NCAA Change the Tourney

[Jim]

Re: NCAA Change the Tourney

Then why not let in every team.... tournaments are meant to bring in high quality teams from disparate places about which not much is known.... the world is a lot smaller than it was 20 years ago... 20 years ago you MIGHT see a score line or two in the newspaper depending on where you are located.



Only in that the puffed up image is that they should win more often than you really do... I mean, say we assume they're ranked where they land... 16-30 in all of college hockey.... so that's what... 4th-8th in Hockey East? There's more than a few losses for top teams to teams in those ranges.

Why doesn't baseball do single elimination? Because they know its exceedingly easy to knock out top teams and have weaker ones get through. The parity in hockey isn't that much smaller than baseball and isn't close to football or basketball. If the Nationals win 4 games in a stretch in a 16-team single elimination playoff are we ready to crown them the best team in baseball? Do we only have these series games because of $$$ from tickets?

Patman,

First off, you're right about the on-campus play in the NCAA baseball tourney. I checked and saw that most of them were played on-campus. But I think you're wrong about the Tournament being to bring in high quality teams. If you look historically, virtually all the ncaa tournaments have been about brining in first and foremost championship teams. Tha tis why each conference gets an automatic bid to award to its champion. the at-large ones are awarded after the fact to teams that weren't conference champions. Hockey is a bit odd in that it uses a very strict formula to make those awards. I don't think any other sport is so tied to a mathematical formula, and even that in hockey was the result of a despute over the selection.

And the comparison with baseball only goes so far. while I grant you that upsets are far more likely in hockey than say football or basketball, it isn'teven close between baseball and any other sport. One player, the pitcher, can absolutely carry a lesser team in baseball in a way that is impossible in any other sport. That same position can cost a team, regardless of how much better or worse the rest of the team is. and while a hot goalie can occassionally "steal" a game, a dominant pitcher can and does do it time and time again. Hell Steve Carlton once won 27 games for a team that lost 103. the double elimination format is designed to avoid wha tis a normal occurrance in baseball. What happens regularly in baseball is a fairly rare occurance in college hockey.

Pulling a Boise so to speak isn't really that easy in hockey, either. I guess it can be done theorietically, though I'm not even sure of that if you play in the AHA.Maybe if you went unbeaten...Boise on the other hand was able to become the media darling by being unbeaten against a relatively modest schedule and appealing to the voters, partly based on their record and partly by appealing to the unfairness of a system that nobody particularly likes, the BCS. The college hockey community is much smaller and much more committed to its own "BCS." the fact that it invites 11 teams in additon to conference champs in addition to the small size allows it to avoid too much criticism.

 

[chickod]

Re: NCAA Change the Tourney

Then why not let in every team.... tournaments are meant to bring in high quality teams from disparate places about which not much is known

So is that why they let in ELEVEN Big East Teams in basketball? This renders the regular season totally MEANINGLESS. I've had this discussion with anyone who will listen. What's the point of finishing second in your league if the fiftieth place team in another league will get chosen over you under the guise that it's a "stronger" league. You can only play the teams on the schedule. If having a good record in a "weak" league is not good enough, then drop the league down to a different division. Right now it's a travesty. The point of the regular season IS to establish the WINNING teams. The point of the tournament is to establish the CHAMPION.

 

[Jim]

Re: NCAA Change the Tourney

So is that why they let in ELEVEN Big East Teams in basketball? This renders the regular season totally MEANINGLESS. I've had this discussion with anyone who will listen. What's the point of finishing second in your league if the fiftieth place team in another league will get chosen over you under the guise that it's a "stronger" league. You can only play the teams on the schedule. If having a good record in a "weak" league is not good enough, then drop the league down to a different division. Right now it's a travesty. The point of the regular season IS to establish the WINNING teams. The point of the tournament is to establish the CHAMPION.

I'm with you all the way! What troubles me aobut all these "formula" processes is that they concern themselves more with strength of schedule than they do winning. Your ranking should never, ever go up based on a loss or down based on a win. Systems that make winning secondary are just silly.

PS, I thought it was a travesty that 11 Big East teams got NCAA bids, and I'm a Big East fan!

 

[Craig P.]

Re: NCAA Change the Tourney

I'm with you all the way! What troubles me aobut all these "formula" processes is that they concern themselves more with strength of schedule than they do winning. Your ranking should never, ever go up based on a loss or down based on a win. Systems that make winning secondary are just silly.

