Messages

I don't know if anyone cares, but the nerd that I am, I already tried to look up tiebreaker rules at the MVC website, and was a little surprised to read that they don't have a common opponents tiebreaker.  They go straight from Head-to-Head to Adjusted RPI.

http://sidearm.sites.s3.amazonaws.com/mvc.sidearmsports.com/documents/2017/6/23/MBB_TiebreakerFormula_.pdf

I'm disappointed 

I am sure that it will mainly focus around you BFF, Greg Kampe?

I don't think you've ever even visited the site, if that's what you think

Just wanted to mention that "News On The Horizon" has now spawned What's Up In The Valley.

I'm planning on continuing with "News On The Horizon", in case you're curious 

Likely to be "low" because of underepoeting/victim shame?

There's not a doubt in my mind that this is the reason.

http://www.nwitimes.com/digital/audio/union-street-hoops/podcast-union-street-hoops-episode/audio_74f0d004-4c59-11e7-a713-c7b599e3e3b8.html

Great interview with Brandon Wood who is a really classy guy.  Probably one of the top pure scorers to ever where the brown and gold.  Also a good update from Alec.

Excellent insight on the difficulty of pro-ball.  But can't help but come away with less respect for BW.  His bouncing around for "something better" is not a trait I look for in my own life.  It's certainly not unheard of, in fact millenials (of which I am, begrudgingly) are well known for just this.

Again, appreciative that PAUL brings on such great guests.  Regardless on my feeling of BW, he was an excellent guest.  Thanks PAUL.

Something was off for me too, though I had this weird feeling of having stereotypical impressions confirmed (surprise is not an emotion I felt while I listened).

I had trouble putting my finger on it, and while I identify a little bit with what you are expressing, I'm not sure that's what I was noticing.  There was just something off about it.

All I'm saying is that I didn't really enjoy the interview all that much.

Wow. Generally I hate seeing non P5 schools losing their coaches to P5 schools but part of me doesn't care about Butler. Chris Holtmann has refused schedule Valpo. Maybe the next guy will.

https://twitter.com/JonRothstein/status/873002559040081920

Different perspective, for what it's worth: I count the Big East as a power conference, so it doesn't even register as poaching on my radar screen.

I picked this up from the StlCardinals website but it very much pertains to Arch Madness this coming March. The weather could do anything in St Louis is March but there is plenty to do in downtown St Louis. I'm still waiting for the announcement of StlVuFan's alumni/friends gathering. 

https://mediadownloads.mlb.com/mlbam/mp4/2017/05/26/1429314583/1495842561784/asset_1800K.mp4

Funny joke, you tell.  Not one of my talents, I'm afraid (Organizing).

Besides, I'll probably be spending all day at the arena watching basketball anyway (and I'll probably work on Thursday since those games are probably in the evening).

another Summit school to discuss for the HL... Western Illinois... have baseball.  What am I missing?

"You can't get there from here." -- RLH

I think it was meant tongue in cheek, not literally.

Nope: https://twitter.com/Matt_Fox10/status/861971483488169984

No surprise here.
https://twitter.com/CraigHaley/status/861970515359039489

This guy was hilarious, and when I asked if he was kidding he said no with a straight face:

https://twitter.com/Matt_Fox10/status/847341548685541376

I heard John Feinstein's "CBS Sports Minute" during the noon hour on WSCR.
He praised the MVC for adding "Val-pa-RI-so."

Good publicity, but another example of a big-time East Coast guy not being able to pronounce the name correctly.

It is disappointing that these folks can't figure it out or can't remember.  Still, we are hardly alone. Think of GonZAGa (or is it...   Xavier still gets Xxavier from time to time.

I know there are several other cities around the world named Valparaiso ... I'm curious if they're all pronounced the same?  Just asking because Indiana uses non-traditional pronunciations for cities like Milan, Versailles and Carmel.  In any case, I haven't heard anyone butcher "Valpo", so maybe they should just stick with that! 

Just looked it up. There are 4 Valparaiso's in the U.S. and Canada - Indiana, Nebraska, Florida and Saskatchewan. All are pronounced with the long "a" sound, as is V, São Paulo, Brazil. The handful of V's in Spanish-speaking countries in Central and South America all use the long "i" sound.

I hope this is worth something to someone because I just spent 15 minutes that I'll never get back.

I would think in the Spanish-speaking countries both vowels are pronounced: val-pa-ra-E-so.

That's how I learned Spanish, anyway.

I'm starting to feel the pull of the giant magnet

Come to papa...

