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Post by phearthephoenix on Mar 26, 2012 16:27:51 GMT -6
Jimmy I love your new signature on here ;D ;D ;D
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Post by GBPhoenix1 on Mar 26, 2012 16:44:44 GMT -6
I agree with some of what Jimmy wrote and I like the length/depth of the articles. I am going to try and hold back any negative comments. I feel like the writing comes with a pretty big bias and a little bit of a dreamers perspective.
As for the costs of travel in the league. The league sponsors 17 sports. Best I can tell five of them play home and away against all conference members (men&women hoops, volleyball, baseball and softball). Then it looks like six of them play either home or away but not both against all league members (m&w soccer, m&w swimming/diving and m&w tennis). The other six sports only have a conference championship and members compete in their own regular season schedule but not necessarily against league members (m&w cross country, m&w track/field and m&w golf).
So if a new HL member requires flights we are adding about 8 team flights per year. Flying commericial for an entire team can't cost more than $20,000. If $160,000 is what is keeping HL member schools from adding the best men's hoops teams they can then I think the HL members are small thinking. Let's say I underestimated and the cost is 200k, even with tight budgets each member team should be able to dig up that kind of money, especially if it gives the golden goose (men's hoops) the best chance for the biggest paydays. Just my 2 cents.
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Post by GBPhoenix1 on Mar 26, 2012 18:53:43 GMT -6
So if a new HL member requires flights we are adding about 8 team flights per year. Flying commericial for an entire team can't cost more than $20,000. If $160,000 is what is keeping HL member schools from adding the best men's hoops teams they can then I think the HL members are small thinking. Let's say I underestimated and the cost is 200k, even with tight budgets each member team should be able to dig up that kind of money, especially if it gives the golden goose (men's hoops) the best chance for the biggest paydays. Just my 2 cents. You are only looking at the cost of the flight. That is just a portion of travel costs. You also have to charter a bus wherever you are playing for at least a day. That is if you fly somewhere, play, and leave on the same day. Most roadtrips last at least overnight, so you have to pay for a charter bus for 2 days and hotel rooms and food expenses. All of those things add up, especially the hotel rooms. My guess is that the real cost is closer to 400K a year than it is 200K. You also have to consider that the HL is loosing it's cash cow (Butler). All HL teams will be getting less future NCAA tournament money without them. Coming up with 200 to 400K more a year for travel is going to be harder than you think. My comments in this thread have been about who to replace Butler with. Am I to assume that you are saying when HL teams travel to Butler now their hotels, buses, meals etc. are free? Because if teams currently budget for that now why will they have to come up with that money an additonal time when the league has to replace Butler with a member that requires flying to get to? Since the teams already spend that money I am going to stay with my 200k additional estimate.
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Post by shooting the J on Mar 28, 2012 6:10:02 GMT -6
Second, force all HL teams to play better competition. Stop playing D2 and NAIA schools. The A-10 and MVC force their teams to have a certain SOS to share in their NCAA tournament money. get rid of YSU. They are not financially committed to basketball and have been an anchor to the conference most years they have been in it. This is one of the few years they have actually been decent. I don't think they will maintain it. What does playing D2 teams have to do with our conference RPI? Those games aren't included in RPI calculation. I do agree we need to push teams to raise their RPI. One simple incentive would be to trash the conference's presently useless tie-breaking system for conference tournament seeding, and simple use out-of-conference RPI. That would be far more effective too. Everyone talks of kicking out YSU, but is that ever done? Is there an example of another conference kicking out a member?
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Post by GBPhoenix1 on Mar 28, 2012 6:59:32 GMT -6
GB is 385 miles from Indy or 7 hours Milwaukee is 275 miles from Indy or 5 hours Chicago is 180 miles from Indy or 3.5 hours Valpo is 150 miles from Indy or 2.75 hours Detroit is 285 miles from Indy or 5 hours Wright State is 110 miles from Indy or 2 hours Cleveland State is 315 miles from Indy or 5.5 hours Youngstown State is 350 miles from Indy or 6 hours
On 4/21 when Detroit softball plays at Butler Softball at 1pm, Detroit is going to drive 5 hours down the day of 1pm game?
On 5/4 when when YSU baseball is playing at Butler at 3pm, they are going to drive 6 hours on the day of the game.
This weekend Detroit men's tennis plays at Butler at 10am. They are driving down the morning of?
Softball and baseball both play a double header on day 1 and game 3 on day 2. Some series are 3 games in 3 days. So every team that visits Butler has to stay at least 1 overnight.
