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Post by Kingsley on Jun 8, 2021 21:25:12 GMT -5
And two more roster additions for Indiana:
Kyla Kenney - FR, 5'10 OH/DS (Late 2021 add)
Isabella Lopez - SO, 5'5 DS/L (Transfer from La Salle)
If you could give a Proactivity Award to the team most on top of their online roster, it’s the Hoosiers.
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Post by JT on Jun 8, 2021 22:27:18 GMT -5
is it just me or does Wisconsin like always have to play the top teams twice? Ok they only get PSU once this time but it always feels like their B10 schedule is always packed. Having minnesota as a travel partner (always guaranteed x2) doesnt help that. But it seems like they're going away from travel partners? idk They still have "travel" partners, but there's not as much, because it doesn't really work out. when you try to set up all the weeks. My understanding for traveling partners, based on the last years of play since the B1G went to 14 teams... 1) You play your travel partner twice, in two separate weeks 2) If your school plays another travel-pair, then your travel partner will also play that travel pair on the same week, just flipped days 3) If you play two schools who are not travel partners in a given week, then your travel partner will play the schools who are travel-partners of the teams you're playing. 4) Each team ends up playing: - - their travel partner home&away - - six other teams home&away ... none of these will be travel partners with each other - - six other teams either home or away, but not both ... none of these will be travel partners with each other So with MN and WI being travel partners, ONE of us will play NE twice and IA once, and the other will play IA twice and NE once. Ditto with playing PSU/OSU, and MI/MSU, and IN/PU, and IL/NW, and MD/RU. (Unless they've changed things... or I didn't notice something in the last several years.)
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Post by ilikecorn on Jun 8, 2021 23:00:53 GMT -5
Here's Wisconsin's conference schedule. They booted it off their site, but I scraped it from them because I literally have no soul oopsies LOL
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Post by vergyltantor on Jun 8, 2021 23:59:17 GMT -5
Having minnesota as a travel partner (always guaranteed x2) doesnt help that. But it seems like they're going away from travel partners? idk They still have "travel" partners, but there's not as much, because it doesn't really work out. when you try to set up all the weeks. My understanding for traveling partners, based on the last years of play since the B1G went to 14 teams... 1) You play your travel partner twice, in two separate weeks 2) If your school plays another travel-pair, then your travel partner will also play that travel pair on the same week, just flipped days 3) If you play two schools who are not travel partners in a given week, then your travel partner will play the schools who are travel-partners of the teams you're playing. 4) Each team ends up playing: - - their travel partner home&away - - six other teams home&away ... none of these will be travel partners with each other - - six other teams either home or away, but not both ... none of these will be travel partners with each other So with MN and WI being travel partners, ONE of us will play NE twice and IA once, and the other will play IA twice and NE once. Ditto with playing PSU/OSU, and MI/MSU, and IN/PU, and IL/NW, and MD/RU. (Unless they've changed things... or I didn't notice something in the last several years.) I looked at Nebraska's schedule for 2019 and that method held up then. This season it looks like the system might have changed, at least for Wisconsin.
All divisional foes will be played twice.
Travel partnerships will be abandoned for divisional games.
For matches with eastern foes, Maryland-Rutgers, Michigan St.-Michigan and Ohio St.-Penn St. single matches will be back-to-back leaving open the possibility that they will be acting as travel partners at least for that weekend. I suspect that these partnerships may be shuffled somewhat over the course of the season to avoid leaving Indiana without a travel partner.
Indiana will play Wisconsin without an eastern division travel partner.
Michigan St. will have an additional match with Wisconsin without a travel partner, giving them their second match with Wisconsin.
We will have to wait until the other schedules are released to see if this has a pattern, so stay tuned.
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Post by badgerbreath on Jun 9, 2021 0:18:40 GMT -5
When did the B1G decide to do divisions in volleyball? And why would the coaches/universities agree to it?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2021 0:25:43 GMT -5
And two more roster additions for Indiana: Kyla Kenney - FR, 5'10 OH/DS (Late 2021 add) Isabella Lopez - SO, 5'5 DS/L (Transfer from La Salle) If you could give a Proactivity Award to the team most on top of their online roster, it’s the Hoosiers. Lopez goes to Indiana. Was waiting to see who she chose.
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Post by vergyltantor on Jun 9, 2021 1:12:53 GMT -5
When did the B1G decide to do divisions in volleyball? And why would the coaches/universities agree to it? I don't know if the conference has officially said that they are, but looking at this schedule it looks like it. They would save a lot in travel expenses by doing it. As a Nebraska fan, I would like to see a home and home series with Penn State every year because the atmosphere in Devaney for a Penn State match is unlike anything in college volleyball. I don't think I will ever see it. Nebraska and Wisconsin are lucky that they can average 7-8 thousand fans for a home match, but for teams like Maryland that only averaged 1,333 fans in 2019 they are less likely to want any more travel than necessary.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2021 7:26:48 GMT -5
I'm fine with playing the western Big Ten teams more often than the eastern teams, during the regular season.
Especially if (one day) the Big Ten did a postseason championship tournament weekend in Chicago. Would be a very fun weekend, hope they consider it one day.
