When everyone's an A+, no one's an A+ Topic

Smith DI now has 14 A+ prestiges.  Doesn't that seem like a little much?  14 RL Dukes?  For one school, all it took in 6 seasons was 3 first-round NT exits and 2 second-round exits, with only two ranked seasons at #17 and 19.  So: a team can never make the Sweet 16, never even sniff the top 10, and still be considered by fans and players the ultimate pinnacle of NCAA basketball achievement?  14 A+'s?  Really?

Can we please finally fix prestige?
6/28/2011 8:41 PM
Jeff, I debate this all the time w. a buddy of mine who plays HD. He takes your side, and I play devil's advocate, which goes a little something like this:

If prestige worked more like real life and there were significantly fewer teams with elite prestige, it would be horrible for HD. The elite prestige teams would absolutely destroy everyone. It would be the ultimate rich-get-richer scenario.
6/28/2011 10:51 PM
Also, don't forget that there's a pretty decent range within A+.
6/29/2011 6:36 AM
Posted by jeffdrayer on 6/28/2011 8:41:00 PM (view original):
Smith DI now has 14 A+ prestiges.  Doesn't that seem like a little much?  14 RL Dukes?  For one school, all it took in 6 seasons was 3 first-round NT exits and 2 second-round exits, with only two ranked seasons at #17 and 19.  So: a team can never make the Sweet 16, never even sniff the top 10, and still be considered by fans and players the ultimate pinnacle of NCAA basketball achievement?  14 A+'s?  Really?

Can we please finally fix prestige?
I do agree with your example there -- that particular team shouldn't be A+. I'm guessing it's one of the college basketball bluebloods.

Although if Duke went through a four-season stretch with two first rounds and two second rounds, would they not be elite (A+) any more? I think they still would be. Just a thought.
6/29/2011 6:39 AM
Well, that's a fair argument, though the situation now is that a small group of the rich get richer, rather than just one or two. But the example I mentioned -- Illinois -- in the 45 seasons before my example, they made 14 NTs: 5 1st rounds, 3 2nds, 3 s16 and 3 e8. They are 84th all-time in winning %, with more losing than winning seasons. If Duke did that, and then in the year 2056 we said, well, they've made the first or second round 5 of the last 6 years, no one would be saying how they'd finally reascended back their original glory of a half-century ago.

Why not finally do away with baseline prestige for schools, but keep it for conferences? It would still maintain the order of the game -- there would never be a world where the Metro constantly dominated the ACC -- but would still allow for gonzagas, while also allowing for the fact than in some worlds, Florida state would, through years of hard work and success, simply be a more desirable destination than Duke? A BCS could never fall below C- still, but which BCS school became an A+ would finally be decided by results and by history, rather than the world's opinion in the RL equivalent of 1960.
6/29/2011 7:42 AM
Posted by jeffdrayer on 6/29/2011 7:42:00 AM (view original):
Well, that's a fair argument, though the situation now is that a small group of the rich get richer, rather than just one or two. But the example I mentioned -- Illinois -- in the 45 seasons before my example, they made 14 NTs: 5 1st rounds, 3 2nds, 3 s16 and 3 e8. They are 84th all-time in winning %, with more losing than winning seasons. If Duke did that, and then in the year 2056 we said, well, they've made the first or second round 5 of the last 6 years, no one would be saying how they'd finally reascended back their original glory of a half-century ago.

Why not finally do away with baseline prestige for schools, but keep it for conferences? It would still maintain the order of the game -- there would never be a world where the Metro constantly dominated the ACC -- but would still allow for gonzagas, while also allowing for the fact than in some worlds, Florida state would, through years of hard work and success, simply be a more desirable destination than Duke? A BCS could never fall below C- still, but which BCS school became an A+ would finally be decided by results and by history, rather than the world's opinion in the RL equivalent of 1960.
+1 good idea
6/29/2011 10:32 AM
Awesome idea.  Anything to fix the problem of results not mattering enough at D1.  And when i say results, I mean 20 seasons of results at a Colorado that are sweet 16 level should not equal every other year NT 1st round exit at UNC, but it does. 
6/29/2011 11:33 AM
Posted by jeffdrayer on 6/29/2011 7:42:00 AM (view original):
Well, that's a fair argument, though the situation now is that a small group of the rich get richer, rather than just one or two. But the example I mentioned -- Illinois -- in the 45 seasons before my example, they made 14 NTs: 5 1st rounds, 3 2nds, 3 s16 and 3 e8. They are 84th all-time in winning %, with more losing than winning seasons. If Duke did that, and then in the year 2056 we said, well, they've made the first or second round 5 of the last 6 years, no one would be saying how they'd finally reascended back their original glory of a half-century ago.

