It's been a great experience without question. No regrets there.

I just had a different view of where it was able to go. I find the way it really works to be much less interesting than I thought. I'm sure there are a number of people who feel it works just fine and that's great for them and HD.

But I bet there's a lot of people just like me who continue to think that if they just have that one more good year, or can stop having he occasional bad year, that they can really move up in prestige to compete with the big boys. I stupidly thought after this season that finally I might have a chance at regaining the A-. Nope, sorry, doesn't work that way. Finding out the truth after a long career is what makes it more disappointing.

While I still agree with your overall point, I think you're way overstating things. It's not remotely true that it's "virtually impossible for 80% of teams to maintain a national level dynasty". In fact, I think a good coach can maintain a nationally competitive team at literally any school. An average coach couldn't, be there would be no reason to expect an average coach to be able to do that.

And while the prestige thing is frustrating, I also think you're turning that into a bigger deal than it needs to be. You've been nationally competitive for quite some time, as have many, many others outside of the BCS conferences. There is absolutely zero question that HD affords far more opportunities to be successful at non-BCS schools than real life does. Prestige is very nice, but it's not everything.

I hear your overall point, I agree with it and share some of the frustration. But let's not turn a semi-minor issue into the end-all, be-all of the game.

It depends on your definition of national level dynasty. To me that's building a program to the point where less than the sweet 16 is a disappointing year. To get into that position and stay there requires a prestige in line with the BCS schools.

That's impossible at 80% of the schools no matter how much success you have. That's my problem. I don't mind the uphill struggle (I embraced it at Army as the biggest challenge) but to see only struggle with no real possibility of reward removes the fun from the game.

You continue to have that kind of success at Montana (Good job BTW) for the next 5 years or so and when your prestige is still a B, you might understand where I'm coming from. Because if you look at what it takes, you aren't likely to get that B+ you want unless you can start (and continue) to make the final 4 or better every year.

Many of us had Programs at the A- and higher level in the Big Sky in Phelan. It is possible to do.

Well, the more realistic way to get above a B is to get some conference mates who can win a few games, too. I was in the CAA Rupp when we had a bunch of great coaches committed, and numerous teams (at least three, perhaps more) got to somewhere between a B+ and an A. We actively recruited good coaches there, and I've done a bit of that w. the Big Sky, though not nearly as much.

And honestly, I think you're getting hyperbolic again. If your goal is that anything less than a S16 is disappointing, that's a helluva high bar. Honestly, that was always my philosophy in DII/DIII and at big-time programs. But even including BCS teams, there are maybe 3-4 teams in a world that are in the echelon that actually achieve that. Maybe not even that much.

(EDIT: I count two teams in DI Allen that've made the S16 in 3 of the last 4 seasons ... Maryland and Rice. Other recent, but not current, streaks were Stanford doing it 8 of 9 and Wake had 6 of 8. And I'll toot my own horn and say that I did it 10 yrs in a row, from 22-25 @ MSU and then 26-31 @ Wisco.)

So yeah, if you're saying you need to have the program at a S16 or bust level, then that's gonna be damn hard, and even harder at a small school. But you can do it. You've done it at Army thus far, you see what acn did above at Manhattan, etc. It's difficult as hell, but rather than dwelling on a 1/3 of a grade in prestige (which, again, I 100% agree with you on), focus on the bigger picture and keep kicking ***.

I think almost everyone would agree that, while baseline prestige works in the early years of a world, the further and further you get away from Season 1 the importance of the schools Baseline should regress as the schools resume in that world should take over 90% of the teams prestige level.

While I doubt that baseline prestige will ever go away (I think WIS has made it clear they want to give the Power 6 Conferences an edge there and that is just the way it is going to be), the easiest way to fix this problem is to come up with a formula that is able to take in a programs history more then 4 years. I have no idea how they decided on the 4 year window but it just doesn't make sense to think that since you are now 5 years away from your National Title that everyone has forgot?

I have always thought it would make more sense to have prestige be an 8-10 year cycle with something built in to have it very hard to get to an A+, something like either the school has to have a National Title or the current coach has to have taken the school to the Final Four.

I just have never understood why 4 years was chosen and why they refuse to even discuss changing it.

Dalter - you said you always shot for the sweet 16 at the big programs. That's all I'm saying. While only 3 or 4 achieve that every year, there are 20 or more than shoot for it every year. That's what serious schools shoot for and that's my definition of a national dynasty.

I don't think it's possible to acheive and maintain that level of success with a prestige that is so tied to a B.

Go back and look at Manhatten. They had a good run but just 2 seasons after they hit A-, their prestige was back to B (even with 2 NT appearences and RPIs of 51 and 38). There's no margin for error and eventually we all have that off season or two.

Just have it be on a diminishing returns? THe equivalent of, say, 8 times the latest season, seven times the one previous to that, six times the one previous to that, etcetera, divided by the total. .

(8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1)/36

Meaning each season starts to weigh less as it recedes into the past, but it doesn't go away for a long while. . .

Probably too complex. .

Quote: Originally Posted By Lizak on 10/23/2009

Dalter - you said you always shot for the sweet 16 at the big programs. That's all I'm saying. While only 3 or 4 achieve that every year, there are 20 or more than shoot for it every year. That's what serious schools shoot for and that's my definition of a national dynasty.

I don't think it's possible to acheive and maintain that level of success with a prestige that is so tied to a B.

Go back and look at Manhatten. They had a good run but just 2 seasons after they hit A-, their prestige was back to B (even with 2 NT appearences and RPIs of 51 and 38). There's no margin for error and eventually we all have that off season or two.

Well, that is because Admin ran me off (beyond telling me that the prestige was capped because of the conference). Who knows how sustainable it might have been?

That is why I've always argued that conference prestige should only act like a floor, to keep the big schools from falling too far. It is just incredibly stupid to say "We don't care that this is one of the 3-5 most successful programs in DI, but since they aren't in a big conference (or a conference with lots of human coaches) they can't get any higher than 17th in terms of prestige."

i like the idea of baseline prestige changing over time. like, it can be worth say 30 seasons or so at the start, and after that, you'd just add in the prestige each season worth 1 season. so after 30 seasons, original baseline would be half, and the previous 30 years would be the other half. it would take a long time to turn a mid major into a power house but i don't think thats a bad thing.