B-Conference Divisions- Just for discussion

[Kyle Berggren]

Dan, maybe I'm stupid, but when I was playing with doing the Pac 10 model, I'm really missing something. It seems like it's possible, and likely, that PLU could play UPS, and have it be conference for UPS, and not for PLU... and I don't want to even get into that can of worms, but I really must be missing something.

I agree that my model would have to be changed, and that was my biggest problem with it. When teams are added, the tweaks are much bigger than other systems, and it drives me nuts.

Jason, I just tossed out goal differential, I'm not even sure I believe in it, just tossed it out as I was typing.

As far as cost goes, the added cost is minimal compared to the other systems being proposed. If six teams have to play each other from all corners of the PNCLL, why not meet the first weekend of Spring Break, and knock them out nuetral site? The outer teams have to travel anyway, they should be used to it a bit, and probably hope we keep their required travel down.

I was kicking around these divisions, not sure why anymore, long weekend, but I remember having a decent reason to keep WU and AU together in the South.

WWU, PLU, UPS, CWU, MU, and L&C for the North

WC, AC, WOU, SOU, LU, and WU for the South

Ideally, between the divisions, you'd play 3 home, 2 away or vice versa. If you were 3 home, you'd travel for 2, and stay home for 1, making it 4 and 4. A team like CWU could have WU come to them, and go to WOU and SOU another weekend. MU is the biggest problem travel wise, and would most likely have to be a single game that weekend for most teams, including teams in its own division.

I'm done rambling for tonight, and it will be great to get some board feedback in Burnaby this weekend. Dan, if you could correct me where I'm wrong with the Pac 10 system, I'd probably lean toward it. I do still like the idea of divisions, partly because you can reward teams that have played the same competition. Not to harp on WOU, but if they were in the B North, they most likely would not have made the playoffs. Some teams may be upset that they did get to go, but I was all for it. They were 6-2, and the second best team in their division this year. They should have gotten a playoff game.

[BearcatLax]

Hmmm, it definitely gets tricky when splitting these divisions up, as I thought about it I realized that. The proposal you had for the divisions Kyle looks great, but I think the North is definitely more talented in that scenario. I figured I could offer to switch us (Willamette) with any of those teams to offset the power up there, but then it wouldnt make sense for any of the teams there to travel South for all their games.

Maybe East/West should be considered for divisions? I can't speak for other teams, but I think we wouldn't mind travelling a little extra to help the league out.

For example:

East: CWU, Montana, Whitman, Albertson, Lewis and Clark, and Willamette

West: PLU, UPS, WWU, Linfield, WOU, and SOU

That would reduce the "problem" teams to just WU and L & C, as opposed to the North/South where Montana, Whitman, Albertson, SOU and Lewis and Clark all seem out of position.

I don't have the perfect solution, and this is a tricky situation, just thought I'd throw another idea out there, not that any of the others are horrible or anything.

[Kyle Berggren]

I don't think we can consider how we break up the divisions by who the strongest teams are right now. Things change. We easily won the championship last season, and the team we beat, just did the same thing to us in the first round a season later....

I don't mind the East West split, but I doubt the Eastern teams enjoy it. The travelling is rediculous, and someone is going to get screwed, it always works that way. I'm still not sure on the best way to create the divisions, but the East/West is interesting. I'll play with it a bit when I get some time.

[woulax4]

In all fairness the system we have now is not that bad. I feel like this whole idea of creating new divisions has to do to the fact that WOU made playoffs this year, and now we are trying to create a system to keep those types of teams out and its not fair. I am sorry that WWU did not get a chance to go to playoffs, they probably are a much better team then WOU, but they lost 4 division games this year (I know it was to PLU and UPS but they were still losses), and I am also sorry that WOU was put into a "weak division" but they won the games they needed to win. And thats why they deserved to go. But the fact of the matter is the divisions are fair, they are not sapposed to be based on talent, they are sapposed to be based on lacation of schools. Well theres my two cents....