Why not finally do away with baseline prestige for schools, but keep it for conferences? It would still maintain the order of the game -- there would never be a world where the Metro constantly dominated the ACC -- but would still allow for gonzagas, while also allowing for the fact than in some worlds, Florida state would, through years of hard work and success, simply be a more desirable destination than Duke? A BCS could never fall below C- still, but which BCS school became an A+ would finally be decided by results and by history, rather than the world's opinion in the RL equivalent of 1960.
Since I just took over Florida State in Smith last season I couldn't agree more.

On a more seriours note I agree 100% with what your saying about the teams having prestige based on results.
6/29/2011 3:04 PM
I would just like to see baseline prestige evolve over time.  Very, very slowly.  But over the course of, say, 10 years in which only 3 are winning seasons and without any S16s, a team could maybe see an A- baseline fall down to a B or so.  And after another 10 years maybe a B- or C+.  You could still say that BCS schools can never drop below a C+ or something like that if you wanted.
6/29/2011 5:21 PM
fill any world at any level with humans and you'll soon no longer have 14 A+ programs. Treat the cause, not the... well you know
6/29/2011 5:30 PM
Posted by jeffdrayer on 6/29/2011 7:42:00 AM (view original):
Well, that's a fair argument, though the situation now is that a small group of the rich get richer, rather than just one or two. But the example I mentioned -- Illinois -- in the 45 seasons before my example, they made 14 NTs: 5 1st rounds, 3 2nds, 3 s16 and 3 e8. They are 84th all-time in winning %, with more losing than winning seasons. If Duke did that, and then in the year 2056 we said, well, they've made the first or second round 5 of the last 6 years, no one would be saying how they'd finally reascended back their original glory of a half-century ago.

Why not finally do away with baseline prestige for schools, but keep it for conferences? It would still maintain the order of the game -- there would never be a world where the Metro constantly dominated the ACC -- but would still allow for gonzagas, while also allowing for the fact than in some worlds, Florida state would, through years of hard work and success, simply be a more desirable destination than Duke? A BCS could never fall below C- still, but which BCS school became an A+ would finally be decided by results and by history, rather than the world's opinion in the RL equivalent of 1960.
+1, sounds like a great idea.
6/29/2011 6:45 PM
Love it +1
6/29/2011 7:55 PM
Posted by jeffdrayer on 6/29/2011 7:42:00 AM (view original):
Well, that's a fair argument, though the situation now is that a small group of the rich get richer, rather than just one or two. But the example I mentioned -- Illinois -- in the 45 seasons before my example, they made 14 NTs: 5 1st rounds, 3 2nds, 3 s16 and 3 e8. They are 84th all-time in winning %, with more losing than winning seasons. If Duke did that, and then in the year 2056 we said, well, they've made the first or second round 5 of the last 6 years, no one would be saying how they'd finally reascended back their original glory of a half-century ago.

Why not finally do away with baseline prestige for schools, but keep it for conferences? It would still maintain the order of the game -- there would never be a world where the Metro constantly dominated the ACC -- but would still allow for gonzagas, while also allowing for the fact than in some worlds, Florida state would, through years of hard work and success, simply be a more desirable destination than Duke? A BCS could never fall below C- still, but which BCS school became an A+ would finally be decided by results and by history, rather than the world's opinion in the RL equivalent of 1960.
Re: paragraph 1: Well, no, not really. Right now you have teams at A+ that should be 1/3 for a grade (or more) lower. But the same goes for teams who are A and A-. The result is that you have the majority of BCS schools clumped into a small handful of letter grades. This serves to limit the advantage of the higher schools. If it were more spread out, the advantage would be more pronounced, and there would basically be no one at all who could challenge the top schools. I truly think it would be a major step back.

Re: paragraph 2: Yes, I basically agree with this. Do away with baseline, have some tie in with conference to keep things a bit normalized. Would be a major improvement.
6/29/2011 10:12 PM
Posted by girt25 on 6/28/2011 10:51:00 PM (view original):
Jeff, I debate this all the time w. a buddy of mine who plays HD. He takes your side, and I play devil's advocate, which goes a little something like this:

If prestige worked more like real life and there were significantly fewer teams with elite prestige, it would be horrible for HD. The elite prestige teams would absolutely destroy everyone. It would be the ultimate rich-get-richer scenario.

It may not be exactly true that the very few elite teams would end-up dominating. I don't to know much about the current state of upper-level DI recruiting, but as long as the amount of high quality recruits remained larger than the capacity of those few elite teams then the B prestige schools would still have the opportunities to compete against them. To me, it would seem that having 14 A+ prestige schools would be more likely to create the rich-get-richer situation you previously hinted at because the player capacity of 14 teams is much greater than that of 6 or 7 teams.    

6/30/2011 12:01 AM
Eliminate the prestige bump for NBA draft picks and the prestige would be more result based....too many times teams get a full letter jump from this bad idea.
6/30/2011 11:22 AM
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