Post by squeak11 on Jan 27, 2015 12:42:49 GMT -6
What is sad is that in this line we are already seeing the inevitable result of a computer program ranking ... smart people seeing how to game the system to get a higher seed ... with the focus on a first round home game.
I wonder if Lusher canceling the game with NOMMA last night was driven by computer considerations, not referees? Both teams were there, Lusher's field is lighted, yet because the refs were an hour late the game was cancled when it could have been played. Whatever, ... but in the end, a team that showed up and was ready to play was denied a game.
This is just the beginning, as it was in basketball. With the ill-considered drop in the number of required district games, it will be harder and harder for middle-of-pack good teams to fill a schedule unless they are willing to play the top teams in other divisions.
And the mid-pack team's scheduling problems are just going to be made worse by going to 24 teams in playoffs... this will force the weaker teams that would normally be ranked 18-26 or so, but who field an organized program, to carfully pharse their schedules. In my opinion, all the changes lately have been for the benefit of a few teams at the top. They are all to the detriment of the middle-of-the-pack programs.
The only reasonable solutions are to (1) drop the computer rankings and go with coach seed - which is not going to happen; (2) force large districts with a range of teams and home/home so that schedules are somewhat equalized - not going to happen.
Just be prepared for the basketball desease becaue it is already here like Ebola. It has just not been fully diagnosed yet.
PS: The regional advantage created by having a large number of local medium/fair teams that play a lot of local medium/bad teams is on full display. In D-III, how Abbeville, Op. Catholic and Notre Dame are ranked ahead of Pope John Paul and St. Thomas Aquinas is not a mystery...it is simple math.