Thanks, Benis. I'm sure there are lots of other examples of teams that have achieved greater success recently and are getting boned by baseline prestige.

I fully recognize that a school like St. Bonaventure winning a real life 'ship would not propel them to a prestige level like the traditional big dogs of NCAA basketball, but 40+ seasons of sustained success coupled with 40+ seasons of mediocrity from a blue blood HAS to narrow that gap at least a little.

I guess this discussion is slightly off-topic, but my answer the OP's question is 1. Start with a high baseline prestige. 2. Consistently make it past the 2nd round of the NT.

Posted by rugburn on 12/16/2021 4:25:00 PM (view original):
I've made an argument for years that baseline prestige should go away and all prestige should be dynamic with something like a 10-15 season range with more recent seasons having more weight in the final calculation. Too many around here would rather see a UNC for example maintain a high baseline to be tied more to real life, even if that UNC has been subpar for a long time while a lesser school as to just do more work to have the same baseline.

This is basically a fantasy game divergent from real life. Outside of the names of the schools and conferences, there should be no other connection.

Agreed! Baseline made a lot of sense when this game was first created. But a dynamic, weighted prestige system looking at more than the last 3-4 seasons makes way more sense at this stage in the game.

With that, A+ would both be easier to attain and harder to keep. There's no reason to punish a school forever because they were crap when HD started, and there's also no reason to reward a school forever because they were prestigious when HD started.

Man. Again?

In the eyes of CS, baseline is important. "I WOULD THINK" that in order to attract new users, we want the game to "appear" to be somewhat close to real life. Baseline prestige creates jobs that people want to work towards. Which is a very important part of our game in my opinion. Maybe not to every single coach that plays. But for the majority, it's an ideal process to get a job, do great, move up to a better job. That's what your average coach does in this game.

I don't really argue against like a 40 year program in HD having massive success, get a higher baseline. But here's my problem with it. What if the top 30 coaches in HD all go to small schools in a world for 40 seasons and dominate? Then we have all the Ivy league schools as A+ baseline and the power 6 schools are Bs and Cs........ sure there is a group of you out there that say "so what! That's cool!". But I don't think it's ideal for the game to look that way. For the long term success of the game (including bringing in future humans to play our game).

I DO agree that baseline could use "some" adjusting. But a complete overhaul of the system (or doing away with baseline since the game has been going for 20 real life years now) is not the right way to keep HD alive. We NEED Duke to be a desired job. We NEED Kansas to be a place that coaches earn the job.

We DON'T need Valparaiso to be a destination school. We DON'T thrive in the future if The Citadel is the premier job in a world.

I think when we sign up to coach a low D1 school, the challenge of making that school a perennial power school is part of the appeal. It's a beautiful thing. And should be difficult. In the case of Chapelhillne's Delaware, and many other low D1s that are super super elite, I'd be ok with an adjustment there. Something that made that job just a very little bit easier to sustain success, after reaching the highest level of NT success multiple times. But those programs should be the exception. Not the rule.

?I'm done harp'n now! Off my soap box

Posted by dillon_b12 on 12/16/2021 4:30:00 PM (view original):

Posted by rugburn on 12/16/2021 4:25:00 PM (view original):
I've made an argument for years that baseline prestige should go away and all prestige should be dynamic with something like a 10-15 season range with more recent seasons having more weight in the final calculation. Too many around here would rather see a UNC for example maintain a high baseline to be tied more to real life, even if that UNC has been subpar for a long time while a lesser school as to just do more work to have the same baseline.

This is basically a fantasy game divergent from real life. Outside of the names of the schools and conferences, there should be no other connection.

Agreed! Baseline made a lot of sense when this game was first created. But a dynamic, weighted prestige system looking at more than the last 3-4 seasons makes way more sense at this stage in the game.

With that, A+ would both be easier to attain and harder to keep. There's no reason to punish a school forever because they were crap when HD started, and there's also no reason to reward a school forever because they were prestigious when HD started.

