MudFlap

Agree again. Frightening.

BrownIndians85

What has Bonaventure done for the A-10 lately? 20 wins, won the conference title on CBS as the #4 seed. Played a compelling 1st round game against FSU. Will have a player drafted in the NBA first round at the end of the month. That's what we've done lately. In the previous 5 years we were a non-entity. In the 5 years previous to that we were a national joke. I don't think though that it reflected negatively on the A-10. SBU pretty much bore that out on its own.

This was a flawed scoring system and a futile exercise. When you think "Atlantic 10" you think of Temple and Xavier. So arguably those two have done the most for the conference lately. Hell, now when you hear Butler and VCU, you immediately think Atlantic 10... I would say Butler and VCU have done more for the Atlantic 10 "lately" than everyone currently in the conference.

A couple thoughts:

• A 20 win season means nothing without a postseason appearance - 0 points
• A 20 loss season doesn't hurt the conference since nobody is paying attention to you anyway - 0 points
• A conference title is great, no matter what team gets it, plus we're on national TV - 2 pts
• An NIT bid with national games on ESPN is not meaningless at all. It's not what our conference should strive for, but it is publicity, and good teams are in the NIT. - 1 point per game played, +1 for winning it all
• An NCAA bid is the goal. There is a ton of exposure for every team in the Dance and it helps the conference in perception and in $$. - 3 pts per game played, 3 pts for each win

I'd tally it for you, but I've already run out of energy. But I don't think any school should be penalized for poor seasons.. when you're irrelevant, you're irrelevant.

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paulxu

You may be way too rational for this particular thread.

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Bona Wolf for Pope

NIT Appearance: +500% inflation to perception of school's worth.
Final Four Run That's 30+ Years Old: 1 Historical Significance point per decade removed. Note: Historical Significance points are worthless.
20 Loss Season That is Not Preceded or Followed by Another 20 Loss Season: +5 Don't worry about it points.
NCAA Tournament Win: 1 "Suck it Dayton". Once this is used, it is forfeited. Can not be used as a non sequitur.

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jpschmack

Now this is what I'm talkin about with a formula that consistently applied could give some kind decent measure.


What's really funny is that NCAA violations are far less memorable than old tyme Final Fours.

Unless there's a significant reason to remember it, the only people who remember UD was on probation are Xavier fans.
The Bona welding certificate is a little more memorable, but I highly doubt the vast majority of non-A10 fans have any idea about it.

What's funny is that I've heard people say UMass' Final Four is brought up with mentions of Calipari. But it's only remained in people's awareness because Calipari had a Memphis Final Four vacated. Otherwise, it would be just as forgotten as Mississippi State's Final Four run.

HAHAHAHA

paulxu

We've got a lot of these for sale.

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MANGHAM

Lums...love the Harry Moore icon!

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Brown Indians forever

Knobby

Rational thinking has no place in a thread where a mythical grading system is being used to measure a purely subjective question.

My Team (fill in the blank) is awesome and your team (fill in the blacnk with everyone else) sucks because they are not my team.... and around we go.....

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UMass87

It is not purely subjective. It is largely subjective. It is certainly not irrelevant to the league and its members though it may be to the fans. The fact is that when the A10 tries to sell television rights, the potential buyers will make somewhat subjective decisions about the marketability of the A10. You can bet they will also try to quantify their thinking. The A10, like every conference, will receive money for the regional value of their teams. The big money, though, comes from the national value of the teams. That is why Temple leaving is so damaging - they are one of the few A10 teams with national appeal. It will never be the case that all (or even a majority) of the A10 teams have national appeal.

I don't think anyone disagrees that advancement in the NCAA tournament is the principal means by which a team garners national appeal. That is why Xavier and Temple have such marquee value for the league. What many fail to understand, though, is that other teams - Dayton in particular - are providing a very valuable service to the other members of the conference (including Xavier and Temple) by consistently winning 20+ games. The teams that win 20+ games improve the RPI of all of their conference mates which, in turn, increases the potential number of at-large bids. Conversely, losing 20+ games is very damaging to conference mates. I'm not sure why this concept is so hard for many to grasp.

