Saturday, January 24, 2009
Common Elements: Size of Post-Season Events
In both plans, the size of post-season events varies considerably from what the current College Series. Super-Regional events and Conference Championships are specifically made smaller, to make them easier to handle logistically and in terms of formatting and showcasing the events. In both plans, not only are there more national events offered, but they are all considerably larger than the single 16-team nationals of the last 10 years (ranging from 20-64 teams, depending on the plan and the division). What are your thoughts about the size of these events? What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of the smaller and larger events? What aspects of an event would you prioritize that might influence the optimal size of the various post-season events?
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A few thoughts on this:
ReplyDelete- The idea of a team declining a bid to D2 or D3 nationals does not really bother me. We have to accept that that's going to happen. It's not unheard of in other sports, either - NCAA men's teams have declined NIT bids.
- That said, I *do* think we should size these events such that we can guarantee they will fill. I think running odd-sized events detracts from the quality of the event, and potentially damages the UPA championship "brand".
- I much prefer 16, 24, 32, 40, 48, and 64 team formats over other numbers.
With that in mind, my suggestions going forward:
- D1 nationals should be 24 teams in both divisions. As we're probably moving to a 4-day college championship, this means 3 pool play games on day 1, two pool play games and crossovers on day 2, quarters, semis, and placement brackets on day 3, and finals on day 4. In other words, the same rhythm as the club championships. We know this works and it's a good format.
Given the incredible growth in the college division in the last decade, and the way the restructured college series build in more strength-based bids, I don't think a 24 team championship will feel "watered down" at all.
- D2 and D3 nationals should start relatively small, and ramp up as we build the brand and demand increases. I'm not opposed to a 64 team D2 in principle, but in practice I don't think it's a good idea for year 1.
My suggestion would be a 32 team D2 and 24 team D3 in open, and a 24 team D2 in women's.
I think that large postseason events are fine and a good idea, as long as games are limited to 3 per day per team. And also that the events are filled. I'm not sure that there are more than 100 college teams prepared to travel for D2/D3 nationals next year, although more than that number go to Vegas each year, so it can definitely happen.
ReplyDeleteRight - that's why I'm leery about that 20/64/32 team breakdown. Sure, Vegas gets a lot of teams, but that's an easier time of the year to organize college students.
ReplyDelete24/32/24 is 80 open teams; 24/24 is 48 women's teams. That seems more plausible to me than 116 open teams or somesuch.
I'm not sure I understand the purpose of a D2. It seems that under these proposals any school would be eligible, and it would essentially be a tournament to determine who was the best team not invited to a super-regional. Nobody pays attention to the NIT; why should anyone not playing at D2 care about the results? And would there really be many teams eager to make a cross country trek to determine who's number 49?
ReplyDeleteIn and of itself, that doesn't make D2 bad, merely pointless. But my bigger concern is that having too many events labeled "Nationals" will muddy the waters. D3 Nationals, which most definitely is *not* pointless, has been around for a few years already but does not yet get all of the top eligible teams; adding a D2 to the mix will lead to even more dilution (some of the top small schools might attend D3, some might attend D2), making the D3 tournament less meaningful. I would focus the UPA's resources more making sure that the tournaments that *are* meaningful are well-run and as well-attended as possible.
sw,
ReplyDeleteYou're actually highlighting a significant difference between the two plans, although you may not be aware of it. In the "Super Regional" plan, Div 2 bids come from D2 regionals, and lead to, as you say, a "#49" championship. In the conference plan, though, the bids to D2 will go to, basically, the next set of (32?) teams, leading to a "#25" championship.
Personally, I think this is an advantage to the conference plan, as the 25-48 teams are probably more inclined to travel and compete than the lower teams.
Additionally, the D2 championship has a carrot in it in the conference plan, because the top finishers at that championship, along with the teams at D1 nationals, automatically qualify for tier 1 regular season play the next year.
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All of that said, the D2 championship is not going to be a big focus for the teams that aren't there. Like you say, it's the NIT, and nobody remembers who wins the NIT. But the NIT, and the D3 national championships, are still tournaments that draw teams in other sports. There's nothing wrong with having these events, provided that there is a demand for them among the players. Provided these tournaments are on different sites on different weekends, there's no reason to think the UPA isn't capable of running both.
Thoughts from a player whose team will not make nationals but will make regionals, here are my thoughts.
ReplyDeleteThe D2 "nationals" would be more of an end of the year "celebration" (not the right word at all but I'll try to explain) as opposed to nationals. Coming from an area where the games are mostly get beat by 4-8 or win by 4-8, I think D2 would just be a tournament with really good competition. In theory you should have the #25-48 ( or 56 or 68 or whatever the number ends at) teams from the nation in the tournament. Realistically these teams will rarely face each, and there is no extremely good way to say that Connecticut at an RRI 2349 is better than NC State at 2348, other unless you are in a area with a lot of good teams.