"There's no reason to punish a school forever because they were crap when HD started, and there's also no reason to reward a school forever because they were prestigious when HD started."

There definitely is. And that's keeping the game as close to real life as possible. While allowing a few irregularities, enough to keep in interesting. That way new coaches see the game and want to play it.

personally, I feel like that is so much more important to the long term success of our game, than maybe anybody. If this game didn't look like real life, I'd never have showed much interest in it.

i've long favored a middle ground approach, too. i would go for a moderate floating baseline, something where like, original baseline starts as 100%, and eventually a school's baseline for prestige calculations is 50% original baseline (which never changes, or at least not by us) and 50% the last 25 seasons, 2% a piece.

obviously you could make it a little more interesting or whatever, but something along those lines i think would work out for schools on both ends of the spectrum. i think it lets the low end schools get a nice boost and for higher schools to dip bit or even a moderate amount, without things getting too far out of whack. if the timeframe is not crazy long (say, 25 seasons), there will be decent but gentle pressure for a reversion to mean.

balance is an issue though - a change like this would on the whole raise the prestige of d1 teams. there would be more high prestige teams and less differentiation. there might be good and bad effects from that, i'm not really taking a stance, but it seems important.

My hope has always been:
Top 6 confs: all 72 teams have prestige of A.
Next tier of 6 confs: all 72 have prestige of B.
Next tier of 6 confs: all 72 have prestige of C.
Bottom 9 confs: all 108 have prestige of D.

With fixed prestige, not floating.

Except A+ goes to historic bluebloods of:
- UCLA (11 NC, 18 FF),
- Kentucky (8, 17),
- UNC (6, 20),
- Indiana (5, 8),
- Duke (5, 16),
- Kansas (3, 15),
- (add UConn (4, 5) if you think each power conference should have at least one A+ school).

Generally, why should Pitt (1 Final Four, in 1941) or Boston College (0 Final Fours) hold a prestige advantage over Providence (2 Final Fours), since these schools have continuous highs and lows. Again, create conference tiers, but each conference school shares the same prestige.

Group A :
Big East, B1G, ACC, SEC, Big-12, Pac-12.

Group B:
A-10, Horizon, C-USA, MWC, MVC, WCC.

Group C:
Big West, MAC, CAA, Ivy, OVC, Sun Belt.

Group D:
Bottom 9 conferences.
NEC, MAAC, MEAC, Southland, Patriot, Southern, Big Sky, Summit, Big South.

Fixed Conference prestige, along the lines of npb’s suggestion.

Floating 25-40 season “baseline”.

Add coach prestige.

Done.

Posted by topdogggbm on 12/16/2021 8:46:00 PM (view original):
Man. Again?

In the eyes of CS, baseline is important. "I WOULD THINK" that in order to attract new users, we want the game to "appear" to be somewhat close to real life. Baseline prestige creates jobs that people want to work towards. Which is a very important part of our game in my opinion. Maybe not to every single coach that plays. But for the majority, it's an ideal process to get a job, do great, move up to a better job. That's what your average coach does in this game.

I don't really argue against like a 40 year program in HD having massive success, get a higher baseline. But here's my problem with it. What if the top 30 coaches in HD all go to small schools in a world for 40 seasons and dominate? Then we have all the Ivy league schools as A+ baseline and the power 6 schools are Bs and Cs........ sure there is a group of you out there that say "so what! That's cool!". But I don't think it's ideal for the game to look that way. For the long term success of the game (including bringing in future humans to play our game).

I DO agree that baseline could use "some" adjusting. But a complete overhaul of the system (or doing away with baseline since the game has been going for 20 real life years now) is not the right way to keep HD alive. We NEED Duke to be a desired job. We NEED Kansas to be a place that coaches earn the job.

We DON'T need Valparaiso to be a destination school. We DON'T thrive in the future if The Citadel is the premier job in a world.

