advance to the NCAA tourney.

Let's accept that premise for the moment, but with the recognition that some could argue that that team "with the best opportunity to advance" might not necessarily be your #1 overall seed.

- Dual concurrent division tournaments based in ATL (East) and DAL (West), but with the important caveat... evolving specifically from that premise... is that the division championship at each site, rather than being a single game, is a best 2/3 series that occurs over the first weekend of March

- Conference championship at home court of division tournament championship higher seed, in the same traditional time slot on the 2nd Saturday of March

Goes something like this, then, conceivably...

=================

Wed> Game A [#2 v #7]
Wed> Game B [#3 v #6]
Wed> Game C [#4 v #5]

Thu> Game D [#1 v Game C winner]
Thu> Game E [Game A v Game B winner]

Fri> Div Championship Series Game 1 [Game D winner v Game E winner]

Sat> Div Championship Series Game 2

Sun> (If necessary) Div Championship Series Game 3

Following Saturday> Conference Championship @ home court of higher seed, same time slot as traditionally occupied (for TV purposes)

=================

Why would we do this?

For the reasons already given above, but specifically relevant to the premise here... this makes it a harder road for Cinderellas, but not impossible.

And naturally as a result of that fact... it accomplishes the purpose of increasing the likelihood that your two best teams with the best opportunity to advance in the tournament are in the conference championship.

On balance, why wouldn't we do this?

One thought would be that some would consider it unjust to make the division championship a best 2/3 contest, while leaving the conference championship as a single game contest. (But it has to be a single game contest, of course, if you want your conference championship game to be on national TV.)

How to reconcile the good things about the newly-established regular season conference schedule framework with the new tournament format proposed above....

For reference purposes, here's a copy and paste of the explanation of what we have right now:

Quote:"Each team will play everyone once and their travel partner twice in the first 14 games of the conference season before a reset that ranks the teams based on the standings. C-USA's best five (1 through 5), middle five (6-10) and bottom four (11-14) will be grouped together for four games in the final three weeks of the regular season for an 18-game schedule.

"We don't get enough Top 50, Top 100 games and so now we're going to make sure our Top 50 and Top 100 conference members play each other twice instead of once," MacLeod said.

"For conference tournament seeding purposes, teams will be locked in within their group. For example a team in the middle (6-10 group) will be seeded no higher than six and no lower than 10.

"She mentioned some other reasons for the new wrinkle such as having good television games late in the season and excitement for fans. Also, only 12 teams get in the C-USA tournament and the bottom four are playing for those spots."

The easy answer is, just eliminate the 1st seeds' bye in the first round, and go with 6-team division tourneys instead of 7-team ones.

But I'd much prefer not to.

(I keep saying this... to the degree that you exclude schools' fans from the one time of the year that they all have reason to gather in one place, you do your conference a disservice.)

In fact, I'd rather come up with something that corrects a minor but potentially significant flaw in the current structure--the fact that some teams may benefit from having a significantly weaker "travel partner" game than others get to have.

Do this instead.

1st phase
- Round-robin conference-wide... so, 13 games, structured so that inTRA-division you play 3H/3A, and inTER-division, you play 4H/3A one year, and 3H/4A the next... say, West Division schools get the extra home game in odd years, East in even.

2nd phase
- The 4 teams ranked #1 and #2 teams in the two divisions (as ranked by conference W/L) play each other home and away, so each one gets 6 games total. And, as with the current framework, the four teams involved are locked-in.

- Same, for the 4 ranked #3 and #4.

- The 6 teams ranked #5, #6 and #7 play this format: inTRAdivision 2H/2A, and then inTERdivision, then #5s get the #7s home and away, and the #6s get to play each other home and away.

====

So, 19 games total:

First, a 13-game schedule that effectively defines which teams from each division are (a) locked into either the #1 or #2 slot in their divisional tournament, (b) locked into either the #3 or #4 slot, or (c ) locked into one of the bottom 3 slots

Then, second, a 6-game bonus schedule that serve the same purposes as in our current format's bonus schedule, most importantly, potentially holding school tournament seeding consequences for every school up and down the division standings.

Stray thought.

If I were Harry, I would be extremely tempted to name my kid Condi.

(11-02-2018 12:22 PM)49RFootballNow Wrote:  Harry Minium's news from yesteryear, TODAY!

I get it. But I think repeating the same story until they fix it is necessary. It's rather unfortunate that the consultant they hired recommended doing it this way and they declined to change.

Consultants' recommendations are good to hear, but ultimately they don't have to live with the consequences. If you're the one(s) who has/have to live with the consequences, you have to make your own decisions.

Been saying this for a few years now.

Top 8 teams with each game hosted at the highest seed (basically what they do in Patriot and A-Sun). Would give the regular season some meaning with teams fighting for home-court.

First round on Monday, Second round on Thursday, title on Saturday.