Mega-Ultra-Super-Duper-Uber Challenge Topic

With so many coaches involved it is probably impossible to achieve (or maybe even expect) 100% success on getting all games scheduled. For MUSDUC II there are a total of 8 games that were not scheduled. We can either determine that the team that failed to accept games forfeit those games (a score of 2-0 will be awarded the issuing team - remember in the event of ties in the overall competition scoring margin is used as a tie-break) or the unscheduled games can be excluded and ignored, and the winner and team being relegated would then be determined by winning percentage in MUSDUC games played (instead of the current total wins/combined overall record method). Both of these have pros and cons of course. 

The former method unfairly punishes the conference mates of the coach(es) that didn't accept games. It is also impossible to verify with 100% accuracy. Only the 2 coaches involved and admin (who I doubt cares and would probably not be helpful in investigating the issue) know for certain that a game was issued and by whom. 

The latter choice could be abused by the unscrupulous. If, for some reason, they decide that a certain match-up was unfavorable, simply 'forget' to accept the game and it never happens and never counts. 

Whichever way it is decided, I will encourage any coaches that issue games and fail to get a response within a reasonable amount of time to post something stating so here, in our forum, The People's MUSDUC, along with sending me a sitemail and/or posting on my (Heartland) coaches' corner. 

I'll be using this poll to help shape the decision. If you have questions or concerns, please post/discuss before casting your vote - you only get 1 shot...

Thanks again everyone. For all the PITA organizing something like this is, it is worth it to see the level of competition and engagement that so many of you have brought to the table. Its all worth it 


Votes: 13
(Last vote received: 4/12/2014 4:04 PM)
9/28/2013 7:02 AM
Teach character and teamwork to the kids: you blow an assignment, everybody in your conference runs laps (i.e. forfeit).
9/28/2013 9:20 AM
The conference with the most wins is the champ, correct?  so isn't the penalty just that conference is starting without as many opportunities to win?  keep the same format and if a team that didn't schedule is the reason a conference gets bumped so be it.  i don't like winning % cuz the conferences will have different game totals, which is an unfair playing field. 
9/28/2013 10:20 AM
Since my conference decided to leave me out, this time I don't know if I am allowed a vote but my first instinct would be to go with the forfeit, although how do you actually know which team to punish. So I'm thinking unscheduled games should just be ignored and wins and losses should decide the winning conference. 
9/28/2013 11:23 AM
So from the recent comments I wish I'd thought to add the option of ignoring the unscheduled games but sticking with total wins as the metric. Feel free to vote for option #3 if this is your preference anyone.
9/28/2013 3:38 PM
After reading mike and echaney I am persuaded that ignoring + total wins (option 3) is the best solution.
9/29/2013 10:59 PM
hands up - how many of those who voted for option 1 have one of those unscheduled games this season? 
10/2/2013 3:29 AM
After MyGeneration switched his vote that makes 5 who favor forfeit and 5 who favor something else. For the reasons above (ie determining who the responsible party is/was, etc) we are going to avoid the forfeit situation and just go with what evolved into option #3. Total wins will still determine the victor. Unscheduled games will be ignored. This unfortunately does hurt both sides of an unscheduled game as neither get a chance for a victory, but with the exception of Incarnate Word (the coach switched schools after the season as well, I think moving up to D I) there are only a few scattered games that for whatever reason did not get scheduled. If unscheduled games become a big issue in the future we can revisit this if needed. 

Good Luck in MUSDUC II everyone! I will have match-ups and participants for MUSDUC III posted by the end of non-conference. Due to conflicts some MUSDUC II games don't take place until the back half of non-conference...
10/5/2013 10:48 AM
WOPR List for MUSDUC III has been posted to each eligible conference CC. Here is the list by conference, and then overall with values included. This season the WOPR list does remove walk-ons, but still is flawed in that red-shirts and ineligibles will not technically match with others of their real relative value when compared to standard 4 year players. It also still doesn't account for incoming jucos or transfers. That said, I think it is more reflective of team ability than the previous average wins method. As always, feel free to either use this list or submit your own collectively for MUSDUC III seeding. Thanks!

CCAA CENTRAL GLIAC HEARTLAND LONE STAR PENN ST SOUTHERN
CSU, DOMINGUEZ HILLS BOWIE ST FINDLAY MONTEVALLO NORTHEASTERN ST BLOOMSBURG PAINE
SAN FRANCISCO ST NC CENTRAL GRAND VALLEY ST LINCOLN TAMU, COMMERCE CALIFORNIA BENEDICT
CSU, BAKERSFIELD SHAW WAYNE ST VALDOSTA ST TARLETON ST E STROUDSBURG FLORIDA GULF COAST
CAL, DAVIS VIRGINIA UNION FERRIS ST W FLORIDA TAMU, KINGSVILLE LOCK HAVEN ALBANY ST
CSU, LOS ANGELES WINSTON-SALEM ST HILLSDALE W ALABAMA MIDWESTERN ST MILLERSVILLE LANE
GRAND CANYON VIRGINIA ST ASHLAND OPSU SW OKLAHOMA ST CLARION TUSKEGEE
SONOMA ST FAYETTEVILLE ST MICHIGAN TECH ST MARY'S E CENTRAL INDIANA KENTUCKY ST
CAL, SAN DIEGO ELIZABETH CITY ST NORTHWOOD DRURY   SHIPPENSBURG FORT VALLEY ST
CSU, STANISLAUS ST AUGUSTINE'S   N ALABAMA      
CSU, CHICO     ROCKHURST      
CSU, SAN BERNARDINO            
 