I think when we sign up to coach a low D1 school, the challenge of making that school a perennial power school is part of the appeal. It's a beautiful thing. And should be difficult. In the case of Chapelhillne's Delaware, and many other low D1s that are super super elite, I'd be ok with an adjustment there. Something that made that job just a very little bit easier to sustain success, after reaching the highest level of NT success multiple times. But those programs should be the exception. Not the rule.

?I'm done harp'n now! Off my soap box

This is basically my opinion as well. I think the game in more attractive to new users (and, well, me) if the teams we expect are generally near the top. It's not impossible to crawl up the ranks with a lower baseline but it's hard which I like. To me, the introduction of job firing logic also goes a long way to leveling the playing field as bad coaches cant just camp in the good baseline jobs.

At the same time, I think the baseline should be published on the job hiring so its not a surprise to anyone what they are dealing with. I would also support the ability for teams with consistently elite performance (the delware st and bonnies talked about in this thread are good example) to better "stretch" beyond their baseline. Billy's suggestion would work for me also but mostly I don't want to change the mechanics for the outliners.

Posted by chapelhillne on 12/16/2021 2:12:00 PM (view original):
Baseline makes a BIG Difference - This is Delaware State. I feel like in a case like this, Baseline should become higher once a certain level of success has been achieved long term. It even dropped from A+ to A with a Final 4.

176	chapelhillne	26-4	8-0	16-2	2-2	16-0	11	16	75	B+	Conf Champion NT At-large Bid NT (2nd Round)
175	chapelhillne	21-9	8-2	11-5	2-2	11-5		39	50	A-	NT At-large Bid NT (1st Round)
174	chapelhillne	21-8	6-3	14-3	1-2	12-4	23	21	42	A	Conf Champion NT At-large Bid NT (1st Round)
173	chapelhillne	32-2	11-0	14-1	7-1	15-1	3	4	21	A	Conf Champion CT Champion NT (Final Four)
172	chapelhillne	28-6	7-2	14-3	7-1	14-2	4	2	2	A+	Conf Champion CT Champion NT (Final Four)
171	chapelhillne	28-5	9-1	13-3	6-1	15-1	6	7	21	A+	Conf Champion CT Champion NT (Elite 8)
170	chapelhillne	20-11	7-2	10-7	3-2	11-5		30	20	A+	NT At-large Bid NT (2nd Round)
169	chapelhillne	30-5	11-1	11-3	8-1	14-2	1	1	1	A+	Conf Champion NT At-large Bid National Champion
168	chapelhillne	34-1	9-0	16-1	9-0	16-0	1	1	13	A	Conf Champion CT Champion National Champion
167	chapelhillne	28-3	9-0	15-2	4-1	15-1	6	4	12	A-	Conf Champion CT Champion NT (2nd Round)
166	chapelhillne	16-13	6-4	9-7	1-2	11-5		39	11	A	NT At-large Bid NT (1st Round)
165	chapelhillne	33-2	12-0	13-1	8-1	16-0	2	2	12	A	Conf Champion CT Champion NT (Championship Game)
164	chapelhillne	33-1	10-0	16-0	7-1	16-0	2	3	36	A-	Conf Champion CT Champion NT (Final Four)
163	chapelhillne	31-2	13-0	12-1	6-1	15-1	4	3	18	A-	Conf Champion CT Champion NT (Elite 8)
162	chapelhillne	25-6	8-1	13-4	4-1	14-2	14	12	33	A	CT Champion NT (2nd Round)
161	chapelhillne	30-3	11-0	13-2	6-1	14-2	7	5	27	A	Conf Champion CT Champion NT (Elite 8)
160	chapelhillne	25-6	12-1	9-4	4-1	15-1	13	15	30	A	Conf Champion CT Champion NT (2nd Round)
159	chapelhillne	32-3	8-0	15-3	9-0	15-1	1	1	6	A	Conf Champion CT Champion National Champion
158	chapelhillne	23-8	8-3	11-4	4-1	16-0		37	62	B+	Conf Champion CT Champion NT (2nd Round)
157	chapelhillne	24-9	8-4	10-4	6-1	15-1	22	43	76	B	Conf Champion CT Champion NT (Elite 8)
156	chapelhillne	29-3	9-0	15-2	5-1	15-1	17	22	82	B-	Conf Champion CT Champion NT (Sweet 16)
155	chapelhillne	28-2	8-0	18-0	2-2	16-0	15	29	136	C	Conf Champion NT At-large Bid NT (1st Round)