Well, take KRACH, then... it's well-defined such that a win makes your rating go up and a loss makes your rating go down, and it doesn't rank an AHA team higher than 32nd (Air Force). (The only difference an all-KRACH team would have in terms of the at-large tournament field membership is that it would have substituted Wisconsin for RPI.)

PS, I thought it was a travesty that 11 Big East teams got NCAA bids, and I'm a Big East fan!

Which of the 11 would you have kicked out? The only one that looks remotely reasonable to bounce is Villanova; their resume was fine overall but their late-season skid made an early exit unsurprising.

 

[CLS]

Re: NCAA Change the Tourney

Well, take KRACH, then... it's well-defined such that a win makes your rating go up and a loss makes your rating go down, and it doesn't rank an AHA team higher than 32nd (Air Force). (The only difference an all-KRACH team would have in terms of the at-large tournament field membership is that it would have substituted Wisconsin for RPI.)


. . .

If KRACH would have made a difference of only one team, that would seem to indicate that the current system isn't so bad.

No system, regardless of how theoretically sound it is, will work well unless there are more interconference games. And one of the bad features of the current system is that it gives teams in the power conferences a plausible competitive reason (in addition to the economic reasons) for not scheduling games, especially away games, with teams from non-power conferences.

 

[kingdobbs]

Re: NCAA Change the Tourney

Which of the 11 would you have kicked out? The only one that looks remotely reasonable to bounce is Villanova; their resume was fine overall but their late-season skid made an early exit unsurprising.

In fairness, the choices do look a lot worse in hindsight when only two of those eleven teams made the Sweet 16, and one of those two got bounced in a blowout.

 

[WeAreNDHockey]

Re: NCAA Change the Tourney

Hell Steve Carlton once won 27 games for a team that lost 103.

Hey, my Phils weren't THAT bad in 1972. They only lost 97 times (59-97).

 

[joecct]

Re: NCAA Change the Tourney

Why don't we go back (sort of) to the good old days?

Only conference champions make the NCAA tournament. That would be (in a few years) 6 teams -- 3 West and 3 East. Have 2/3 play in each region with a best 2 out of 3 for the right to go to the FF. That would make the conference tournaments REAL interesting.

The upshot of something like that would be (horrors!) more conferences to get more NCAA bids. For example, the Ivy would split from the ECAC, the CCHA and WCHA would get to 3 (maybe 4) conferences (needs expansion).

Never happen, but it would be fun that some teams who have NCAA bids locked up under the current system would play just a wee bit harder in the conference tournament if they knew that a series loss would mean disaster.

 

[slurpees]

Re: NCAA Change the Tourney

Why don't we go back (sort of) to the good old days?

Only conference champions make the NCAA tournament. That would be (in a few years) 6 teams -- 3 West and 3 East. Have 2/3 play in each region with a best 2 out of 3 for the right to go to the FF. That would make the conference tournaments REAL interesting.

The upshot of something like that would be (horrors!) more conferences to get more NCAA bids. For example, the Ivy would split from the ECAC, the CCHA and WCHA would get to 3 (maybe 4) conferences (needs expansion).

Never happen, but it would be fun that some teams who have NCAA bids locked up under the current system would play just a wee bit harder in the conference tournament if they knew that a series loss would mean disaster.

Why have a regular season then?

 

[pgb-ohio]

Re: NCAA Change the Tourney

Why have a regular season then?

There's a perfectly reasonable answer to that: To get the possible position for the playoffs. You'd just be substituting the conference playoffs for the NCAA regionals at the penultimate stage.

If the NCAA can't or won't get the regionals right, using the conference tourneys for this purpose might be best option available. I'd actually prefer it to the status quo (empty buildings at neutral sites) or the various options designed to reduce travel. (conference tournament rehashes)

That said, I still like Alton's LAX Plan the best.

 

[komey1]

Re: NCAA Change the Tourney

so if you are an upper level aha team, do what boise did, and join a better conference. ( at least til the good teams from the new conference bolted themselves) in any event i do know boise st. has been pro active recently in attempting to be part of the discussion of pac-10 and big 12 expansion plans

I would say the upper level AHA teams can get at-larges. Two years ago, had RIT won a couple of those early non-conference games (and those games were pretty close in the beginning), they would have moved up enough.

