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Post by akbar on Oct 2, 2019 8:45:53 GMT -5
Penn State is the most successful team in the Big Ten. They should be paired with the least successful team. LOL! You've got us confused with Nebraska. We haven't been relevant for the last 6 years. Silly statement |
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Post by NittanyLions on Oct 2, 2019 8:56:00 GMT -5
LOL! You've got us confused with Nebraska. We haven't been relevant for the last 6 years. Silly statement
Context Akbar, context.
It was directed to a Nebraska fan, and was referencing a specific issue.
Hyperbole was used to stress my point. I assumed PSU fans would catch on, but alas.
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Post by Hawk Attack on Oct 2, 2019 9:10:24 GMT -5
Nobody should be paired with Rutgers because Rutgers shouldn’t be in the B1G.
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Post by huskergeek on Oct 2, 2019 9:39:49 GMT -5
Different problems to be solved. Or rather similar solutions with different objectives. When looking at conference scheduling if there are still going to be travel partners then a team's travel partner should be basically the opposite of themselves. 1-14, 2-13, 3-12, etc. When you examine the current travel partners from that angle, the only egregious example is not Penn State-Rutgers, it's Minnesota-Wisconsin. In a tournament setting, you should be balancing the cumulative strength of the teams in each section. So the best team should get the easiest subregional, but the second best team in the subregion should still be the 32nd best team in the tournament. However, the NCAA only seeds the top sixteen teams and then pretends that the rest of the tournament qualifiers are something close to the same strength. Which they clearly aren't. When people point out that Penn State has routinely benefited from this practice, they aren't wrong. The mistake is placing blame on Penn State themselves when it's clearly the NCAA that needs to start seeding the entire tournament.
Regarding conference scheduling, how do you figure the weakest team should be paired with the strongest team? The issue that I'm concerned with, which Russ Rose has referenced many times, is that the opponents' prep time for those paired travel partners is uneven. If Wisconsin and Minnesota are paired, it should work to their benefit, not detriment.
For instance, when they both have to travel to Nebraska, then the Huskers must commit an equal amount of time preparing for both opponents in the days leading up to that weekend. On the other hand, when Rutgers and PSU are paired and travel to Minnesota, the Gophers can commit all/most of their time preparing for PSU, because Rutgers "should be" an easy out.
I'm with you regarding the tournament scheduling.
Pairing Minnesota and Wisconsin does work to their benefit. That's the problem. It works to their benefit but to the other 12 Big Ten programs detriment. Pairing Rutgers with Penn State detriments Penn State but helps the other 13 Big Ten teams including Rutgers. Similarly, pairing Iowa with Nebraska is a detriment to Nebraska but benefits the other 13 teams. In the current system, pairing stronger teams with weaker ones benefits the conference as a whole even if specific teams don't benefit. Hypothetically, would Penn State and Nebraska benefit if they were made travel partners? Of course. But it would be a terrible decision for the conference as a whole. I want to point out that I hate travel partners as a concept. It's an antiquated idea to lower travel costs that is unnecessary when the conference is giving out a $50,000,000 media disbursement. It results in unbalanced schedules at a time when balancing them should be fairly trivial. |
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Post by JT on Oct 2, 2019 12:41:46 GMT -5
Regarding conference scheduling, how do you figure the weakest team should be paired with the strongest team? The issue that I'm concerned with, which Russ Rose has referenced many times, is that the opponents' prep time for those paired travel partners is uneven. If Wisconsin and Minnesota are paired, it should work to their benefit, not detriment.
For instance, when they both have to travel to Nebraska, then the Huskers must commit an equal amount of time preparing for both opponents in the days leading up to that weekend. On the other hand, when Rutgers and PSU are paired and travel to Minnesota, the Gophers can commit all/most of their time preparing for PSU, because Rutgers "should be" an easy out.