I totally agree with this. I think there should be some way to move your baseline prestige up a small amount.

i mostly agree with it too, but at the same time - with a meaningfully improved baseline there - is DSU still DSU? i totally get the appeal of the rags to riches, but i also get the appeal of trying to succeed with a low major or mid major, or of trying to build a power conference from such teams.

one other thought, the upward pressure exerted on the coaching pool does help keep lower conferences and divisions from having experienced coaches plopped there on overly lofty perches. i think those perches are best suited for the high baseline schools, myself. if someone wants to lord over a D prestige conference with A+ prestige and A+ prestige recruits, i am fine with that, but i'm also fine making them really earn it!

Posted by topdogggbm on 12/16/2021 8:51:00 PM (view original):

Posted by dillon_b12 on 12/16/2021 4:30:00 PM (view original):

Posted by rugburn on 12/16/2021 4:25:00 PM (view original):
I've made an argument for years that baseline prestige should go away and all prestige should be dynamic with something like a 10-15 season range with more recent seasons having more weight in the final calculation. Too many around here would rather see a UNC for example maintain a high baseline to be tied more to real life, even if that UNC has been subpar for a long time while a lesser school as to just do more work to have the same baseline.

This is basically a fantasy game divergent from real life. Outside of the names of the schools and conferences, there should be no other connection.

Agreed! Baseline made a lot of sense when this game was first created. But a dynamic, weighted prestige system looking at more than the last 3-4 seasons makes way more sense at this stage in the game.

With that, A+ would both be easier to attain and harder to keep. There's no reason to punish a school forever because they were crap when HD started, and there's also no reason to reward a school forever because they were prestigious when HD started.

"There's no reason to punish a school forever because they were crap when HD started, and there's also no reason to reward a school forever because they were prestigious when HD started."

There definitely is. And that's keeping the game as close to real life as possible. While allowing a few irregularities, enough to keep in interesting. That way new coaches see the game and want to play it.

personally, I feel like that is so much more important to the long term success of our game, than maybe anybody. If this game didn't look like real life, I'd never have showed much interest in it.

I definitely fall in the "so what! That's cool!" camp you mentioned in a previous reply.

I fully understand the challenge of bringing a perennial WIS bottom feeder to near elite levels. See Phelan A-10. Started as a turd conference with turd schools. Now, it has produced 2 national championships in the last 9 seasons. It IS fun. It is also maddening when you know you are, and will forever be, penalized for being at that lower level school.

I find it hard to believe that any significant number of players wouldn't join if the blue bloods were no longer elite. If that's the case, I guess we should all hope fans of blue blood schools are the only new users joining.

I am a Louisville fan. If I joined a world and Louisville had been run into the ground, it would be my mission to get them back to some semblance of elite. But, as you mentioned, that's just me personally.

Also, as a UofL fan, please do not make WIS more like real life. I can not handle any more sanctions/scandals.

The A10 is in between. So that's kinda tough to debate. But I understand your point. But here's my (personal opinion) counter argument........

