Time to cancel ESPN+ and any other sports streaming services you have.
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Hill is the Chair of the subcommittee evaluating the current system and it’s been reported that’s what their recommendation will be: instead of pod system, schedule stronger OOC or be fined, starting this fall.
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But the same old schools will continue to say they can’t get anyone to play them and thus have to play DII or cellar dweller programs. Unfortunately that may be true for some of our schools. Marshall and USM have virtually nothing to offer OOC opponents to come to their locations. They aren’t recruiting hotbeds and they (USM in particular, not sure about Marshall) can’t really afford to pay a lot for quality OOC opponents to come to their hometowns. The same is probably true of the Florida schools and UTSA. No legit program is going to play them in those jokes they call arenas.
Realistically, the only programs in this league I could see scheduling reasonably well OOC without having to do 75% of their schedule on the road are us, ODU, MTSU, UAB, UNT, WKU, and maybe Rice.
I don’t mind the Pod System, but if we move to a better OOC schedule program and fine those who do not comply I am good with that too. @Niner_National is right about Marshall and SMiss, but as the self-proclaimed conference flagships I know they would not want special treatment–so fine them. Charlotte has invested a lot of money in the last 24 months to get better, and it is working. If we have programs unwilling or unable to do that, then they are a bad fit in C-USA. Maybe this can hasten the G5 Rationalization.
The stated goal of pod play is to assist the top teams’ NET rankings (i.e., those in Pod 1). This has happened. This assistance can be shown by either (i) raising the NET rankings of teams in that pod, or (ii) causing a relatively lower drop in their NET ranking than they would otherwise experience (i.e., if a regular schedule would’ve seen a drop of 30 spots without pod play and only dropped 5 spots with pod play, then it is assisting the NET rankings). The quality of the top teams impacts the strength of this outcome - but in no way could it be a negative effect.
The result of such assistance can manifest itself in a few ways (none of them a negative):
(a) it can result in an additional bid (the ideal scenario)
(b) it can result in better seeding for the one or more bids (better matchups increase the chances of an NCAAT win)
© it doesn’t impact the seeding or the number of bids (neutral effect)
Just because the raw NET didn’t improve doesn’t mean the pod play didn’t assist that year - it could have staunched the bleeding, so to speak (anyone with a basic training in statistics can explain the “but for” causation logic of the treatment - it would have dropped by 50 but for pod play - which caused it to only dropped by 3).
Again, even if the positive manifestations of the assistance only appear once every 5 years, that’s an extremely positive development and is one of the few times I’ve seen this version of CUSA be intelligently proactive.
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From all I have read…the main goal of POD play is to more to prevent a disaster than bump a rating.
If you lose to a bottom dweller down the stretch…it devastates a chance for an at large bid. If you are on the bubble and lose on the road to a bottom tier team in the Conference…you are done. This mitigates that by ensuring you are only playing the top 4 teams down the stretch where a loss won’t obliterate your at large chances.
Playing the top 4 teams will not change the rating much this late in the year at all. The value is in the protection from a devastating late season loss to a bottom dweller.
Selections from the official announcement in May 2018:
And selected passages from an analysis piece by Huntington Herald-Dispatch sportswriter Grant Taylor in June 2019:
Well, the press release would have had a very different tone had it said “we are doing this to keep the suckiest of our teams from driving a stake into the hearts of our better teams.” I think they glossed over that part.
They also left out the part about Mark Adams laughing all the way to the bank! 
You keep slamming the consultant for making money on this, but you didn’t pay him dude. The conference did, and so far they seem pretty good with it.
I’m not begrudging Adams for making money. He found a group of suckers willing to buy his elixir!
@run49er, do you believe that the Bonus Play premise is without merit, or that the teams in C-USA have not been good enough to leverage it?
I realize I’m being a hard-ass about Bonus Play but to me it’s just another example of how Mickey Mouse of an operation C-USA has been when it comes to basketball.
I don’t disagree with the premise of securing multiple entrants in the NCAA tournament nor on higher seeds. It’s just that the model employed isn’t going to fulfill those goals. And apparently the league has recognized that and I’m confident that the competition subcommittee headed by Mike Hill will address the real issue, which is overall scheduling.
Last season I really didn’t pay that much attention to the merits of Bonus Play because it was new and we were so bad that it wasn’t going to benefit us anyway. Then after reading some postseason critiques I made a concerted effort to pay closer attention this year, which was no problem with the Niners playing top tier ball in C-USA.
One of the final clinchers for me was listening to Coach Sanchez ruminate on Bonus Play and how it disrupted the rhythm of the conference season, created travel issues, etc. Not to mention the mediocre NET rankings of C-USA.
There’s a reason why the Sun Belt, the other conference that was going to implement a version of Bonus Play in 2019-20, quietly abandoned the plan with no announcement. And even C-USA tweaked it for WBB this year by determining the end of season league matchups based on standings at the end of OOC play!
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What’s the negatives of bonus play besides shitty viewing options?
travel. short notice. I think they should keep it if they can improve on that
I’m going to assume that our opponents+site combo will be a mirror of our 2017-18 schedule with Old Dominion, Marshall, Western Kentucky, Florida Atlantic & FIU twice. This also means we can have 13 non-conference games, giving us three game openings to fill.
Charlotte at Valpo on 12/21
Does anyone know if there is an airport nearby? Im interested in going
It’s an hour away from Chicago, so if you want to spend a long weekend in Chicago (there will likely be some good college games in Chicago that weekend) you should do that.
Tentative date for East Carolina game is December 8th