I'm with you regarding the tournament scheduling. Pairing Minnesota and Wisconsin does work to their benefit. That's the problem. It works to their benefit but to the other 12 Big Ten programs detriment. Pairing Rutgers with Penn State detriments Penn State but helps the other 13 Big Ten teams including Rutgers. Similarly, pairing Iowa with Nebraska is a detriment to Nebraska but benefits the other 13 teams. In the current system, pairing stronger teams with weaker ones benefits the conference as a whole even if specific teams don't benefit. Hypothetically, would Penn State and Nebraska benefit if they were made travel partners? Of course. But it would be a terrible decision for the conference as a whole. I want to point out that I hate travel partners as a concept. It's an antiquated idea to lower travel costs that is unnecessary when the conference is giving out a $50,000,000 media disbursement. It results in unbalanced schedules at a time when balancing them should be fairly trivial. Yes and no (WI/MN pairing benefits them). A team -always- plays their travel partner twice. For each of the other six pairs, they play one team twice, and the other once. I am not up to speed on how the lopsided schedule affects the conference part of a team’s RPI, but playing an easy opponent twice is certainly going to be better for your record. That scheduling bit (play your travel partner twice) is why, imho, you should -not- pair up 1-12, 2-11, ... as partners. Not sure that balancing the schedules would be such a trivial matter. |
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Post by vbcoltrane on Oct 2, 2019 13:05:39 GMT -5
I still think they should go to divisions at this point. There's now a 6-game difference between the number of matches they play and the number matches in a conference double round robin - 20 vs. 26.
So 7-team divisions; play every division team twice - 12 matches (6 other teams in division x 2); plus every cross-division team once - 7 matches = 19 matches. Divisional winners play for the championship.
Yes, people will complain about relative strengths of the divisions, and home-away disparities in cross-division matches (e.g., MN gets to play PSU at home, but Wisconsin has to play PSU on the road). But, it allows everybody in a given division to have face-to-face matches with the exact same opponents, the exact same number of times. And then there's a face-to-face meeting for the championship.
Of course, some feel a championship based on standings is better than a one-and-done match.
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Post by scot19 on Oct 2, 2019 13:39:37 GMT -5
I still think they should go to divisions at this point. There's now a 6-game difference between the number of matches they play and the number matches in a conference double round robin - 20 vs. 26. So 7-team divisions; play every division team twice - 12 matches (6 other teams in division x 2); plus every cross-division team once - 7 matches = 19 matches. Divisional winners play for the championship. Yes, people will complain about relative strengths of the divisions, and home-away disparities in cross-division matches (e.g., MN gets to play PSU at home, but Wisconsin has to play PSU on the road). But, it allows everybody in a given division to have face-to-face matches with the exact same opponents, the exact same number of times. And then there's a face-to-face meeting for the championship. Of course, some feel a championship based on standings is better than a one-and-done match. I do like the idea of divisions, but what I like even better is a post-season tournament. My goodness! How freaking exciting would that be?!!!
There will always be quirks in scheduling that appears to give teams' easier or more challenging schedules. When significant, that disparity may help or hinder a team's ability to win the regular season title. So, let's all get together every year and have a tournament for all the marbles. In most years, winning that tournament will be more challenging than making it to the Final Four.
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Post by huskergeek on Oct 2, 2019 13:55:49 GMT -5
Pairing Minnesota and Wisconsin does work to their benefit. That's the problem. It works to their benefit but to the other 12 Big Ten programs detriment. Pairing Rutgers with Penn State detriments Penn State but helps the other 13 Big Ten teams including Rutgers. Similarly, pairing Iowa with Nebraska is a detriment to Nebraska but benefits the other 13 teams. In the current system, pairing stronger teams with weaker ones benefits the conference as a whole even if specific teams don't benefit. Hypothetically, would Penn State and Nebraska benefit if they were made travel partners? Of course. But it would be a terrible decision for the conference as a whole. I want to point out that I hate travel partners as a concept. It's an antiquated idea to lower travel costs that is unnecessary when the conference is giving out a $50,000,000 media disbursement. It results in unbalanced schedules at a time when balancing them should be fairly trivial. Yes and no (WI/MN pairing benefits them). A team -always- plays their travel partner twice. For each of the other six pairs, they play one team twice, and the other once. I am not up to speed on how the lopsided