[Kyle Berggren]

I think some of the WOU guys need to take a step back and look at the big picture.... Evergreen is out of the league... We could move L&C up to the Northern division so that there are 4 teams in each division, but that would only be 6 division games, which quite frankly, isn't enough. I like the idea of playing teams twice a season, but playing more teams sounds better to me, and makes tie breakers easier.

With the time frame we have for games, 8 seems about right. The entire league isn't out to get WOU because they made the playoffs. Quite a few of us have said good job, and congrats on a great season. I even had a few conversations when I said I thought you should be the 4 seed, but my tie breakers didn't mesh with what was decided earlier....

Again, no one is out to get WOU. Congrats on the Innaugural Season. We want to revamp the system because Evergreen dropped out, and ruined it.

[TheNino57]

The title of this discussion is "B-Conference Divisions- Just for discussion"...
No one is trying to gang up on WOU. The simple fact is that right now, since Evergreen went away, there is an imbalance and I would like to see this rectified. Also, I like having the divisions- it is kind of interesting getting a "second-chance" at a team and allows for inter-player rivalries to develop just as much as team rivalries. Players get a second chance at stuffing that star attacker or putting a few more goals against that top-notch cage minder. But as I see it, the current system creates problems for establishing playoffs since we will rely on so many different tie breakers to establish seeding against teams that never saw each other in regular season play (not so much this season but definitely in the future). Also, we need a system that will work every year and be dependable even when new teams get thrown into the mix or a team has to drop out for whatever reason a la Evergreen and Wazzu.

[woulax4]

Isnt OIT joining the league next year though. I could be wrong but its what I hear.

[TheNino57]

Isnt OIT joining the league next year though. I could be wrong but its what I hear.

The-more-the-merrier, I say. I thought they would be at the AGM last year to try and get in but they didn't show up. They were listed as independants under our league on the contacts page of the website.

[Kojima]

hey, i'll admit this is my first time even reading a b division post, all year, infact, ever, so i don't know too much about what's going on... but tought i'd post on the subject anyway -- i played a full schedule at sfu, and just went through the divisional set-up as a coach at lmu...

obviously, the divisional set-up has it's pros and cons. i think it'd work well for our pncll b division tho, cause it reduces your travel time and costs. you'd also getta schedule ooc and still play conference rivals if you'd like - so if you want a competitive schedule, it's not really gonna make a difference.

you also getta build up great rivalries with divisional games -- games which are tight, cause they're also must-wins. essentially, you're playing playoff games mid-season. unfortunately, that can obviously also screw you over, cause if you lose, your season could be done, mid-season. say for instance there's a clear cut winner in your division, and you lose to the next best team early in the season, and your division only sends two teams to the playoffs. while, then the rest of your season's kindof a wash, weak.

as mentioned, you could also be in an extremely strong division, and possibly be one of the conference's best three teams, but still not make playoffs -- though i think this is a lame excuse, sometimes it's a legit complaint for those teams who strive to make nationals, as a conference sending 3-4 teams to nationals is not unheard of.

so... i like kyle's idea of going to a north/south split, and maybe expanding the playoffs. i think 12 (of 13) teams is way too many to send to playoffs tho - that eliminates the importance of the regular season almost all together, but maybe 8, with 4 going to the Final Four. the eight being the top four from each division at the end of the regular season, based on divisional records. then #1 in Div North can play #4 in Div South -- N2-S3, N3-S2, N4-S1.

eight teams can then be slimmed down to four in one week... this way also eliminates any complaint of a team being a top team, but not making playoffs cause they're in a strong conference. you'd also travel less, but still have the option of playing a complete schedule, if you'd like. you'd also play more crucial divisional games than the current three division split. i also really don't see the issue that's been brought up about a north/south split having problems with the addition or subtraction of teams. so long as you don't have any less than five team in any division you're good to go. after that, 'd be problematic with any sort-of system

ps. what's the point system? and why did this evergreen team fold mid-season? what was their penalty for doing it?

