Time to start considering rule improvements, if any, to the league. I'll start by offering a few reflections on a few changes from the past two years:
Wins over AP top 10 teams (rule implemented two seasons ago): Akaoni dominated this field this field this year, capturing twice as many points (24) as other players, except for his fellow Iowan Turtle (16). This added significant interest to games against top teams, and appropriately rewarded teams for these big wins. I think this is a great addition to the league.
Undefeated regular season conference play: Only Babs snagged this 3 point bonus with Butler going undefeated. This is a nice perk that adds a little interest as conference play concludes, and appropriately rewards a team that acheives this significantly challenging feat. I would not be opposed to making this a 4 point bonus for next year.
Some early thoughts on potential improvements to the league:
This year's MWC and Atl10 proved to be significant players, with a combined 7 teams making the NCAA cut. The Atl10 also had three 20+ win teams that didn't make the cut in Rhode Island, Dayton, and St Louis. Meanwhile, the Pac10 obviously had a down year, with only two squads making the cut. Even the Big 10 only had 5, with Minnesota just making the chopping block. This leads me to again offer the following simple creation of a three tier conference system that I believe more appropriately reflects the state of college basketball:
Conf Grouping & Point Restructuring - Create 3 conference tiers: Major, Mid-Major, and Minor.
~ Major conferences (6 confs) would not change.
~ Mid-Major (9 confs) would consist of Atl 10, Mountain West, Miss Valley, CUSA, Horizon, WAC, West Coast, MAC, & CAA.
~ Minor would consist of the rest (16 confs).
~ Regular Season Champ Points: Tier one reg season championship: 10 pts; Tier two reg season championship: 8 pts; Tier three reg season championship: 6 pts.
~ Conference Tourney Champ Points: A conf tourney champion would receive: 8, 6, and 4.
At current, there is no mid-major tier, a team that wins a major conference regular season earns 7 points and a non-major conference regular season earns 6 points; A team that wins a major conference tournament earns 5 points and a non-major 4 points.
Additional potential changes:
Last years rule change discussion happened here.
Restructure NCAA Tourney Points:
~ Reduce the point reward for "making the NCAA" from 4pts to 3 pts. For many teams, there is already a significant boost from winning their league tourney.
~ Increase round 1 win from 2pts to 3 pts
~ Reduce round 3 win from 8 pts to 7 pts
~ Reduce round 4 win from 12 pts to 10 pts
~ Reduce Final Four win from 16 pts to 13 pts
~ Reduce Final win from 20pts to 17 pts.
This basically gives the NCAA winner 55 pts, plus 3 for making the tourney, plus 6 for each win, and plus a few 2's for wins vs other players. It is only a slight reduction of 8 total points, but I believe produces a more even and balanced point system. As our initial point system (and this proposal) was arbitrary, this is obviously wide open to discussion.
And finally: I thought the league was a bit more entertaining with 12 players as opposed to this year's 10. Even with the increased number of picks a round, we still saw numerous quality selections throughout ( SEE HERE ). Jaybird still pulled it off with the #1 and #24 picks, but Babs stormed into 2nd with the 10th and 15th picks. Overall I felt that this season's picks were much more informed and researched.
19 comments:
Baylor was such a great pick for AKA this year. Last round producing massive points. Nice work. Dammit
~jut
Surprisingly, I agree with all of these points except expanding the league or the number of picks. Gets a bit random around pick 60 or so. I say 10 owners 6 teams or 8 owners 8 teams, etc.
--nat, natch.
Just some perspective:
This year's late picks (after 60) include:
~ Cornell: sweet 16, 50+pts
~ Baylor: sweet 16, 55+pts
~ Virginia Tech: 40+ pts
~ Richmond: 48 pts
~ St Marys: sweet 16, 55+pts
~ UNLV: 40pts
~ Mizz: 41pts
~ Oakland: 38pts
Last year's late picks included (not including Mizz which was a huge expansion draft team):
~ West Virginia, 50+pts
~ VCU, 50pts+
~ Akaoni with Dayton* - 53 pts
~ Boairs with Mississippi St - 53 pts (last round pick)
~ Boaris with Butler - 52 pts
~ Turtle with Cal St Northridge - 42 pts
~ ProgressMeds with Illinois St - 39 pts (last round pick)
~ Phunmunki with Vermont - 32 pts (last round pick)
I liked the 12, as it made you really think, and I think we had the whole NCAA covered, this year, we had a few gaps, although I also agree with previous comments that overall the drafting was very solid this year, well thought out. Babs, my only chance is that Northern Iowa runs the table and wins the NCAA, that Cincy wins the NIT, and that Pacific wins the CBIT, and even then......
-The CEO
Sure, there will turn out to be good picks after 60, and the people who made those picks will claim afterward that they *knew* it was a brilliant pick when they made it, but that will be a lie. The deeper we go the more of a crapshoot it becomes, and the more luck becomes a primary factor in who wins.