Volleyball and tennis both use travel partners but the games are played on back to back days. So every team has at least 1 overnight.
Soccer and hoops use travel partners with a day in between so again every school is using at least 1 overnight.
I won't argue that WSU and Valpo might have a few more overnights if Butler is replaced with a team from further away. They are the two schools that are in close enough proximity that they can drive to Butler without a real issue. I would suggest that the majority of the league isn't going to have too many more overnight stay expenses added to their budgets because Butler isn't a short trip, the time schedules of the games don't always match up and the way the league plays most road trips are multiple nights out to save cost as is.
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Post by greenflyingmachine on Mar 31, 2012 8:24:49 GMT -6
Prepare yourselves. The Panthers may go to the NCAA Tournament as much as 50% of the time if Butler leaves. Now I understand why some want internet censorship. I guess just any wack job can write anything they want. Milwaukee will be one of the worst teams in The Horizon next year, their program is going nowhere.
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Post by shooting the J on Mar 31, 2012 8:44:25 GMT -6
What does playing D2 teams have to do with our conference RPI? Those games aren't included in RPI calculation. I do agree we need to push teams to raise their RPI. One simple incentive would be to trash the conference's presently useless tie-breaking system for conference tournament seeding, and simple use out-of-conference RPI. That would be far more effective too. Everyone talks of kicking out YSU, but is that ever done? Is there an example of another conference kicking out a member? Playing D2 games doesn't hurt your RPI, but they also don't help your RPI either. Everyone in the HL would be better served to play a money game on the road vs a mid to low tier BCS school that we have a chance at beating than playing a D2 team. Those wins can improve your RPI and helps your conference's image. That's great, but you still have to fill your home schedule. The options to do that are buy games against terrible teams like Chicago St, or D2 games. I don't see a real difference. Something the conference should do to help its image is play in post-season tournaments when invited.
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Post by shooting the J on Mar 31, 2012 8:47:58 GMT -6
A couple of quick notes:
-Oakland, which is thought to be the favorite to replace Butler, made it to the CIT semi-finals this year before losing to Utah St.
-Pacific is moving from the Big West Conference to the West Coast Conference. Pacific was in the WCC until leaving 40 years ago. I wonder why they left back then?
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Post by shooting the J on Apr 2, 2012 7:15:16 GMT -6
The MVC and A-10 made scheduling mandates for their conference. They haven't had any problems filling their schedules without playing D2 teams. You are making the assumption that if you drop a D2 team from your schedule you have to schedule a crappy D1 team. You don't. Those are bigger budget schools with higher game attendance. Their situation is different than ours. Despite that, our out-of-conference SOS was 22nd nationally this year, while playing 2 D2 teams. Most HL teams play two D2 teams a year. The HL would be better served if each team scheduled 2 home/home series with other good mid-majors. You would get 1 road and 1 home game out of that. When all is said and done, you probably make the same amount of money with that 1 home game as you would playing 2 home buy games vs D2 schools. You don't have to pay someone to play at your place when you schedule them as a home/home series. You have to pay both of those D2 teams to play at your place. I don't know how you guys do, but attendance is always crappy in Dayton for D2 games. We get in the 2-3000 range for those games. If we can get 4000+ for 1 home game vs a D1 team we are just as well off in the long run financially. The benefit is you get to add 2 good mid-majors to your resume and 1 of them is a road game which counts more towards your RPI. Our fans couldn't care less for solid mid-major games during Packers season. We get less than 500 people more for non-conference D1 games than we do D2 games. Under the proposed plan you offer, we'd have lost our behinds financially the last few years. The fans here want to see high majors, we get sellout crowds for those. We are currently playing 2- 2 for 1 series and 1- 4 for 1 with high major programs. The last time one of these teams visited GB, we picked up a win over a ranked Wisconsin team. These unbalanced deals cause a need for either D2 buy games or cheap D1 buy games. The 2 best non-football conferences in the country make their members play real schedules. I think the HL should too. Your preaching to the choir here. We play Wisconsin, Virginia, and Nevada on the road next year, and Marquette at home. To motivate teams to push for a higher RPI, the conference should use RPI as its 1st and only tie-breaker for conference tournament seeding. The present system is useless, and usually awards the higher seed to the lesser team. The best example of this was when Milwaukee hosted the HL tourney last year over Butler and CSU teams that had RPI's 40 spots better. Had CSU hosted, it might have opened the door for a 2nd HL team in the big dance.