That - and you need a conference willing to take in new members.

 

[Patman]

Re: NCAA Change the Tourney

So is that why they let in ELEVEN Big East Teams in basketball? This renders the regular season totally MEANINGLESS. I've had this discussion with anyone who will listen. What's the point of finishing second in your league if the fiftieth place team in another league will get chosen over you under the guise that it's a "stronger" league. You can only play the teams on the schedule. If having a good record in a "weak" league is not good enough, then drop the league down to a different division. Right now it's a travesty. The point of the regular season IS to establish the WINNING teams. The point of the tournament is to establish the CHAMPION.

Were tournaments conceived of in 2011? You really missed my point here. BTW, if this purpose is to crown a "champion" then wouldn't it stand to reason that more obstacles should be placed in front of weaker teams to access that title? Anyhow, my point was that these tournaments were originally set up to crown a champion amongst teams that rarely ever played each other because of geography and the rest... point of fact, if you will note, the forrunner to the current EPL were playing round robins w/o a playoff going all the way back to the late 1800s.

If KRACH would have made a difference of only one team, that would seem to indicate that the current system isn't so bad.

No system, regardless of how theoretically sound it is, will work well unless there are more interconference games. And one of the bad features of the current system is that it gives teams in the power conferences a plausible competitive reason (in addition to the economic reasons) for not scheduling games, especially away games, with teams from non-power conferences.

there will always be "errors" the question is in terms of magnitude.

------------

One can argue that the point of a "regular season" is to select potential candidates of whom a champion will be determined... the post-season is then the process of determining the champion from that potential candidate pool. I know this is starting to hit a level of abstraction, but that's the general point of it... remove all but the most promising and then decide from those that remain.

 

[Jim]

Re: NCAA Change the Tourney

No system, regardless of how theoretically sound it is, will work well unless there are more interconference games. And one of the bad features of the current system is that it gives teams in the power conferences a plausible competitive reason (in addition to the economic reasons) for not scheduling games, especially away games, with teams from non-power conferences.

this is actually where a committee with the authority to use more than a calculator to select teams could actually help matters. The basketball committee several years ago started to "punish" teams that hadn't played good mid-majors, and who only played non-conference home games. Teams were left out or downgraded in their seeding since everyone recongized that playing on the road is a tougher challenge than at home. I'm not so sure that a mid-level ECAC or CCHA club would enjoy tackling RIT in Rochester, Air Force in Colorado Springs or Robert Morris in Pittsburgh, for example. Even a good one would find it more challenging than they would like, I suspect.

 

[chickod]

Re: NCAA Change the Tourney

Were tournaments conceived of in 2011? You really missed my point here. BTW, if this purpose is to crown a "champion" then wouldn't it stand to reason that more obstacles should be placed in front of weaker teams to access that title?

But you missed MY point. If all you want is the BEST TEAMS, then why have leagues at all? Just have one 58 team league (or however many there are) and pick the top 16. Define "weaker." Because as it stands right now, there is NO reward for getting through the season at the top of the standings in your league if you are in a perceived "weak" league, since the only "automatic" bid is the TOURNAMENT champion. Sorry, the "get positioning for the tournament" argument is pretty lame to me. Let me make it more clear. The tournament should be for teams who have WON the most games in a season - not for teams who are "ranked" (which is nebulous by definition) the highest. I have to use the basketball analogy here, because it exacerbates my point. For example, Villanova and Marquette both finished 9-9 in the Big East. There were NINE teams AHEAD of them. So under what justification should they be "rewarded" by getting selected, when you have a team like Harvard, who tied for their league title, lost in a playoff, and didn't get in? If that's what you're going to do, then make the Ivy League a Division II league, because what you're really saying is a team can do everything that is asked of them and then get screwed, while a team can go through the motions, lose AS MANY GAMES AS THEY WIN in their conference and still make the tournament. Or don't have leagues at all so you can have everybody play an "out of conference" schedule and compare apples to apples. Because what you're really saying is that if you're from a "weak" league you don't deserve to go. So why even bother having the league in Division 1 in the first place? If you play in Division 1, shouldn't you have an opportunity to go to the Division 1 tournament? Almighty Kentucky had three close games (all of which they probably should have lost) before their luck finally ran out. Butler and VCU played better than they are. So I guess they were just "lucky" but Kentucky is "good," right? My point is simply this - how GOOD you are is defined by WINNING GAMES. Sorry, but finishing 200th in your league and then saying "but it was a tough league" is a load of _ _ _ _. Good teams win, period, no matter who the opponent is that is put in their way.

