Wilner: Pac-12 with 20 conference games makes sense

[Birch1]

Must we have Pac12 refs for the extra 2 games? Kind of a dealbreaker.

 

[PAC MAN]

I'm all in for 20 conference games and less OOC garbage opponents.

 

[Not Sure]

I’m trying to wrap my head around how a 20-game conference schedule is done. With the 18-game schedule, you have two teams per year you only play on the road and two you only play at home. With the “travel partner” set up in the PAC 12, I’m not sure how you cut that down to one team each. Maybe it’s obvious and I’m just too dense to figure it out.

 

[Buffnik]

I’m trying to wrap my head around how a 20-game conference schedule is done. With the 18-game schedule, you have two teams per year you only play on the road and two you only play at home. With the “travel partner” set up in the PAC 12, I’m not sure how you cut that down to one team each. Maybe it’s obvious and I’m just too dense to figure it out.

It's obvious. Your math is just off.

There are 11 teams to play in a 12 team conference like the Pac.

Utah is played twice as our travel partner.

With 18 games, it works out as follows currently:
7x2=14. 4x1=4. 14+4=18.

With 20 games, it would work out as follows:
9x2=18. 2x1=2. 18+2=20.

Basically, we play Utah twice and then there are 5 travel pairs we play against. Currently, we play 1 game each against 2 of those pairs. By going to 20, we'd only have 1 pair that we only played 1 game against instead of 2 pairs.

Going further to look at the whole schedule and how it would look for a 30 game schedule:

20 Pac-12 games
3 travel tourney games
7 flex games for the OOC schedule instead of the current 9

As long as Pac-12 teams drop 2 cupcakes instead of 2 good opponents, the increased number of conference games will result in stronger resumes for conference teams since it's almost certain that Pac-12 opponents will be Top 150 RPI or Top 100 when averaged. Losses in basketball don't hurt as much as playing doormats in terms of getting into the post season.

With this, to a point I've previously made, CU needs to look hard at how it does its 7 flex games. It doesn't want to overload against a single conference or its schedule becomes too weighted by the strength of that conference. So playing CSU and AFA every year makes it damn difficult to play another MWC opponent and certainly overdoes things if there are 2 other MWC opponents. I like playing CSU and AFA, but I also like games agains UNM and WYO. And I want to mix in programs like UNLV, SDSU, Fresno State, Boise State and Utah State on CU's OOC schedule.

I could get behind CSU every year since it's such a great fan draw and important for basketball in the state. I'd also play DU (Summit League) and Northern Colorado (Big Sky) every year. I think we want an opponent from the WCC (Gonzaga, St. Mary's, BYU, San Diego, etc.). That's 4 of our 7 flex games. With those last 3, I think you end up with 1 more MWC series as one of our premium home/away matchups, 1 P5 series as the other premium home/away matchup, and then you have 1 more game that would ideally be taken up by a Pac-12 Challenge with either the Big 12 or B1G.

 

[Not Sure]

It's obvious. Your math is just off.

There are 11 teams to play in a 12 team conference like the Pac.

Utah is played twice as our travel partner.

With 18 games, it works out as follows currently:
7x2=14. 4x1=4. 14+4=18.

With 20 games, it would work out as follows:
9x2=18. 2x1=2. 18+2=20.

Basically, we play Utah twice and then there are 5 travel pairs we play against. Currently, we play 1 game each against 2 of those pairs. By going to 20, we'd only have 1 pair that we only played 1 game against instead of 2 pairs.

Going further to look at the whole schedule and how it would look for a 30 game schedule:

20 Pac-12 games
3 travel tourney games
7 flex games for the OOC schedule instead of the current 9

As long as Pac-12 teams drop 2 cupcakes instead of 2 good opponents, the increased number of conference games will result in stronger resumes for conference teams since it's almost certain that Pac-12 opponents will be Top 150 RPI or Top 100 when averaged. Losses in basketball don't hurt as much as playing doormats in terms of getting into the post season.

With this, to a point I've previously made, CU needs to look hard at how it does its 7 flex games. It doesn't want to overload against a single conference or its schedule becomes too weighted by the strength of that conference. So playing CSU and AFA every year makes it damn difficult to play another MWC opponent and certainly overdoes things if there are 2 other MWC opponents. I like playing CSU and AFA, but I also like games agains UNM and WYO. And I want to mix in programs like UNLV, SDSU, Fresno State, Boise State and Utah State on CU's OOC schedule.

I could get behind CSU every year since it's such a great fan draw and important for basketball in the state. I'd also play DU (Summit League) and Northern Colorado (Big Sky) every year. I think we want an opponent from the WCC (Gonzaga, St. Mary's, BYU, San Diego, etc.). That's 4 of our 7 flex games. With those last 3, I think you end up with 1 more MWC series as one of our premium home/away matchups, 1 P5 series as the other premium home/away matchup, and then you have 1 more game that would ideally be taken up by a Pac-12 Challenge with either the Big 12 or B1G.