Our WCC conference in Rupp, is 10 seasons into our build as a group. We have two F4s (Gonzaga and my Portland team) and various other S16 and E8 runs from other coaches. The last 4 seasons in conference rpi, we've been 2nd, 1st, 3rd, and right now I believe we are 3rd currently. I would say it's "Low D1 conference #1 or #2" in all of HD. (The Tark conference with Chaps Delaware team is the #1 or #2 whichever we are not!). Having said that....... what we've accomplished IS the fun part. The challenge. The constant pressure on not failing even ONE recruiting class.

If that was the norm, and now Gonzaga, Portland, and other good schools in our conference were A+'s now, would I care as much about what we've done? No. Not at all. Because now we're just a normal ol group. There's no satisfaction in it.

As you stated, you are of a different perspective than I am. Which is completely fine! But I do believe if I just found WifS today, and was looking into getting involved and I looked at the NT and saw a bunch of ivy league schools and WCC schools and Sun Belt schools all with top 4 seeds, and the NT bracket LITERALLY looked like a CT of a small conference in real life, I'd have lost interest and not given it a try. THAT'S JUST ME, not everyone. But when I looked and saw "oh cool, 5 big 10 teams made the E8 but UCLA ended up beating them all", that peaks my interest. I know what I'm looking at and it seems cool to me.

We all go round and around. But that's my viewpoint on selling the game to new users. I likely wouldn't have even given the game a chance myself.

edit...... wow long azz sentence in there!

Also I'd like to add that the low D1 tark conference that kicks butt, I've always viewed that as THE premier non power 6 group. They have title(s). We in WCC/Rupp do not. But there was a comment made by gil or Chap (I forget which one) stating that they consistently finish above a big 6 conference each year. That's fantastic!

But I'm hoping we're gaining some traction on that group, as we routinely finish above MOST big 6 conferences each year! So we're slowly trying to gain the credibility too!

Any no offense to any other low D1 conference that is doing big things! I just maybe haven't noticed you yet. Keep on making noise!

Posted by topdogggbm on 12/21/2021 10:09:00 PM (view original):
Also I'd like to add that the low D1 tark conference that kicks butt, I've always viewed that as THE premier non power 6 group. They have title(s). We in WCC/Rupp do not. But there was a comment made by gil or Chap (I forget which one) stating that they consistently finish above a big 6 conference each year. That's fantastic!

But I'm hoping we're gaining some traction on that group, as we routinely finish above MOST big 6 conferences each year! So we're slowly trying to gain the credibility too!

Any no offense to any other low D1 conference that is doing big things! I just maybe haven't noticed you yet. Keep on making noise!

Hey that’s us!

Even if it’s being known as “chap or Gil’s” conference (now home to both of them so either works), it’s cool to pop in the forums every so often and see us in Tark MEAC being mentioned.

It sounds like we share similar goals. We’ve finished 1st several times in conference RPI (as well as top 2-3 multiple times), we’ve had teams win/make the NC, and put most of our teams into the postseason in a single season (I’m not sure what our personal bests are there). We’ve had countless many of the top HD coaches leave and we remain a really, really strong unit.

Keep crushing it over in the WCC and I’m excited to e see your successes grow as a conference!

I think the best season we had in the MEAC was placing 7 teams in the NT and 9 in the post season.

I am kind of in-between on the arguments for keeping it like it is and totally doing away with it. Maybe if the lowest baseline was a C, or if we have floating baselines, perhaps they can't float too far. So, for example, a D baseline like Delaware State could only float upwards to like a B or B-, and maybe it is based on a 10 year period with the most recent 2-3 seasons having the most weight so that it fluctuates back to the norm more quickly. And maybe a Syracuse or UNC can only float down as far as a B baseline. So conceivably if they had a number of bad seasons in a row, they could get as low as a D prestige, but it would not take too long to get them back up to par. And perhaps with a coaching change, the baseline is adjusted in that range based on the coach prestige. So, if the baseline of North Carolina has dropped to a B, and the coach gets fired, and then an elite coach takes over, the baseline resets to A+. And if the actual prestige has dropped to a D, it goes up by about the same amount, like to C+ or something.