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Post by HLFanaticus on May 5, 2015 21:38:56 GMT -6
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cr45
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Posts: 4 
Team: Milwaukee Panthers
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Post by cr45 on May 5, 2015 22:28:56 GMT -6
That be a huge mistake.
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Post by oklahoma on May 6, 2015 8:13:48 GMT -6
Huge mistake.
1. It's been mentioned on this forum as well as forums around the league that HL fans don't travel well. If the tournament is at the host university, at least the stadium will be filled by that school.
2. Whatever happened to giving the 1st seed and your best team an advantage? It's more import now that ever since the league is now 1 bid. Come one HL send the best representative to try and win a NCAA game.
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Post by commissioner on May 6, 2015 14:32:35 GMT -6
Huge mistake. 2. Whatever happened to giving the 1st seed and your best team an advantage? It's more import now that ever since the league is now 1 bid. Come one HL send the best representative to try and win a NCAA game. Depends on how you want to play your cards. I wrote this on the DetroitTitansHoops.com Board Not getting much attention around the boards is what this might mean for the league's NCAA hopes. To the extent that that issue is garnering comments, it seems to be uniformly that this makes it less likely that the Horizon will send its top team to the dance. Certainly you do want your best team in the dance, and most years that will be the regular season champ (I'm not sure that was true this year, though, and in 2012 Detroit was easily the league's best team by tournament time - but the offset in 2012 was that the regular season champ Valpo might have gotten a better seed, even if Detroit was a better team in March). But this can also really be a plus for Horizon chances. Let's start with the assumption - that I think is correct -that the Horizon's best chance for 2 bids is to have the league champ lose in the conference final (that's also our best chance for 3 bids, frankly!). Let's further say that for the foreseeable future, that is our only chance of getting a second bid (our last team not seeded #1 in the league tournament to get an at-large bid was Butler in 2007, which tied with Wright State for the regular season title but was seeded #2 in the league tournament and lost the final to Wright State; before that you go back to 1998, with co-champs Detroit (seeded #1) and UIC (seeded #2) both got bids after 3rd place Butler won the tournament. No MCC/Horizon team that was not at least co-champ in the regular season has ever gotten an at-large bid; but 7 other regular season champs have gotten bids after losing in the tournament, most recently Butler in 2009). By making it less likely that the regular season champ wins the tournament, it is more likely that the league gets that second bid by having a champ without the auto bid. But there's more - it also makes it more likely that if the regular season champion loses in the tournament, it will get that at-large bid. Why? Because it will have a better NCAA resume. With the current set-up, if the league champ loses in the tournament, it is a home loss. With the neutral site, it will be a neutral loss. The former is more damaging to the RPI. Additionally, if the regular season champ wins any tournament games, those would be on a neutral floor, which are more valuable than home wins to the RPI, plus the Selection Committee looks closely for road/neutral wins anyway. So a regular season champ that loses in the tourney final comes out ahead on both the semifinal win and the loss in the final vis playing the tournament at home. In other words, playing on a neutral site increases the odds that we will have a team (our regular season champ) in contention for an at-large bid, and improves the resume of that team when considered for an at-large bid. It's not out of the realm of possibility that Green Bay would have received an at-large bid last year (2014) in that scenario. (Before we went to the current format in 2003, our regular season champ lost in the tournament and got an at-large bid in 1989, 1990, 1993, 1995, 1996, and 1998 - granted the league was better then). Further, for the same reasons, if the regular season champ wins the tournament, the wins on a neutral floor will do more to help its seeding than the same wins on their home floor. In game theory terms, the current Horizon League Tournament format is a maxi-min strategy, with the league seeking to maximize its position in its worst case scenario. A neutral site would move the toward a maxi-max strategy, in which you attempt to maximize your best case scenario. That may be a good trade off. |
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a3uge
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Posts: 4
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Post by a3uge on May 6, 2015 20:02:02 GMT -6
Huge mistake. 2. Whatever happened to giving the 1st seed and your best team an advantage? It's more import now that ever since the league is now 1 bid. Come one HL send the best representative to try and win a NCAA game. Depends on how you want to play your cards. I wrote this on the DetroitTitansHoops.com Board Not getting much attention around the boards is what this might mean for the league's NCAA hopes. To the extent that that issue is garnering comments, it seems to be uniformly that this makes it less likely that the Horizon will send its top team to the dance. Certainly you do want your best team in the dance, and most years that will be the regular season champ (I'm not sure that was true this year, though, and in 2012 Detroit was easily the league's best team by tournament time - but the offset in 2012 was that the regular season champ Valpo might have gotten a better seed, even if Detroit was a better team in