So we basically don’t play two teams at all in certain years?

That’s going to suck when those teams are UA and ASU.

 

[Darth Snow]

It's obvious. Your math is just off.

There are 11 teams to play in a 12 team conference like the Pac.

Utah is played twice as our travel partner.

With 18 games, it works out as follows currently:
7x2=14. 4x1=4. 14+4=18.

With 20 games, it would work out as follows:
9x2=18. 2x1=2. 18+2=20.

Basically, we play Utah twice and then there are 5 travel pairs we play against. Currently, we play 1 game each against 2 of those pairs. By going to 20, we'd only have 1 pair that we only played 1 game against instead of 2 pairs.

Going further to look at the whole schedule and how it would look for a 30 game schedule:

20 Pac-12 games
3 travel tourney games
7 flex games for the OOC schedule instead of the current 9

As long as Pac-12 teams drop 2 cupcakes instead of 2 good opponents, the increased number of conference games will result in stronger resumes for conference teams since it's almost certain that Pac-12 opponents will be Top 150 RPI or Top 100 when averaged. Losses in basketball don't hurt as much as playing doormats in terms of getting into the post season.

With this, to a point I've previously made, CU needs to look hard at how it does its 7 flex games. It doesn't want to overload against a single conference or its schedule becomes too weighted by the strength of that conference. So playing CSU and AFA every year makes it damn difficult to play another MWC opponent and certainly overdoes things if there are 2 other MWC opponents. I like playing CSU and AFA, but I also like games agains UNM and WYO. And I want to mix in programs like UNLV, SDSU, Fresno State, Boise State and Utah State on CU's OOC schedule.

I could get behind CSU every year since it's such a great fan draw and important for basketball in the state. I'd also play DU (Summit League) and Northern Colorado (Big Sky) every year. I think we want an opponent from the WCC (Gonzaga, St. Mary's, BYU, San Diego, etc.). That's 4 of our 7 flex games. With those last 3, I think you end up with 1 more MWC series as one of our premium home/away matchups, 1 P5 series as the other premium home/away matchup, and then you have 1 more game that would ideally be taken up by a Pac-12 Challenge with either the Big 12 or B1G.

I agree with everything you said except liking games against Wyoming. They own us and it's embarrassing and I'd like to forget they exist.

 

[Buffnik]

So we basically don’t play two teams at all in certain years?

That’s going to suck when those teams are UA and ASU.

No. We play two teams only once if we go to 20. Currently we play 4 teams only once with an 18 game Pac-12 schedule.

 

[Not Sure]

No. We play two teams only once if we go to 20. Currently we play 4 teams only once with an 18 game Pac-12 schedule.

Ok. I’ll figure it out once it’s out in place. It seems to me that this would cut the number of home games by two every other year.

 

[PAC MAN]

With the two teams that we would play once, I'm sure one would be at home and the other on the road.

 

[ahoelsken]

Ok. I’ll figure it out once it’s out in place. It seems to me that this would cut the number of home games by two every other year.

That could fixed by ensuring you get extra games at home in November and December to make up for it-a la football (We play an extra game at home in the OOC in the years where we have four home conference games) while still getting an opponent who fits what you want to do from a scheduling perspective. In terms of how this would affect the "local" portion of our schedule, agree completely on DU and UNC (who very well might have been the best team in this state this year). Play 'em every year. I think the AFA series needs to be drastically cut back, if not put on hiatus altogether. I don't have a problem with continuing to play CSU, but I'd prefer to play them 4-6 times in ten seasons. I disagree with Snow again on Wyoming-I WANT them back on our schedule. They're a local opponent, and they're also better than CSU or AFA. In years where we don't play the goats, play Wyoming instead. This program needs to learn to beat an opponent who will try to take the air out of the ball.

My other assumption with this would be the Utah games would take place within a week-instead of two. Right?

 

[Not Sure]

With the two teams that we would play once, I'm sure one would be at home and the other on the road.

Not if we are going to keep the travel partner system. That’s where my disconnect lies. I’ll figure it out eventually.

 

[Shldr2Shldr]

Ok. I’ll figure it out once it’s out in place. It seems to me that this would cut the number of home games by two every other year.

This isn't difficult. Here is an example schedule:

UCLA/USC: 4 games, 2 home and 2 away
OSU/OU: 4 games, 2 home and 2 away
WSU/UW: 4 games, 2 home and 2 away
Stan/Cal: 4 games, 2 home and 2 away
ASU/UA: 2 games, 1 home and 1 away
Utah: 2 games, 1 home and 1 away

Total 20 games.