steve. i'm looking forward to maybe catching the b, championship game if i can get up in time for it, sunday. pps. there's also gonna be a pnla game sunday, i believe, on the fields at one. the beer hunters versus the crease monkeys

[TheNino57]

Evergreen didn't fold mid-season, they folded right before it even started (after the schedule was etched in stone). They folded because of coaching, player, and paperwork complications- kinda like what happened to Wazzu, if I remember right, I could be wrong on exactly what happend but that isn't really the point. Those guys are now playing in a men's league in the Seattle area, which stinks for them since gas prices are high, Oly to Seattle isn't the most entertaining drive in the world, and we miss the rivalry with those guys.

[Sonny]

Please "throw your grief" elsewhere TheNino57.

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[TheNino57]

My apologies.

[WouMiddie]

the point system works so that the if two teams have the same divisional record it decided by points. each team can get up to 13 points in a win and eight in a loss. you get a point for every goal scored in a game and you can get as many as eight for this and then the victorious team gets an additional five points. Then say if two team have the same division record it is decided by points. This is basically the same as goal differential, but this way teams cant just rack up points against lesser teams, because they only get eight of those points. and sorry for the chip we seem to have on our shoulder. just thought id do my best to answer any questions about this system. im sure you will do a great job finding the best possible solution to this problem.

[Dr. Jason Stockton]

So, I am enjoying this dialogue, and I think it will help us tremendously as we look to 2006.

Here's my latest thought. . .I really don't think we had a bad situation this year. Sure, this year the West had 3 top-15 teams, which made that division pretty tough. . .but who's to say next year it won't be Whitman, Montana and CWU in the top 20? I think the league changes year to year, and if one division is tough this year, 4 years from now there will likely be a shift.

If we don't add any teams, and none of the B teams decide to move up to the A division. . .this is what it would look like. . .

West: UPS, PLU, WWU, L&C
East: Mont., CWU, AC, Whitman
South: Linfield, Will, SOU, WOU

Like this year, you would play all of the teams in your own division twice. I'd like to keep it at 8 league games per team, so here is my suggestion:

2 East teams play 2 West teams
2 South teams play 2 East teams
2 West teams play 2 South teams. . .

and then you rotate it every year for out-of-division games. . .

This year, it might be:

PLU & UPS vs. Whitman & Albertson
L&C & WWU vs. Linfield & Willamette
WOU & SOU vs. Montana & Central

This allows the teams with small budgets a small travel schedule, and they could schedule these out of region games on one weekend.

The teams with bigger budgets and national championship goals could then use their extra money to travel to other conferences or add extra games vs. teams not on their schedule for that season.

Sure, WWU got the short end of the stick this year. . .but had they won just one of their 4 games vs. PLU and UPS this year they would have made the playoffs.

The more I think about new scenarios, the more I believe we got it right last fall when we made the 3 divisions. The whole Evergreen debacle made us doubt the current system. . .but really with the right tie-breaking system I think we'll be just fine.

My only other thought would be to expand the playoffs from 6 to 8 teams if refs aren't an issue in order to avoid good teams like Western missing the playoffs.

[Rowelax]

Every year I hear the same thing that they need to change the system because someone thinks that they get screwed over. Here is my thought. Stick with one system. The biggest problem with the system is that it keeps changing. You don't see it too often when an NFL team complains because they missed the wild card playoff becuase they were in a division that was too strong. I know it is professional and this is college, but it was just a point.

This is the best i have seen the system it is in divisions and you have to win the divisions to go to the playoffs. And if teams are added then you can just adjust the division without changing the whole structure of the league. Let us say that someone losses every game but there division game then they deserve to be in the playoffs cause they got it done.

I would just love to see a system that sticks around instead of having to relearn a system to keep track of my old team.