March). But this can also really be a plus for Horizon chances. Let's start with the assumption - that I think is correct -that the Horizon's best chance for 2 bids is to have the league champ lose in the conference final (that's also our best chance for 3 bids, frankly!). Let's further say that for the foreseeable future, that is our only chance of getting a second bid (our last team not seeded #1 in the league tournament to get an at-large bid was Butler in 2007, which tied with Wright State for the regular season title but was seeded #2 in the league tournament and lost the final to Wright State; before that you go back to 1998, with co-champs Detroit (seeded #1) and UIC (seeded #2) both got bids after 3rd place Butler won the tournament. No MCC/Horizon team that was not at least co-champ in the regular season has ever gotten an at-large bid; but 7 other regular season champs have gotten bids after losing in the tournament, most recently Butler in 2009). By making it less likely that the regular season champ wins the tournament, it is more likely that the league gets that second bid by having a champ without the auto bid. But there's more - it also makes it more likely that if the regular season champion loses in the tournament, it will get that at-large bid. Why? Because it will have a better NCAA resume. With the current set-up, if the league champ loses in the tournament, it is a home loss. With the neutral site, it will be a neutral loss. The former is more damaging to the RPI. Additionally, if the regular season champ wins any tournament games, those would be on a neutral floor, which are more valuable than home wins to the RPI, plus the Selection Committee looks closely for road/neutral wins anyway. So a regular season champ that loses in the tourney final comes out ahead on both the semifinal win and the loss in the final vis playing the tournament at home. In other words, playing on a neutral site increases the odds that we will have a team (our regular season champ) in contention for an at-large bid, and improves the resume of that team when considered for an at-large bid. It's not out of the realm of possibility that Green Bay would have received an at-large bid last year (2014) in that scenario. (Before we went to the current format in 2003, our regular season champ lost in the tournament and got an at-large bid in 1989, 1990, 1993, 1995, 1996, and 1998 - granted the league was better then). Further, for the same reasons, if the regular season champ wins the tournament, the wins on a neutral floor will do more to help its seeding than the same wins on their home floor. In game theory terms, the current Horizon League Tournament format is a maxi-min strategy, with the league seeking to maximize its position in its worst case scenario. A neutral site would move the toward a maxi-max strategy, in which you attempt to maximize your best case scenario. That may be a good trade off. The differece a home loss vs a neutral court loss has on RPI is minimal at the end of the year, and I doubt is the difference between an at-large and the nit. We're talking about only a couple of points. I do agree that the top team would be more likely to lose, creating a chance for an at large, but outside of Butler, the horizon hasn't been in that situation. But A chance at 1 vs 2 becomes more rare with this format anyways since the odds of the 1 seed losing a round earlier is increased. Also Butler never missed an at large because of this format. I was a big fan of the format from the moment Valpo came into the league, despite not being a contender. It was intuitive and influential to other leagues that adopted this format. The horizon seems like it has found a solution in search of a problem here. Really doesn't make sense. |
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Post by oklahoma on May 7, 2015 10:05:53 GMT -6
A couple points here.
1. This means that when we win the regular season the reward will be a trip to Detroit where we will be the visiting team to possibly two home teams, Detroit in the semi-finals and Oakland in the finals. "Thanks for nothing!"
2. Detroit and OU will have recruiting classes that will never have to play an "away" tournament game for their entire careers.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2015 10:15:07 GMT -6
A couple points here. 1. This means that when we win the regular season the reward will be a trip to Detroit where we will be the visiting team to possibly two home teams, Detroit in the semi-finals and Oakland in the finals. "Thanks for nothing!" 2. Detroit and OU will have recruiting classes that will never have to play an "away" tournament game for their entire careers. There always has to be some give and take. Maybe, in the long run, this will be a good thing. Detroit City needed something that would get them back on the map. All of the other conferences have their tournaments already locked into cities. They figured if they give the Horizon League some money, maybe we can get them. The promise was obviously playing tourney games in the new JLA. That's not all bad. Granted the League will have to endure possibly a near empty Arena in the beginning, and unjust home court advantage for Oakland and Detroit, but, as much as I was initially against it, it just might turn out to be a good thing. If our schools begin to put some above average product on the courts and get some good television positioning, we could be the next MVC (yeah, I know, I said it. Like we aspire to be like them...) Just give it some time. And if Valpo gets to "The Joe" both probable games between Detroit and Oakland, will be well attended and hopefully games where two bids are decided. |
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Post by commissioner on May 7, 2015 13:41:17 GMT -6
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Post by oklahoma12 on May 7, 2015 14:20:55 GMT -6
What about the recruiting advantage that Oakland and Detroit now have the one recruiting advantage Valpo just lost?