In this format, the Arizona schools make 1 weekend trip to the mountain schools, and visa versa.

 

[Not Sure]

This isn't difficult. Here is an example schedule:

UCLA/USC: 4 games, 2 home and 2 away
OSU/OU: 4 games, 2 home and 2 away
WSU/UW: 4 games, 2 home and 2 away
Stan/Cal: 4 games, 2 home and 2 away
ASU/UA: 2 games, 1 home and 1 away
Utah: 2 games, 1 home and 1 away

Total 20 games.

Ok. Yup. Makes sense now. Basically replace the week when we play Utah and nobody else with a week where we play Utah at home and another team on the road. Still kind of messes with the travel partner concept, but not dramatically.

 

[PAC MAN]

The week we play Utah, we simply add one more game to that week.

 

[Not Sure]

The week we play Utah, we simply add one more game to that week.

Yup. It took me a bit, but it makes sense to me now. Like I said, it still disrupts the travel partner schedule, but only marginally.

 

[Buffnik]

With the two teams that we would play once, I'm sure one would be at home and the other on the road.

Yeah. I think the Pac-12 will balance it as 10 home and 10 away. Probably make it so that the travel partner week when we play Utah turns into a 2-game week. For example, if we only play 1 game each against the Bay Area schools then we'd play Cal on the road the week we go to Utah and have Stanford at home the week we host Utah. It would seem unfair for the conference race if we had half the teams playing 9H/11A and the other half playing 11H/9A. That's a huge scheduling bias for the Pac-12 race.

 

[Not Sure]

I said I got it now.

 

[Shldr2Shldr]

Shut down the thread guys, NS understands. No need to post anything anymore.

 

[Not Sure]

Shut down the thread guys, NS understands. No need to post anything anymore.

Well, not about how the schedule is done, anyway. Post all you like about he merits of the 20-game conference schedule. No need to re-post “it will have us play two games in the week when we play Utah” forty times.

Or go ahead and keep posting that. It might be funny. Or not.

 

[Buffnik]

Well, not about how the schedule is done, anyway. Post all you like about he merits of the 20-game conference schedule. No need to re-post “it will have us play two games in the week when we play Utah” forty times.

Or go ahead and keep posting that. It might be funny. Or not.

Wasn't meant to be funny or directed specifically at you. There's a discussion. Pac-12 could choose to extend the conference calendar by a week, too, by keeping the Utah weeks as one game and then having the other one-off pair as single game weeks. I think I'd actually prefer the latter because it would add a lot of opportunities for the Pac-12 to have games on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday as feature games on ESPN, FS1 or PACN on nights we usually have nothing to offer with live hoops for our tv packages.

 

[Not Sure]

Wasn't meant to be funny or directed specifically at you. There's a discussion. Pac-12 could choose to extend the conference calendar by a week, too, by keeping the Utah weeks as one game and then having the other one-off pair as single game weeks. I think I'd actually prefer the latter because it would add a lot of opportunities for the Pac-12 to have games on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday as feature games on ESPN, FS1 or PACN on nights we usually have nothing to offer with live hoops for our tv packages.

Problem with that is the only way to extend the schedule is to move it up into December. We already struggle a bit in the early conference schedule without any student involvement. Adding more games to that time frame would hurt overall attendance, IMO.

 

[Scotch]

Problem with that is the only way to extend the schedule is to move it up into December. We already struggle a bit in the early conference schedule without any student involvement. Adding more games to that time frame would hurt overall attendance, IMO.

Games in mid-late December are already sparsely attended. Having a conference game then may give it a bump.

 

[Buffnik]

Problem with that is the only way to extend the schedule is to move it up into December. We already struggle a bit in the early conference schedule without any student involvement. Adding more games to that time frame would hurt overall attendance, IMO.

Not necessarily. We're seeing a push to add conference games in November and early December while the OOC is going on. Other conferences have started doing that just as we've started to see football conference games during early September to spread things out a bit.

 

[Not Sure]

Not necessarily. We're seeing a push to add conference games in November and early December while the OOC is going on. Other conferences have started doing that just as we've started to see football conference games during early September to spread things out a bit.

Well, alrighty then.

 

[Not Sure]

Games in mid-late December are already sparsely attended. Having a conference game then may give it a bump.

Marginally. My point being, it doesn’t matter if the students are gone when you play Ft Lewis. It’s a little tougher when UCLA rolls into town. You want your fans to have your back.

 

[BehindEnemyLines]

It's even possible to slide in an attractive ooc game in February.

 

[cmgoods]

 

[ahoelsken]

Problem with that is the only way to extend the schedule is to move it up into December. We already struggle a bit in the early conference schedule without any student involvement. Adding more games to that time frame would hurt overall attendance, IMO.

What about playing Utah in twice in one week like the women do?