Posted by kmasonbx1 on 9/17/2013 11:00:00 AM (view original):
That's interesting, I've always felt like expectations were not factored into the COY awards, both conference and nationally. I feel like the sim should develop and expectation for what a team should do, and at the end compare those expectations to results. If a team is expected to go 14-2 in conference and goes 15-1 that's not all that impressive, but if a team is expected to go 8-8 and goes 13-3 that's a bigger accomplishment. Of course this could get dicey because then you have a team expected to go 1-15 and goes 8-8, do you really give CCOY to a .500 team?
I think when we say significant improvement, we mean to say they improved their team from the 1 win dumpster fire into a team that nearly won the conference or at the very least became a threat to win it. That's pretty impressive. A team that is 8-8 after a 1 win season is nice, but there is still a lot of work to go and they are still likely not a real threat. If they are not a real threat to win the conference, then they should not be considered.
Look at what Miami did this year. Prior year was 20-13 record (9-7 conference; 6th in conference) and a 2nd round NIT. This year 29-7 (15-3 conf) and a sweet 16. Now in this case, they ended up better than Duke in conference, but I'd willing to bet if Duke finished a game ahead of Miami with only 2 conf loss, Larranaga might still win CCOY.