 

[CLS]

Re: NCAA Change the Tourney

If KRACH would have made a difference of only one team, that would seem to indicate that the current system isn't so bad.

No system, regardless of how theoretically sound it is, will work well unless there are more interconference games. And one of the bad features of the current system is that it gives teams in the power conferences a plausible competitive reason (in addition to the economic reasons) for not scheduling games, especially away games, with teams from non-power conferences.

there will always be "errors" the question is in terms of magnitude.

Patman, not sure I understand you. By errors of magnitude, so you mean that the error is that a team that should barely have made it actually clearly makes it? Or that a team that should have come close to making it doesn’t even come within shouting distance? If so, I don’t understand the relevance. You make the tournament or you don’t. If a formula gets the “right” teams in, or comes very close (in this example, assuming that KRATCH is a better system, 14 at-large teams out of 15), why does the magnitude matter?

this is actually where a committee with the authority to use more than a calculator to select teams could actually help matters. The basketball committee several years ago started to "punish" teams that hadn't played good mid-majors, and who only played non-conference home games. Teams were left out or downgraded in their seeding since everyone recongized that playing on the road is a tougher challenge than at home. I'm not so sure that a mid-level ECAC or CCHA club would enjoy tackling RIT in Rochester, Air Force in Colorado Springs or Robert Morris in Pittsburgh, for example. Even a good one would find it more challenging than they would like, I suspect.

Yes, but that’s where economics comes into play. The reason that the Alabamas of the football world get to play most of their non-conference games at home is because it’s financially a good deal for both schools. The cost of travel for Alabama to travel to Geographical State U to play in front of 10,000 friends, family, and inebriated students is about the same as it is for GSU to travel to Alabama to play in front of 80,000 on TV. So if they’re going to play it’s financially better to play the game at Alabama. For GSU, it’s “Kick the shid out of me, and send me the check.” The same situation exists in hockey.

I don’t know what the answer is. Perhaps one way the formula could be tweaked is for the formula to take into account where the game is played. Don’t punish a team so much for playing a weaker team, but punish a team for losing to a weaker team, and punish them more for losing to a weaker team (or any team for that matter) at home. And to encourage more non-conference games, maybe the third game between two teams should count less.
To Be honest, I don’t know whether or not the PWR or KRATCH take into account where a game is played, but I don’t think that it does. Maybe it should. Also, I don’t know to what extent the “bonus” points come into play, or even if they exist any more.

. . . I have to use the basketball analogy here, because it exacerbates my point.

Not so sure I agree there

For example, Connecticut finished 9-9 in the Big East. There were EIGHT teams AHEAD of them. So under what justification should they be "rewarded" by getting selected, when you have a team like Harvard, who tied for their league title, lost in a playoff, and didn't get in? If that's what you're going to do, then make the Ivy League a Division II league

FYP. In basketball, the Ivy league is essentially a Division II league. Do you really think that Harvard is more deserving of being in the tournament because they had a better record?

 

[Craig P.]

Re: NCAA Change the Tourney

I don't know whether or not the PWR or KRATCH take into account where a game is played

RPI doesn't. There was an ad hoc thing in basketball where they made home wins worth 0.6 and road wins worth 1.4, something like that (and vice versa for losses), but I think that's a bad idea. It's also another instance where the fuzziness of RPI comes back to bite you... since what RPI really is, is ill-defined, it's impossible to rigorously set a home/away allowance.

KRACH as currently formulated doesn't do home/away, but it's easy to add, either as a single home ice advantage or per-team.

 

[chickod]

Re: NCAA Change the Tourney

Do you really think that Harvard is more deserving of being in the tournament because they had a better record?