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Post by northwoods on Jun 9, 2021 7:36:58 GMT -5
If they wanted to put out the best product, they would have the top 7 teams from the previous season play each other twice & the bottom 7 play each other twice. It would eliminate all the politics in scheduling, produce more attractive TV matches and maybe give more rising programs an extra few wins to help get them in the tournament…
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Post by raptor patrol on Jun 9, 2021 9:34:14 GMT -5
If they wanted to put out the best product, they would have the top 7 teams from the previous season play each other twice & the bottom 7 play each other twice. It would eliminate all the politics in scheduling, produce more attractive TV matches and maybe give more rising programs an extra few wins to help get them in the tournament… I kind of like this. A pseudo relegation.
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Post by scot19 on Jun 9, 2021 9:43:33 GMT -5
I'm fine with playing the western Big Ten teams more often than the eastern teams, during the regular season. Especially if (one day) the Big Ten did a postseason championship tournament weekend in Chicago. Would be a very fun weekend, hope they consider it one day. A post-season B1G 10 tournament would be stellar. The added attention would be great for volleyball, especially if it was located where there was large attendance numbers (Omaha, Minneapolis). The excitement it would create!!! I want please.
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Post by badgerbreath on Jun 9, 2021 10:28:49 GMT -5
We've been talking about divisions ever since the additions of Rutgers and Maryland made the schedules really unbalanced, and since the 2014 B1G championship tie. It's the same discussion every year.
If you go to E-W divisions without a championship, then all those problems that gave rise to that discussion are only exacerbated because Minnesota, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Illinois and Purdue would likely all be west teams. That distribution hands PSU a sizeable schedule advantage almost every year that is probably worth 1-3 wins - enough to make a difference in the race for first. It would also be really hard on Iowa and NW as their schedules would always be really tough.
You could have the teams winning each division play a championship match. (You can't run a proper tournament with a 6x2 + 7x1 regular season schedule because there is only one match left to play so it can only be a single game championship. You could have all teams next to each other in the standings play each other once in a one match tournament.) Even with a championship, an E-W division means that PSU has a relatively easy road to the championship match every year. Its the equivalent of the cupcake scenario in NCAA sub regionals. I just don't see how you'd get consensus among the coaches on such a plan. The entire west would be against it.
I have suggested divisions based on previous years rankings, but I gather there isn't much appetite among coaches for that either. It's really hard on teams that were successful the previous year because they were senior laden. The more successful programs could argue that it endangers the ability of the B1G to place teams in the top 4 seeds of the NCAAs. Also would the championship be between the first and second ranked team that had already played each other twice? What if the first place team lost the championship but won the regular season by two wins? Would that team be considered champion or would the winner of the championship match? It may create more ambiguity than existed before.
Maybe you could mix teams into predicted even strength divisions using some coaches poll - but I think the transfer portal makes such rankings much harder.
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Post by Kingsley on Jun 9, 2021 13:35:51 GMT -5
Maryland has published its 2021 roster. Nothing groundbreaking in there. Kaylee Thomas hasn't been added yet.
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Post by JT on Jun 9, 2021 14:40:07 GMT -5
When did the B1G decide to do divisions in volleyball? And why would the coaches/universities agree to it? I haven’t seen anything about it; I don’t see how they could split it equitably; I see no purpose in it unless there’s a championship playoff, which isn’t feasible imho. Bottom line, I don’t think VB has been split into divisions.
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Post by JT on Jun 9, 2021 14:52:58 GMT -5
They still have "travel" partners, but there's not as much, because it doesn't really work out. when you try to set up all the weeks. My understanding for traveling partners, based on the last years of play since the B1G went to 14 teams... 1) You play your travel partner twice, in two separate weeks 2) If your school plays another travel-pair, then your travel partner will also play that travel pair on the same week, just flipped days 3) If you play two schools who are not travel partners in a given week, then your travel partner will play the schools who are travel-partners of the teams you're playing. 4) Each team ends up playing: - - their travel partner home&away - - six other teams home&away ... none of these will be travel partners with each other - - six other teams either home or away, but not both ... none of these will be travel partners with each other So with MN and WI being travel partners, ONE of us will play NE twice and IA once, and the other will play IA twice and NE once. Ditto with playing PSU/OSU, and MI/MSU, and IN/PU, and IL/NW, and MD/RU. (Unless they've changed things... or I didn't notice something in the last several years.) I looked at Nebraska's schedule for 2019 and that method held up then. This season it looks like the system might have changed, at least for Wisconsin. All divisional foes will be played twice. Travel partnerships will be abandoned for divisional games. For matches with eastern foes, Maryland-Rutgers, Michigan St.-Michigan and Ohio St.-Penn St. single matches will be back-to-back leaving open the possibility that they will be acting as travel partners at least for that weekend. I suspect that these partnerships may be shuffled somewhat over the course of the season to avoid leaving Indiana without a travel partner. Indiana will play Wisconsin without an eastern division travel partner.
Michigan St. will have an additional match with Wisconsin without a travel partner, giving them their second match with Wisconsin. We will have to wait until the other schedules are released to see if this has a pattern, so stay tuned.
I don’t think there are divisions. If there are, the fact that each division would have 7 members would throw travel partnerships out the window (it worked with 11 teams, but isn’t practical with just 7). I don’t believe that the concept of travel partners will be abandoned (even though the overall schedule diminishes their actuality). Certainly they won’t switch travel partners during the season… it would be akin to abandoning them entirely.
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