I didn't start this thread as a "my school is great and your's sucks". That would be foolish since with my subjective (and if you read the thread, Knobby, you will see I never claimed it was anything other than subjective) metric UMass is one of the schools failing the conference.

Bona91

Agreed.

Knobby

I am not defending Umass at all here - they have been an epic failure on the "conference cotribution scale" in the last 10 years; and no, you didn't start the thread with the 'my school is awesome and your's sucks" comment. This thread has become that, but it did not start that way.

We could go around and around on this. Regardless of whether your scale is flawed or not, it doesn't matter; it based on your own contrived scale. You can ask 10,000 people and they will come up with 10,000 different ways to quantify what you are trying to quantify. Unless your current profession is "TV Executive Scheduling Boy" you don't know exactly what they are looking at in terms of "Conference Marketability". That is all it is - how many people with watch on TV.

I highly doubt that 20 win seasons are a lynch pin. To use your own argument, Dayton does have alot of 20 win seasons, but how many tourney appearences (and wins) has that correlated into? Very few, and for Umass - NONE. So, who gives a schidt about 20 wins... neither team has a tourney reputation.... Lots of conferences have 20 win teams that nobody gives a schidt about.

The timing of VCU and Butler could not have been better IMO. They bring THE thing that this conference needs... Tourney Buzz. We already have the most Non-BCS tournament appearences of all conferences in the last 5+ years and now are adding two teams that have made national headlines and final four appearences in the tourney in the last 3 years. TV boy is not looking at LaSalle and Fordham and saying YUK, Butler has to play TEHM - I am not inking them to anything... Every conference has a Fordham every year - somebody has to come in last and suck every year.... Usually however it rotates a little more than it does in the A-10.

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UMass87

Knobby - it amazes me that you still don't get it. Some number of at-large bids that the A10 gets are received in part because their conference mates who didn't get a bid still played well enough to help their brethren's RPI. Those teams' that got the bid had the opportunity to raise the profile of their program and the conference. Conversely, shitty performances, like UMass had under Lappas, screw the conference in terms of at-large bids. Why is this so difficult for you to get? Are you just obstinately disagreeing or do you really not believe this? Without Dayton's consistent 20-win seasons (and that is not just a random number - it means the worst winning percentage the team is likely to have is better than 0.600 which his beneficial to opponents) and other 20-game winners the A10 is not going to get more than one at-large bid. Shit, as good as Xavier has been, they have never had an outstanding OOC of the level of a Temple or UMass in the 90's (which is why their seeds are consistently lower than Xavier fans want). Xavier needs Dayton and every other A10 20-game winner it can get.

xudash

Temple and UMass must have had some extraordinary OOC match-ups back then.

UMass87

In fact, they did. (for example, UMass' 95-96 OOC was Kentucky, Maryland, Florida, Wake Forest, Boston College, UNC-Wilmington, Georgia Tech, NC State, USC, Syracuse, Memphis, Dayton and Louisville).

Knobby

I completely agree with it - it is the 20 win plateau that has very little meaning. Lots of sub-20 win teams make the tournament, and lots of of 20+ win teams don't. You don't get bonus point for 20 wins.... and yes I also agree that the quality of your opponents (and their opponents) means a lot, but that is just another reason why 20 is not the magic number.

Our Lappas teams merely made us the current Fordham of the A-10 for those years. EVERY conference EVERY year has a drag team or three that hurt RPI, SOS etc... EVERY YEAR... You are not going to have 14 (or 16) teams that go 14-0 in the OOC schedule. TO have a bunch of 20 win teams, you have to have some bad teams to go with it. Do you think that the ACC was happy to have BC's performance this year, or the BE was doing flips over Depaul, or the Sec was psyched about South Carolina's 2-14 contribution?

We are splitting hairs at this point. You have more than succeeded in creating an interesting debate on the subject, I assume you did not think that everyone would just take your assertions and treat them as gospel...?

Umass Rules, everyone else sucks..... !

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