What effect does Conference Prestige have, if any? I get that it's an average the conference's team prestiges -- is that all there is to it? Or does it somehow play a role in how high or low an individual team's prestige within the conference can go?

Let's say a coach with a baseline D prestige school in a low-level D1 conference has a four-year run of Elite Eight, Elite Eight, Final Four, National Championship. Is he more likely to get an A+ team prestige if he's playing in a competitve conference where several good coaches have raised the conference prestige to C+ than if his conference-mates were all horrible sim teams and the conference prestige was D? Or does the conference prestige not matter?

For this example let's assume he adjusts his non-conference scheduling based on how hard/easy his conference is, and ends up with the same SOS and RPI either way.

Thanks for your input.

Conference prestige has no tangible effect at DII/DIII.

At DI, it serves as a multiplier for team prestige. So yes, in your example, the coach at the low-level DI school would see his prestige rise more if he were playing in a very competitive conference.

Although with the effect of baseline prestige it would be very difficult to get to a A+, although a NT win, Final Four, E8 E8 type of run might do it.

I don't think I've ever seen a school with a D baseline prestige get past A-.

Thanks guys. Dalter, without realizing it, I was practically describing your Montana team in Allen. (Of course, that final season would be a tough one.) I'm curious, what's the Big Sky conference prestige there?

follow up, how much does it take to change conference prestige?

Allen is the land of the mighty mid majors. Big Sky is a C and Ivy is a C+. Yale, Cleveland State, Boston University have won NTs in the last 5 seasons.

That's amazing reinsel. Have any of those teams made it to A+?

bscoresby, if you assign a numeric value to each team's prestige grade, 1 for D- up to 12 for A+, you can figure out more precisely what your conference prestige is. I'm in Big Sky in Smith and we had some tournament success this year, so our Conference Prestige went up from D+ to C-. Our total team prestige points are now 43, or an average of 3.58. Round that up to 4 and you get C-, which is our current conference prestige. For our conference to move up to C prestige we'd need a total of 11 more points (54, or 4.5 per team). So we'd need 11 teams to raise their prestige 1/3 of a letter grade, or a few teams to make big jumps.

Quote: Originally posted by drsnell on 2/10/2010That's amazing reinsel. Have any of those teams made it to A+?

Just to A- from what I can see.

When we were doing the CAA-Rupp experiment, both Delaware (combalt) and UNCW (cbriese) made it to A+, but that was after winning the NT. And we had a kick *** conference that consistently ranked along w. the BCSers in conf rpi and sent numerous teams to the postseason.

drsnell, in Big Sky-Allen we've been pretty dominant the last couple seasons. Last season we sent four to the NT (three made the S16) and the season before it was six (with five winning at least one NT game).

I think that one of them got to an A after the draft, but not quite to a A+

You're right, I looked and both Delaware and UNCW peaked at A- (or perhaps A after the draft). That's a little sobering, to be honest.