18 games per team is obviously what I meant.  In that light, 90

I don't think I'm getting through to you.  18 games is nowhere near enough time to be satisfied that all the weird stuff evens out (lucky bounces, crucial bad calls, freak injuries, schedule quirks - some teams having longer road trips and more busy streaks than other teams, etc.).  You only play each time twice.  Very shaky.  To say nothing of having to settle who the #1 seed is by a frigging tiebreaker.  Billy Donlon was absolutely right last year when he complained about losing the double-bye because of a tiebreaker.

There's no way they can play enough games to iron out all the wrinkles and give a reliable read.  There's only one of the four major sports - and then only at one level - where the regular season is large enough to prove who the best team is simply by looking at the standings: Major League Baseball (by best team, obviously I mean best team in each division).

By the way, just in case you're interested, this is why I am adamantly opposed (for all the good it does me) to the wildcard system in MLB.  I'll never get my way, but I'll never give in, either

Here's where you lose me. In a 10 team,  double round robin, every team gets a pair of games, one home one away, against the other 9. If that isn't the most equitable way to determine a conference champion given the NCAA restrictions, I don't know what is. It's certainly more reasonable that a 3-5 day single elimination tournament making kids play back to backs for the first time all season.

I struggle with the idea of conference tournaments in 1 bid leagues. You aren't doing anyone any favors putting a mid-league finisher in the tournament over your best team from the last 12 weeks.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Apparently I am losing people because I'm not making myself understood very well.

This was not an argument for a better way to determine who the best team is.  My argument is there is no statistically reliable way to determine that, so why pretend?

The 18 game regular season + a conference tournament seeded according to that regular season *is* the best way to determine a champion (not the best team).

I don't attend the conference tournament to find out who the best team is.  I attend the conference tournament to see mayhem and which team will be left standing.  I've given up the fantasy of seeing definitive proof who the best team is.

By your measurement then the NCAA tournament is another example of too small a sample size.

Yes.

There is no solution to the small sample size problem in MBB.  Maybe I'm not making that clear enough.  My argument is that we should dispense with this notion of identifying "best teams", at least when it comes to rigging conference tournaments.

Stlvufan says 18 games to small a sample size to determine the best team.  I believe 10 team tournament at "neutral" site is too small of a sample size.

HL has to find a way to send its best team.

There is no way to send your best team.  I never said the conference tournament was a big enough sample size.  You send your champion, not your best team.  You hope your champion *is* your best team, but that's about the best you can do.  Sort of like the slogan that used to appear on the big wall-size brackets NIPSCO used to hand out for Hoosier Hysteria when I was a kid (well, my Mom worked there and I always got one):

"May the best team win."  (Notice that it is a plea, not a prediction or an equation)

We could just freely admit that 18 games (playing each team only twice) is not enough to determine who stands out as the best team

I'm not sure I am as willing to freely admit this merely on the basis stated here, since I believe there really are 90 games played (rather than just 18) in a 10-team home-and-home conference schedule. When one considers a 90-game sample with an 18-game sample, then the odds of the best team rising to the top seem more solid and the margin of error is reduced.

18 games per team is obviously what I meant.  In that light, 90 games total is exactly as small a sample size as 18 per team is.

The sample must be big enough to be highly reliable. Of all the conferences this past season, only two had a first-place regular season champion that did not also have the highest RPI ranking in their conference. In both cases the second-place team was the highest ranked in RPI, and one by only a single spot in the overall rankings. That's about a 95% accuracy.

I don't think I'm getting through to you.  18 games is nowhere near enough time to be satisfied that all the weird stuff evens out (lucky bounces, crucial bad calls, freak injuries, schedule quirks - some teams having longer road trips and more busy streaks than other teams, etc.).  You only play each time twice.  Very shaky.  To say nothing of having to settle who the #1 seed is by a frigging tiebreaker.  Billy Donlon was absolutely right last year when he complained about losing the double-bye because of a tiebreaker.

There's no way they can play enough games to iron out all the wrinkles and give a reliable read.  There's only one of the four major sports - and then only at one level - where the regular season is large enough to prove who the best team is simply by looking at the standings: Major League Baseball (by best team, obviously I mean best team in each division).

By the way, just in case you're interested, this is why I am adamantly opposed (for all the good it does me) to the wildcard system in MLB.  I'll never get my way, but I'll never give in, either

We could just freely admit that 18 games (playing each team only twice) is not enough to determine who stands out as the best team

I'm not sure I am as willing to freely admit this merely on the basis stated here, since I believe there really are 90 games played (rather than just 18) in a 10-team home-and-home conference schedule. When one considers a 90-game sample with an 18-game sample, then the odds of the best team rising to the top seem more solid and the margin of error is reduced.