SCHOOL CONFERENCE WOPR
MONTEVALLO HEARTLAND 3761
CSU, DOMINGUEZ HILLS CCAA 3757
FINDLAY GLIAC 3729
NORTHEASTERN ST LONE STAR 3716
BLOOMSBURG PENN ST 3687
TAMU, COMMERCE LONE STAR 3686
GRAND VALLEY ST GLIAC 3680
BOWIE ST CENTRAL 3676
PAINE SOUTHERN 3652
TARLETON ST LONE STAR 3644
NC CENTRAL CENTRAL 3644
CALIFORNIA PENN ST 3594
TAMU, KINGSVILLE LONE STAR 3579
LINCOLN HEARTLAND 3573
BENEDICT SOUTHERN 3558
SAN FRANCISCO ST CCAA 3555
VALDOSTA ST HEARTLAND 3544
FLORIDA GULF COAST SOUTHERN 3540
E STROUDSBURG PENN ST 3530
W FLORIDA HEARTLAND 3525
WAYNE ST GLIAC 3521
W ALABAMA HEARTLAND 3517
CSU, BAKERSFIELD CCAA 3517
SHAW CENTRAL 3512
VIRGINIA UNION CENTRAL 3507
LOCK HAVEN PENN ST 3504
WINSTON-SALEM ST CENTRAL 3503
CAL, DAVIS CCAA 3502
MIDWESTERN ST LONE STAR 3499
OPSU HEARTLAND 3493
MILLERSVILLE PENN ST 3475
FERRIS ST GLIAC 3466
HILLSDALE GLIAC 3458
CSU, LOS ANGELES CCAA 3441
ASHLAND GLIAC 3438
ST MARY'S HEARTLAND 3428
GRAND CANYON CCAA 3422
ALBANY ST SOUTHERN 3419
CLARION PENN ST 3400
SONOMA ST CCAA 3382
CAL, SAN DIEGO CCAA 3370
LANE SOUTHERN 3356
SW OKLAHOMA ST LONE STAR 3315
CSU, STANISLAUS CCAA 3296
INDIANA PENN ST 3289
CSU, CHICO CCAA 3273
CSU, SAN BERNARDINO CCAA 3269
MICHIGAN TECH GLIAC 3247
SHIPPENSBURG PENN ST 3226
TUSKEGEE SOUTHERN 3180
VIRGINIA ST CENTRAL 3164
FAYETTEVILLE ST CENTRAL 3113
KENTUCKY ST SOUTHERN 2882
DRURY HEARTLAND 2775
NORTHWOOD GLIAC 2396
E CENTRAL LONE STAR 2312
ELIZABETH CITY ST CENTRAL 1750
ST AUGUSTINE'S CENTRAL 1638
N ALABAMA HEARTLAND 1611
ROCKHURST HEARTLAND 1568
FORT VALLEY ST SOUTHERN 485
10/11/2013 12:46 PM (edited)
For MUSDUC III the North American Conference is eliminated due to not enough human coaches in the conference to commit. They will be replaced by the Penn St. Conference. If the NAAA also finish 6th in this season's MUSDUC II, there will be no relegation this season. If any other conference finishes 6th in MUSDUC II they will be relegated and the Lone Star Conference will return to the MUSDUC in their place. 
10/11/2013 12:42 PM
For the MUSDUC III, can we get a consensus behind scheduling the games by the method I posted back on 9/14?  That would really help soften the blow to the #1 seeds that are now forced to play all the other #1 seeds.  What'd'ya think dacj?
10/11/2013 6:57 PM
Posted by rogelio on 9/14/2013 8:42:00 PM (view original):
I'll be glad to delete this, it's going to take up some space, but here's a quick idea on scheduling that may quickly address mmt/llamanunts concerns.  The idea would be that the conferences would be ranked A-F (A the winner thru F - relegation entrant) and the A, B & C and D, E, F conferences would play one another 1-6, but the games between any of ABC & DEF would not be purely 1-6.  Here's the chart [Rank is the sum of each of the seeds played, which in a straight 1 only plays other 1s schedule would be 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30): [Edited to even out the brackets and rankings]