The biggest draw for the D2 nationals, I think, would be that you get to play in games that extremely equal with teams from all over. Just quickly glancing at RRI, you would have teams from Kansas, Texas, North Carolina, Florida, California, Connecticut, Oregon, etc. While many of these teams go to Vegas/Centex/etc. much of the tournament is just beating teams that are just barely in and losing to teams that are much better. You only get 2-3 games that much up really well with your team.
Towards sw
I agree with you on the "nationals" phrase. I think even something as simple as have D1 and D3 as nationals and then having a d2 championship or something similar could help solve a few problems. By not billing the D2 tournament as a "nationals" I think that it could help keep smaller schools in D3 nationals while allowing the "really good but not great" teams into a more appropriate tournament.
I guess what I am trying to say is that I think that the D2 tournament could/should be billed as more "Next Year Tier 1 qualifying tournament that should be games of 13-12" opposed to a "nationals"
Think about how much more dramatic/exciting the NIT would be if it was said that the top X teams get to switch into one of the Big6 conferences for basketball the next year.
Adam, thanks for the clarification on the numbers. If it were just an issue of #25 vs #49, couldn't you just modify the Super-regional plan to have D2 qualifiers come from the Super-Regionals teams that don't make the big show?
ReplyDelete25 or 49, either way it doesn't really matter... I hear what Scurry is saying, but in practice it wouldn't be exactly the next N teams in line, as (like its been mentioned) a significant number will not be that interested; you'll go pretty far down the list to fill the tournament (and it'll be skewed towards teams that are still in school and are close by). I recall Arkansas(?) threw out the idea of hosting an NIT-type tournament 5-6 years back, but it never got off the ground due to lack of interest. You could incentivize attendance like Scurry suggests, but that's a whole other can of worms that hasn't been laid out in any detail.
In either case, my main worry is still that if it (a) bills itself as a championship, or (b) has implications for next year, it will detract from an actual Championship (namely D3). If neither, then why do we need the UPA to run it? Let someone else test out the market for such a tourney, if there really is one.
"you'll go pretty far down the list to fill the tournament (and it'll be skewed towards teams that are still in school and are close by). I recall Arkansas(?) threw out the idea of hosting an NIT-type tournament 5-6 years back, but it never got off the ground due to lack of interest."
ReplyDeleteThere's a big difference between that sort of effort, and a UPA event that teams know is going to exist in advance. The creation of this event is based on demand that appeared to exist based on survey data.
Moreover, the teams in this event (in both proposals) will be mostly teams that had to win a tournament to get there.
"You could incentivize attendance like Scurry suggests, but that's a whole other can of worms that hasn't been laid out in any detail."
Actually, Scurry is referencing an element of the conference plan.
I'll admit to not having looked at all the details of the conference plan. My first impression was that it had too many moving parts to keep track of, so I only skimmed it.
ReplyDeleteLooking at it more closely, then, I would argue that the top-placing D3 teams should also get Tier 1 invites, so as not to unduly favor D2 over D3, and would agree with you that these events should start on the small side - 24 at most. If the conference plan is adopted, the UPA should automatically send any D3-eligible school in a major conference that does not make Nationals, plus the small conference top teams, to D3 Nationals. Let them petition to participate in D2 if there's a good reason (e.g., travel is much easier), but D3 should be the default, for the reasons I specified above.
sw,
ReplyDeleteI have plenty of thoughts on that, but as they're specific to the conference plan, I'd prefer to keep them in the other thread.
Broadly speaking, we agree that D2 needs to be kept small enough that we won't have any problems filling the event.
I'm with Tarr on the size question - start small and work your way up, if necessary. Much better in my mind to have 32 more teams pounding the doors to get in than to try and run a 53 (yes, I picked a prime number on purpose and yes, I'm a big fat dork) team event.
ReplyDeleteA 4-day D1 championships is fine, I think, and 24 teams should still be quite competitive.
I don't know if this is the proper thread for this comment, and I don't know if this is an issue with the current D3 event, but are there concerns about a few small teams dominating D3? Is it worth making rules like 'you can't qualify for D3 Nationals 3 years in a row - in the third year you must register for D1'? Or is this fine - much like Mount Union dominates NCAA D3 football, it's okay if Carleton decides they want to be the big fish in the small pond?
Also maybe inappropriate for this thread, but can a school put teams in multiple divisions? Going back to Carleton, what if CUT plays D1, but GOP registers for D3? Is this kosher?
Well, we're not outlawing B-teams, so I think it's assumed that we will have multiple teams from the same school playing in multiple divisions.
ReplyDeleteIn the conference plan, Carleton-B and GOP will both be in a "small school" conference, while CUT would be in a major conference along with Wisconsin, Iowa, etc.