3 out of 4 years and a decent chance for 4 out of 5 years being at Valpo. Having a recruit on campus to watch the HL championship game on ESPN 2 in front of a good home crowd has landed us some good recruits.
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Post by HLFanaticus on May 7, 2015 14:29:11 GMT -6
It's going to be tough for fans to stay, say Friday, Saturday and Sunday only to go home before the Championship game. It's tough to make it an entire week instead of a weekend. The HL will probably have to rethink having the Championship on a Tuesday.
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Post by kevinudm on May 8, 2015 9:55:41 GMT -6
I was initially skeptical of moving the Horizon League Tournament to a fixed site. But the more I think about it, the more sense it makes.
- Only rinky-dink conferences host their tournaments at campus sites: Beyond the HL, the other conferences using campus sites for their 2015 tournaments were the America East, Atlantic Sun, Big Sky, Northeast and Patriot. Not the company we want to keep. If the HL wants to be a mid-major conference, it needs to act like one.
- Benefits of a pre-determined tournament site: Better press coverage, more associated events. If the title game location is not determined until the semis have been played there is no chance to organize ancillary events and there will be fewer press resources assigned to cover it.
- Eliminate the possibility of lousy facilities and non-central locations: What would it say about the conference if the HL championship were held at the O’rena? And how many non-Phoenix fans would be willing to make a last-minute trip to Green Bay in March?
- Two conference schools in close proximity: If Detroit and Oakland have average chances of progressing in the tournament, there’s a 69% chance that at least one of them will make the final four, and a 40% chance that one of them will play in the final. (That drops to 64% and 36% respectively if the HL expands to 10 tournament-eligible institutions.)
- Pre-eminent NCAA basketball event in the Detroit: Other reasonable locales for the HL tournament would be Chicago, Cleveland, Dayton, Indianapolis or Milwaukee. In each case the HL tournament would be less significant than other local NCAA basketball events: Chicago (some Big 10 Tournaments, Northwestern’s Big 10 games), Cleveland (MAC tournament), Dayton (NCAA First Four, U-Dayton A-10 games), Indianapolis (some Big 10 tournaments, Butler Big East games) or Milwaukee (Marquette Big East games). In Detroit, at least the HL tournament won’t be overshadowed.
- Outstanding host facility: Okay, Joe Louis is a mediocre place to watch a basketball game – but it’s still a step up from most HL campus sites. But moving into the brand new Detroit Events Center in two years will be really cool.
- Improved chances to become a multi-bid conference: As stated above, a neutral site tournament reduces the likelihood that the regular season champ will win the conference tournament. In a one bid league, this has the disadvantage of a potentially worse seeding for whoever wins the tournament. But if the regular season conference champ has the potential for an at large berth, this improves the chances of getting a second bid.
- Partnership with Olympia Entertainment: In the long run, this will be most significant element of the move. Up until now, Jon LeCrone and his staff of a part time admin and a trained monkey (yeah, I’m exaggerating – but his resources are very limited) have had little success in marketing the HL. But with Olympia we get a partner that is big and knows what it’s doing and is committed to selling events in Detroit. Expect to see dramatically improved marketing of the HL Tournament.
This move has the potential to be a major positive for the Horizon League. I'm looking forward to it.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 8, 2015 17:12:53 GMT -6
I agree kevin. Very well said. Let's just give it some time. I think the fans got a little spoiled with the way the tourney was set up before. I don't want to look it up, but the most times the HL had more than one team in the tourney was when we had one tourney location for all the games. With the HL being the ONLY college game in town in Detroit, I think it'll work...eventually. Early on there will probably be some glitches and some "I told you so's", but again, let's give it some time.
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