A A B C D E F Rank
1   1 1 2 3 4 11
2   2 2 1 5 3 13
3   3 3 6 1 2 15
4   4 4 5 6 1 20
5   5 5 4 2 6 22
6   6 6 3 4 5 24
B              
1 1   1 4 2 3 11
2 2   2 3 1 5 13
3 3   3 2 6 1 15
4 4   4 1 5 6 20
5 5   5 6 4 2 22
6 6   6 5 3 4 24
C              
1 1 1   3 4 2 11
2 2 2   5 3 1 13
3 3 3   1 2 6 15
4 4 4   6 1 5 20
5 5 5   2 6 4 22
6 6 6   4 5 3 24
D              
1 2 4 3   1 1 11
2 1 3 5   2 2 13
3 6 2 1   3 3 15
4 5 1 6   4 4 20
5 4 6 2   5 5 22
6 3 5 4   6 6 24
E              
1 3 2 4 1   1 11
2 5 1 3 2   2 13
3 1 6 2 3   3 15
4 6 5 1 4   4 20
5 2 4 6 5   5 22
6 4 3 5 6   6 24
F              
1 4 3 2 1 1   11
2 3 5 1 2 2   13
3 2 1 6 3 3   15
4 1 6 5 4 4   20
5 6 2 4 5 5   22
6 5 4 3 6 6   24

Ok, I understand the thinking here to a degree, especially (I guess specifically really) as it matters more as the seeding accuracy decreases. Since we won't ever really probably be able to determine a method that with any real degree of accuracy reflects the real overall strength of teams for the next season, perhaps something like this is necessary, but I don't like it. Here's my issues:

Assuming that the seedings are even close to accurate, (which, I concede, may not be possible, but I'm first looking at the issue in  the ideal) what makes the #1 seeds any more or less special than every other seed? If we are anything near accurate in seeding, then in actuality the 1 seeds probably have more equal competition among the other 1 seeds then say the 4 seeds do due to the fact that some conferences only have the 6 or 7 coaches participating while others have 9 or 10. It stands to reason that the deeper conferences #4 seeds are likely to be tougher than the 6 or 7 team conferences' #4s or #5s, or whatever... this isn't always the case I know, and maybe my assumption on this is just off base, but that's one of my concerns. 

The other is the system itself. As outlined by rogelio, under the current like seeds play each other method the total of the seeds that each team faces goes 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30, while under his proposal it goes 11, 13, 15, 20, 22, 24. Since lower totals imply tougher match-ups, the #1 seeds get a boost from 5 to 11, while the #3 and #4 seeds get no boost at all, and the #5 and #6 seeds actually get tougher match-ups... The #1 seeds for this MUSDUC II are Dominguez Hills (started season ranked #1), NC Central (#21), Findlay (#2), Montevallo (#10), Paine (#4) and Central St (#9). All those teams must be pretty darned good. How are the #4 seeds supposed to stand a chance against that? So, while the #1 seeds get more likely to improve their MUSDUC win-loss records on average, the lower seeds have it tougher. My idea is that all the teams have roughly the same difficulty level.

That said, for a number of reasons (different numbers of participating teams per conference, the vagaries of seeding, etc.) it might not be realistic or possible to achieve my ideal. I just want to make sure that we don't make things easier for the 6 #1 seeds at the expense of 24 3-6 seeds...
10/11/2013 8:52 PM
The best use of our collective creative abilities might be to figure out a more reflective seeding system. If the seedings were nearly accurate reflections of a club's strength would that alleviate some concerns?
10/11/2013 8:54 PM
If we could get people to do it, a conference "vote" listing what each member thinks the top six teams for next season are? The evaluation of he coaches in conference is likely to lead to truer seeds than any formula ... Of course, it might be impractical ...
10/11/2013 10:50 PM
Posted by dacj501 on 10/11/2013 8:54:00 PM (view original):
The best use of our collective creative abilities might be to figure out a more reflective seeding system. If the seedings were nearly accurate reflections of a club's strength would that alleviate some concerns?
The easiest thing to do is to predict the best team in the conference for the next season.  That is, any method of seeding the upcoming season is going to get far more skewed as you ask for it to predict beyond the top 2 or 3 seeds in each conference.  The team that is chosen as the sixth best could actually be the tenth or worse.  Those teams that are selected as the #1 seed are probably either 1 or 2.

Some balk because these are already the Top 6 conferences in Knight (or very likely so).  For most, the goal of the non-conference is to come closest to guaranteeing an at-large bid, taking the conference schedule level of difficulty as a given.   Most coaches don't want to risk finishing the season with a Top 20 SOS and a sub .500 record.  Hello PIT!  However, straight line seeding brings that dreaded possibility into play.   Probably that fear is overblown, but coaches certainly may feel that they need to adjust their scheduling of the last 5 non-con games to compensate for the brutality of the first 5.   

That's why I favor a method that assigns the most difficult schedule to the best teams, but not the most difficult possible schedule.   I tend to see having a somewhat more mixed/heterogeneous schedule as a benefit as well.  Maybe that's just a matter of taste, but I'm not convinced that having no inter-tier play really generates more accurate results for comparison.  Assuming the seeds are accurate, the lowest seeds would still have the easiest schedules, and there may be a way to make the home/away assignments compensate for the biggest mismatches (I haven't puzzled all the way through that).
10/12/2013 1:42 AM
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