18 games per team is obviously what I meant.  In that light, 90 games total is exactly as small a sample size as 18 per team is.

Then once We assumed the mantle and began dominating the league, miraculously everyone had a change of heart. So they vote to move the thing to Detroit and make up some bogus excuse about wanting to look like the big boys

I fear you are conflating the ADs with the fans here.

I've conversed with fans of other HL teams and every one of them has rejected my position that a neutral site (and getting rid of the double-byes) is the right thing to do.  PantherU was quite vocal in 2016 that Valpo was getting screwed.  And he's not the only one.

At the risk of  I'm going to state again that this idea of rewarding the best teams is flawed because the extravagance of reward is not suitable to the incredibly small sample size of games played.  I continue to reject the notion that we have a reliable basis year in and year out to identify who the best teams are (and if we did it would be criminal to subject them to a full conference tournament, they should be able to just play each other for the auto-bid; if there's only one best team, then that team should just be given the auto-bid because they earned it).

As for moving to the MVC, obviously if Valpo receives the invite they can't be blamed by anyone for accepting it, and should probably strongly consider it.  I should point out that the talk in here is starting to sound highly "Big-Time" and not in a good way, as if academics doesn't matter.  Maybe that's not what people mean, but that's the way it comes across.  I am allergic to any impulse to tell administrators to get out of the way of athletics.  I don't think athletics should be subjugated to academics either (though they were at my alma mater - Rose Hulman Institute of Technologies - where coaches punished athletes if they cut a lab in order to practice with the team), but I think *both* are important and *both* deserve their due.  I don't personally care about the quality of education at VU all that much because I'm not an alum and that's not what draws me.  But I'm also not interested in telling teachers and admins to go fly a kite if they have concerns.

As for the bloodthirsty nature of conference realignment and the embrace of such here by some, I'm not a fan of that either.  It made sense at the time and I warmed to it fairly quickly, but I was still sad to leave the Mid-Con because at the time, it left that conference weakened a bit.  It seems they have recovered.  But it's more than that.  This idea that conference relationships are so transitory is kind of off-putting.  I'm really enjoying all the new friends I've made in the HL, and if there weren't a conflict in schedule between the two - and assuming Valpo moves to the MVC - I'd probably still go to MCM next year as well as Arch Madness.  I'm retiring soon, so I'll probably keep up the On The Horizon blog even if we leave, as well as start one about the Valley.  I want to go see Valpo play at BB&T Arena many more times, and I always enjoy the Wisconsin trip, including friends I've made at both places.

And of course - warm up your groans, ladies and gentlemen - I want to keep making the Michigan trip.  I want us to keep playing Oakland, and I want to keep in touch with my pal, coach Kampe.  If it makes you feel any better, I don't blame you guys for being put off with some of the questionable characters he's recruited lately.  They give me pause too.

I don't expect the mid-major conference landscape to stabilize into some idealistic promised land, and I don't expect individual schools not to evaluate their affiliations and try to improve them.  I just find it distasteful, that's all.

And frankly, all of this shuffling around skirts the one core issue that none of our schools have much control over (which is why I don't blame them too much): the utter, corrupt travesty that is the state of non-conference scheduling in NCAA Division I sports.  If the NCAA would get serious about solving that problem (and Mark Adams made a very worthy opening salvo in that conversation last year), we wouldn't *need* to be constantly searching for greener pastures every year.  We wouldn't need to rig our conference tourneys to try to game out the maximum potential for NCAA tournament wins (again: if the perks are truly being earned, then we aren't going *far enough* - should just do away with tourney and send them - but I insist that the perks *aren't* truly earned).  We could just freely admit that 18 games (playing each team only twice) is not enough to determine who stands out as the best team(s), and just enjoy the conventional conference tournament for what it is: a foretaste of March Madness.

By the way, I'll give you guys props for using the word "reward" rather than the word "protect" when referring to the "best teams".  "Protect" has always absolutely rubbed me the wrong way.  The notion that the "best team" needs to be protected - if that's not snowflake behavior then I don't understand what that word means.

USAToday Headline:  "Redemption: NC Takes Down Gonzaga."  Redemption?  Redemption! Redemption is fessing up to widespread cheating by UNC athletes under the  hands-off policies of the UNC administration -- and the redemption I'm talking about is for everyone they played, not UNC -- i.e., vacated UNC wins (including this one).  They shouldn't have even been in the tournament.