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Post by can opener man on Apr 2, 2012 10:35:35 GMT -6
black panther says:
"1. Butler Out, Milwaukee should follow"
I love when someone pops up a site and puts junk on there. Conferences are not knocking on milwaukees door, they are not stupid enough to join a conference with added travel cost, plus they woudlnt beat north dakota state or south dakota state most years.
Milwaukee will not be the class of the horizon, look back in the history and see the past 10 years when butler won the conference, who was number 2, that will be a good indicator for you panther guy.
also dont count any of the years that bruce pearl cheated, ur only ncaa tourneys is cuz he cheated and should be taken away.
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Post by shooting the J on Apr 3, 2012 9:20:33 GMT -6
Finally, I'm not taking a shot at UWGB's schedule. I'm taking a shot at all of our schedules because their isn't a HL school that had a good enough OOC schedule last year to get an at large bid except for Butler (unless the school had an almost perfect OOC record). And again, Green Bay's OOC SOS was 22nd whereas Butler's was 31st. Ours SOS only fell that low because we got stuck with a bracketbuster opponent with an RPI 90 spots below ours. You and the other HL schools need to improve your SOS to the standards of Green Bay's and Butlers. We play Wisconsin, Marquette, Virginia, and Nevada next year. Also ND St, who should be very solid too. Brian Wardle has been a fearless scheduler. Big D, you think scheduling is a huge factor in success, and your probably right. Do you think Wardle's scheduling is a factor in Green Bay raising its recruiting level above most HL schools? I think incoming Jordan Fouse has a great chance of giving us a freshman on the all-newcomer team for a 3rd straight year.
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Post by shooting the J on Apr 3, 2012 19:15:10 GMT -6
Sorry, but I don't think your coach has passed anyone by in recruiting. Butler completely destroyed everyone again. The rest of the HL is doing well. Butler only adds one top guy, Dunham (ESPN grade 92), plus Clark for 1 year. Their other 2 recruits are average for this league. Dunham isn't much different than Green Bay addition Cole Stefan (90), both are bigtime shooters who had high major offers. Green Bay also adds Jordan Fouse (88), a big time talent who impacts the game in every way. Butler doesn't run away from the league with that class. They didn't get the size they needed. The fact that one of their big recruits from the previous class, Jackson Aldridge, was really overhyped hurts them. Half the league added better PGs, including Green Bay and WSU. Green Bay's recruiting has blown past numerous teams, including WSU and Milwaukee. CSU was building a strong recruiting class too, but a number of them won't make it to campus. I'm not seeing anyone besides Butler who has brought in as much talent in the 2010, 11, and 12 classes.
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Post by Administrator on Apr 9, 2012 10:29:24 GMT -6
Here's the lastest on the potential Butler move from David Woods. Is it me, or does it seem like Butler is stalling to give the HL time to step up and keep Butler? If this conference were to keep Butler and replace another member with Oakland, it could become the next MVC. Edited to add correct link.
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Post by stillaphoenixphan on Apr 9, 2012 11:47:37 GMT -6
Here's the lastest on the potential Butler move from David Woods. Is it me, or does it seem like Butler is stalling to give the HL time to step up and keep Butler? If this conference were to keep Butler and replace another member with Oakland, it could become the next MVC. This was very interesting to read. I did get the same impression. I'm wondering if the HL league added Oakland and another team and split into 2 divisions if the travel savings would help their decision? My only question on replacing a member is who would go. Would it be decieded on RPI or travel? Just a couple of more things to think about. Let's hear from others and see what most think, at least it makes for an interesting discussion.
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Post by phearthephoenix on Apr 10, 2012 14:40:34 GMT -6
This was very interesting to read. I did get the same impression. I'm wondering if the HL league added Oakland and another team and split into 2 divisions if the travel savings would help their decision? This is just my opinion, but if the HL is going to add schools beyond 10, they need to be basketball programs that improve the league enough that we get more than 1 bid in to the NCAA tournament. If my memory serves me correctly, the Horizon divides the NCAA tournament money into 12 shares, with each school getting a share, the league office getting one, and the school that received the bid / wins the games receives an extra share. Adding schools just to add schools would just be another school to share that pie with, so the HL would have to add schools like Murray State that can make the NCAA as an at large and bring up the league's profile for more at large bids. I think Oakland would be able to accomplish this as well, tho that might be up for debate. If for some reason Butler does stick around in the HL and the league looks to expand with Oakland, there would still be the hurdle of Detroit perhaps not wanting them in the league and having enough votes to keep them out I think if booting a member was even possible it would have to be YSU without question. They're a football school and a perennial loser in basketball. Just my $0.02
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