schedule affects the conference part of a team’s RPI, but playing an easy opponent twice is certainly going to be better for your record. That scheduling bit (play your travel partner twice) is why, imho, you should -not- pair up 1-12, 2-11, ... as partners. Not sure that balancing the schedules would be such a trivial matter. A few things here. First, I'm quite aware of how the Big Ten schedules are set up, and I wrote extensively on it in last year's Big Ten thread. The fact that Minnesota and Wisconsin have to play each other twice is not what really imbalances Big Ten schedules. That imbalances a weekend for the other teams, but that's it. The imbalance is Nebraska and Penn State both being setup a home and home series against the same travel partner. Every team in the Big Ten will play Minnesota and Wisconsin a total of three times with the exception of themselves who play the twice. The imbalance in schedules is <insert Big Ten team> playing Nebraska and Penn State four times while their partner gets Rutgers and Iowa four times. This could be rectified in a number of ways, one of which is to pair the two with each other or each with another good team. It's pretty much the worst way of solving the problem because, while you've now created balanced schedules in one way, you have now added another one or two imbalanced weekends and made preparation even more difficult for your non-elite teams that have enough trouble pulling an upset already. Second, Penn State's RPI would almost undoubtedly benefit if they were paired up with literally anyone else in the conference. Thirdly, the home and home with your travel partner is another reason why you should pair good teams with bad teams. Teams shouldn't be artificially punished because they're good, and bad teams shouldn't be rewarded for being bad. Finally, it is trivial. Writing an algorithm to produce a viable schedule(or a thousand of them) is not difficult. Balancing based on historical success would add a bit of complexity, but it still isn't some impossible task. You can do a split division match-up chart for the Big Ten in a minute or so on paper and then all that would need to happen is placing it on a calendar. A somewhat more complex task but hardly the computational nightmare that the MLB schedule is and a single married couple did that by hand for forty years. |
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Post by HappyVolley on Oct 2, 2019 15:29:23 GMT -5
Yes, let's go to divisions based on the football divisions. Penn State would love that.
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Post by rogero1 on Oct 3, 2019 3:35:23 GMT -5
Starting the second year of Big Ten volleyball back in the early’80’s, there were 2 divisions (East & West) of 5 schools each. Teams played a home & away within their division and one match against every team in the other division for 13 matches. The Big Ten championship was played at the school with the best record.
The first Big Ten Championship was at Kenney Gym at Illinois in 1981. Two five team pools with top 2 teams from each pool advanced to semis, then the winners played for the championship.
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Post by coachk2 on Oct 3, 2019 8:32:24 GMT -5
Nobody should be paired with Rutgers because Rutgers shouldn’t be in the B1G. Agree! Missouri should be and would be, except the Mizzou Administration screwed up! |
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Post by Hawk Attack on Oct 3, 2019 9:14:21 GMT -5
Nobody should be paired with Rutgers because Rutgers shouldn’t be in the B1G. Agree! Missouri should be and would be, except the Mizzou Administration screwed up! Ideally to me the B1G would be a strictly Midwest conference, so I’d like to see Rutgers/Maryland dropped again and honestly I wouldn’t mind seeing Penn State go either. I also don’t care for Northwestern being in the B1G. |
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Post by rogero1 on Oct 3, 2019 9:28:32 GMT -5
Agree! Missouri should be and would be, except the Mizzou Administration screwed up! Ideally to me the B1G would be a strictly Midwest conference, so I’d like to see Rutgers/Maryland dropped again and honestly I wouldn’t mind seeing Penn State go either. I also don’t care for Northwestern being in the B1G. You realize that NU is a charter member of the B1G. |
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Post by Hawk Attack on Oct 3, 2019 11:04:19 GMT -5
Ideally to me the B1G would be a strictly Midwest conference, so I’d like to see Rutgers/Maryland dropped again and honestly I wouldn’t mind seeing Penn State go either. I also don’t care for Northwestern being in the B1G. You realize that NU is a charter member of the B1G. Yes, but they’re a private school. And all the rest of the original members still in the conference are public. |
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Post by vbcoltrane on Oct 3, 2019 11:52:11 GMT -5
Nobody should be paired with Rutgers because Rutgers shouldn’t be in the B1G. Agree! Missouri should be and would be, except the Mizzou Administration screwed up! Mizzou would have been a great fit. I have absolutely nothing against Rutgers as an institution. But, it's athletic department leaves a lot to be desired. |
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