Um, they lost the title last year on a buzzer beater.  There are other possible meanings for redemption.

plus he's critical of things like lack of practice time at the tournament

We had the same amount of practice time as everyone else, we just chose not to use it.  I found that response by him to be very unsatisfying.

Yes, everyone got the same 20 minutes of practice. What he is saying has nothing to do with that 20 minute practice time, it has to do with the court familiarity of a team haveing just played a game on that court versus a team that had a 20 minute shoot around 36 hours before. 

As I said on another thread, from a coaching standpoint a 20 minute shooting session 36 hours before a playoff game doesn't really cut it for me.  I doubt that it would have much if any positive effect on performance.  I agree with ML that the teams should get practice time (I am not talking the 20 minute variety here) on the court preferably the day of the game and that more needs to be done in order for the teams, that don't play in the opening round, to be comfortable on the court. Especially if you are trying to protect the higher seed.

I thought it was 30 minutes.  Now it's 20 minutes?

Other teams made it work for them.  If 30 minutes for the whole tournament is not enough time (did the semifinal teams not get time on JLA floor, say Sunday morning or Monday morning?), that's at least a rational reason, but I'm still kind of stuck on this.

Thanks for the perspective, it does help a little.

Part of the issue is that the HL in its wisdom pulled both MBB and WBB tournaments into the same facilities on the same weekend. That means 20 teams vying for playing floor practice time.  The MVC has separate, neutral venues.

It seemed to work fine when there were 16 teams in the old mid-con.  Maybe if we just excluded 9 and 10, it would be fine?

I don't know that I get this yet.

[Is 30 minutes of practice]

Just because all the teams had the same amount of time to practice doesn't mean it's enough time. Is 30 minutes of practice worth spending x amount of dollars? How much practice would they have needed in order to pay the extra dollars to get there a day early may have been worth asking.

Here is what I think happened:  With both the women and men in the same space we were limited to 30 minutes on the court.  Matt chose to spend more time practicing together at U of D.  It isn't that we didn't want to spend the money, it is rather that we had a choice, a bad one which shouldn't have been available to the co-champions.  Stop blaming Valpo for not wanting to spent the money.  Total BS.

Then don't bitch about it in the postgame show or the press conference.

Everybody else made it work for them.  Our team is the only one complaining about it.

Obviously they didn't complain vociferously and I think ML is sincere when he says that's not the reason we lost (though it is kind of hard to sell that when NKU also declined).  But a little bit of that complaining did leak out after the game, and it still annoys me.  By the way, I'm not at all sure that extra expense was the responsibility of the individual schools.  Somewhere I think I heard that the conference would pay for the extra day.

I dunno, I still don't get the Valpo story on this, it doesn't make sense to me.

One thing I don't understand is the concept of Valpo losing business over the mascot. As far as I know no one is not coming to Valpo because of the Crusader. Is there any data to support that Valpo is losing out on students because of a mascot?

If no one is choosing or not choosing to go to Valpo because of the mascot, then why does it matter whether it gets changed or not?

You still risk alienating other important stakeholders, such as alumni, friends of the university like myself (who are also donors), conservative local and state government officials, etc. A basic principle of business says that if risk (i.e., potential loss of donor dollars, goodwill) outweighs reward (increased enrollment), you don't pull the trigger except under rare circumstances.

That makes sense, but I was addressing the "I'm so sick of this P.C. crap" argument, not the "Why would we damage the Valpo brand" argument.

If the potential for offending others by keeping the current mascot (who may also be stakeholders) is very small, and the potential for offending those who like the current mascot is great, then the risk/reward analysis obviously concludes that you don't make the change.

Of course, that's not the only angle available to us on this question.  For those who treasure the current mascot as precious, if you're also saying that the mascot doesn't really matter to anyone, then *that* is the point of my question.  I'm reminded of those who get angry when people protest the manger scene in front of city hall and one of their arguments is "it's just a manger scene, it's not a church service."  Well, if it's just a manger scene, than why is it so precious to you?

See what I mean?

I thought the coach nixed the shoot around but not sure. Also, I don't know what you mean regarding the Jubril situation but from what I've heard the university spent quite a bit of money fighting for Jubril with the NCAA

Both Lottich and Gore complained about it in their postgame comments, so I'm guessing they weren't the ones who nixed it.  I'm more perplexed by the subtext I infer from ML's interview that seems to blame this on the HL.

I would love to see an alliance form between MidMajors for scheduling.

The NCAA clearly only cares about the P6s and their bottom line.

https://twitter.com/enthusiadams/status/848202856670920704

Now this was a part of the interview that I really thought was excellent.