YES, I do. That's my point. Otherwise, what's the point of playing the games? To me, it's not about getting the "best 64 (or 66, 67, 68 or whatever it is now)" teams. What's the difference between BU getting in (and by the way, they played Kansas as well as anyone for the first three games before Kansas lost) and Vermont, who had a MUCH better record, not getting in? The conference tournament, that's what. So the regular season means NOTHING in America East. You mean to tell me that the team that finishes FIRST with a record of 23-9 should be supplanted by the eleventh place team in the Big East? So when Villanova starts their season, their attitude is, "Who cares? We'll get in if we just play .500 ball." Is that the point of playing the games? There's no reward for winning? The players can't control who they play. Why are you punishing them? If you can't be the best (or near the top) in your own league, what makes you think that you even DESERVE to be in the tournament? I say take the REGULAR SEASON WINNER and the CONFERENCE TOURNAMENT WINNER from ALL the leagues and get rid of these ridiculous arbitrary "at-large" bids (which only go to the major conferences because that's who is going to bring in more fans and money - let's be honest). Otherwise, make them 1AA or something like football did.

Edit: And actually, when you use the word "deserving" I say YES even more. How does an eleventh place team "deserve" anything?

 

[CLS]

Re: NCAA Change the Tourney

YES, I do. That's my point. Otherwise, what's the point of playing the games? To me, it's not about getting the "best 64 (or 66, 67, 68 or whatever it is now)" teams. What's the difference between BU getting in (and by the way, they played Kansas as well as anyone for the first three games before Kansas lost) and Vermont, who had a MUCH better record, not getting in? The conference tournament, that's what. So the regular season means NOTHING in America East. You mean to tell me that the team that finishes FIRST with a record of 23-9 should be supplanted by the eleventh place team in the Big East? So when Villanova starts their season, their attitude is, "Who cares? We'll get in if we just play .500 ball." Is that the point of playing the games? There's no reward for winning?

Simply not true. There is no guarantee whatsoever that going .500 gets them in the tournament. The reason they got in the tournament was because of their record out of conference, which was 9-3.

The players can't control who they play. Why are you punishing them? If you can't be the best (or near the top) in your own league, what makes you think that you even DESERVE to be in the tournament?

The players can't control who they play, but the teams certainly can. What you're encouraging, or at least rewarding, is for teams to play crappy competition. And if teams can't control who they play, why do you want to punish Villanova for being in a conference that was very strong this year. You do know that those 11 teams from the Big East were 7-4 in the first round, don't you?

I say take the REGULAR SEASON WINNER and the CONFERENCE TOURNAMENT WINNER from ALL the leagues and get rid of these ridiculous arbitrary "at-large" bids (which only go to the major conferences because that's who is going to bring in more fans and money - let's be honest).

You do know that the conference tournament winner from ALL the leagues do get in, don't you? And that many of them won their conference's regular season? Do you know what their record in the first round was? It was 11 - 20. Take away the teams that would have made it anyway, thanks to the odious "at large bids" and the record was 1 - 20 (congratulations to Morehead State on a fine upset win over those undeserving Louisville Cardinals from the Big East! Just so I'm clear, I think the automatic qualifiers are a good thing). You may have a tournament of teams that you like that are "deserving" because they won their conference championship, but you'd have a lousy tournament.

The at-large selection process deserves scrutiny, but I really am incredulous that someone thinks it should be eliminated. You'd really rather have Belmont in the tournament instead of Duke?

 

[unofan]

Re: NCAA Change the Tourney

Yes, but that’s where economics comes into play. The reason that the Alabamas of the football world get to play most of their non-conference games at home is because it’s financially a good deal for both schools. The cost of travel for Alabama to travel to Geographical State U to play in front of 10,000 friends, family, and inebriated students is about the same as it is for GSU to travel to Alabama to play in front of 80,000 on TV. So if they’re going to play it’s financially better to play the game at Alabama. For GSU, it’s “Kick the shid out of me, and send me the check.” The same situation exists in hockey.

So what do you tell a team like Creighton, or Wichita St., that draws the same as the BCS schools (in Creighton's case, ~15,000 a game) for basketball but can't get anyone to come play them at home or even, in many instances, away, because the risk of a loss is too great.

Economics is a big driver in who plays where, but for the best of the non-BCS schools in a given sport, the trick is getting such games scheduled at all.

 

[moose97]

Re: NCAA Change the Tourney

So what do you tell a team like Creighton, or Wichita St., that draws the same as the BCS schools (in Creighton's case, ~15,000 a game) for basketball but can't get anyone to come play them at home or even, in many instances, away, because the risk of a loss is too great.

Economics is a big driver in who plays where, but for the best of the non-BCS schools in a given sport, the trick is getting such games scheduled at all.

Please stop using BCS when talking about something other than football. I know what you're getting at, but the fact is, the term is incorrect.