Posted by drsnell on 7/17/2011 2:19:00 AM (view original):
Wooden holds its championship game tonight and for the 16th straight season the national champion is going to be from either the Big 12 or the Big East. In those sixteen seasons only 4 schools from other conferences have even played for the national title.
This season the Big 12/Big East have combined to earn almost 44% of the National Tournament money. That's 7 percent of the teams earning 44% of the money. It's essentially like this every season, with these two conferences getting the lion's share (or the whole pride's share) of tournament money, then getting the best recruits, then dominating the tournament again the next year. Rinse, repeat.
I'm in one other world, Smith, and in that world the SEC is the Superconference. Now, there is no other monster conference in that world, so despite the fact that the SEC dominates in Conference RPI every year and brings in an astounding haul in tournament money every year, they just don't have enough members to take every single great recruit, and so other schools are able to find success. Still, the pattern is consistent with what's happening in Smith.
It seems to me that when the recruit generation changed, that the conferences who were currently on top were able to use that advantage to create a stranglehold on D1 -- one that seems almost impossible to break.
I can only see Wooden and Smith. Is this true in other worlds?
Some time ago I did a little research and from the time a world "matured" (which is to say that humans had controlled all the A+ baseline programs for at least a few years) to the time that the new prospect generation was instituted, 15% of teams that battled for the national title where from non-BCS conferences in Wooden and Smith. Now, one might argue that number is too high, but I'll argue that 0% is definitely too low. First, it's not realistic. We've had 3 mid-major teams make the Final Four in the last 2 seasons in the NCAA. Can any mid-major make a Final Four in HD anymore? It sure seems impossible in Smith and Wooden. And that's the 2nd reason why 0% is too low a number for non-BCS schools. It's driving coaches away from the game.
I'd say that if recruit generation does not change, that I could make a list of 30 schools in Wooden that have a chance to win the national championship in the next 10 seasons. The rest do not. Perhaps I am too conservative, 30 may be too many. The rest are just cannon fodder. No wonder D1 is becoming a vast wasteland -- it's not fun to know that you have no chance to win. And that's the real reason this is a problem -- it's costing WIS money.
We can argue back and forth about what the game should be like, but in the final analysis, the game that attracts the most players -- and makes the most money -- should be WIS's goal. Right now the elitist nature of the current game is driving coaches away, and the maddening thing to me is, it's happening precisely at the time when the real life game couldn't be more populist.
What If Sports: What if Butler, Virginia Commenwealth or George Mason were able to make the Final Four? Oh yeah, they really are able to make the Final Four -- just not in this game.
I really enjoy this game. I like a lot about the new(ish) engine. But I can't believe this major issue has not been corrected.
I will say, conference wins which drop your RPI more than 10 points are pretty ridiculous, especially when there can be 6-8 games like that in a lower D-1 division conference. Not realistic, nor enticing to stay in the lower conference.