Just my two cents.
On the contrary - the deeper that the selections go, the more research and knowledge tend to pay off. It is very easy to pick based upon everyone's top 25 - some folks get "unlucky" there, but there isn't a great deal of randomness. However, once you reach pick 50 or so, then the selections become far more challenging.
I think you'll find some folks like smaller, while others enjoy expanded. I think it comes down to if Babs is willing to take the time to input extra teams and points
My 7th and 8th picks (Richmond and Portland) far surpassed my 5th and 6th picks (Jacksonville and Notre Dame) during the regular season anyway. I thought 10 players worked out pretty well. If it went to 11 or 12 again, no skin off by back, but I wouldn't go with less than 10. I think there is good variety there.
The downside of more players is there are less of the top tier conference teams to go around - 8 or 9 deep in the Majors is about as far as you want to go, meaning 3 or 4 players in a 12 team field are locked out of certain conferences. On the other hand, it increases the competition for Mid-Majors such as the Horizon, Atlantic 10, Missouri Valley, Mountain West, etc., which I think adds an extra dimension and competitiveness, and adds the amount of potential points for mid-major picks through the regular season.
Look at the Atlantic 10 - the expansion draft picked up Rhode Island and Temple and Charlotte and St. Louis wouldn't have been a horrible pick. With more players (or picks) all those teams would have been in play the whole season.
I'm still mulling the proposed changes but in response to the questions of league expansion. I have no problem with expanding the number of teams or players however, if we expanded to 12 players I think the 10 team draft would be preferable but if we stuck with the current 10 players then I think expansion to 12 teams would be ok. I think that once we hit about 120 teams total, the quality of remaining teams is pretty marginal (as I think we saw this year).
Ron, you raised the question about the somewhat high point increases suggested in the new 3 tier system.
It is probably fine with most anyone to drop every point by 1, meaning:
major conf winner = 9, mid = 7, minor = 5
tourney: major = 7, mid = 5, minor = 4 (thought 3 might be too low)
I certainly wouldn't have a problem with this slight adjustment.
~ Jut
So California would have picked up 9 points for winning the Pac 10? I still want to think about that.
I also want to think about the NCAA Tournament points. I don't think they should be reduced to the point of window dressing. We saw both this year and last year that the leader going into the NCAA Tournament isn't always the leader coming out, and I think that is a good thing. I also think it is good that the NCAA tournament can set up a 7th or 8th place player for a potential to win it all, or at least be in play. There is a delicate balance.
Personally, I don't like the big point differential between the Major and Minor conference. I think if anything we need to create more of an insentive to pick minor teams. Since they get fewer bonus points for head-to-head matchups I think that their conference tourneys and championships shouldn't be close to half as valuable as the championships in major conferences. This is doubly true since for the most part, they still have to win their conference tourney to make the dance. Personally, I would like to see the minor conferences score the same as mid-majors. 9 and 7 sounds good to me.
I think the tourney scores could remain in the 7, 5, 4 set up however since all tourney winners are rewarded with an NCAA spot anyway.
I'm sure babs will input the suggested changes into this year to see the impact. Not too much I suspect.
Anyway: if we expand, anyone know anybody in Michigan, Minnesota, or Indiana? We have Iowa, northern Illinois, Vegas, Central and Southern Wisconsin taken care of.
How about 9,7,6 and tourney 7,5,4. Consider - this IS increasing the incentive, as this is more than they currently snag for the reg season. While this is really really small in the scheme of our season (Akaoni will probably end with over 500 pts), I just thought it would be appropriate to develop a system that provided greater rewards for winning the Atl 10 conf and tourney over, say, the SWAC. Even a 1 pt difference does that.
Re. NCAA - the total point adjustment was 8 pts spanning over the entire tourney. Winner still snags 58 in total bonus points, not counting 1 pt for each win and not counting +2 bonus. I'm not defending the suggested numbers, just clarifying that this hasn't necessarily turned into "window dressing" if it wasn't already.
I think the strongest element of the suggested changes is the reduction of an NCAA bid from 4 to 3 while increasing the round one win from 2 to 3. This just makes sense.
"reduction of an NCAA bid from 4 to 3 while increasing the round one win from 2 to 3. This just makes sense."
I agree with this.
I'd like to toss out a +5 bonus for knocking out a #1 seed in the first or second round of tourney
i'm guessing the last suggestion was CEO
`Jut
I agree, if we have previously had a +5 bonus for knocking off a #1 seed I definitely think we should toss this rule out.
Well, I'm sure that SGII will not be content with a one year career finishing so poorly.
Plus, HippieD says that he missed the motivation to pay attention all year, and was sick of me talking to him at work about my comebacks, so he'll probably be in next year.
Assuming everyone else stays in, that puts us at 11, meaning we'd have room for one more (although 11 works too). Call up your buddy's up in Michigan and Minnesota please. Oooo, maybe Dan Austin - he's in Minneapolis.
Post a Comment