Minor things that annoy you-sports edition

[Big John]

Maybe the Northern Indiana Football Team should drop the name "Bears" and rename themselves after Joan of Arc.

The Northern Indiana Football Team is headed up to Lambeau to kick some Badger ass.

...you mean the Some Distance From Milwaukee Team? Personally, I they both stand a good chance of playing the victor of Pretty Good American Football Conference Team To-Be Determined From Another Metropolitan Statistical Area/State in the Ultimate Final Game Which Really Matters Played At City/Suburbs Which Changes Annually.

Badgers and Notre Dame playing at Lambeau Field on September 6.

[1995hoo]

Maybe the Northern Indiana Football Team should drop the name "Bears" and rename themselves after Joan of Arc.

The Northern Indiana Football Team is headed up to Lambeau to kick some Badger ass.

...you mean the Some Distance From Milwaukee Team? Personally, I they both stand a good chance of playing the victor of Pretty Good American Football Conference Team To-Be Determined From Another Metropolitan Statistical Area/State in the Ultimate Final Game Which Really Matters Played At City/Suburbs Which Changes Annually.

In my comment that led to this, I just didn't want to repeat "Bears," even though "Indiana Bears" would bother one particular person. I was just trying to set up a pun about naming them after Joan of Arc: the "Indiana Joans."

[TheHighwayMan3561]

That amateur sports like the LLWS and some HS tournaments now use video replay review. They're kids, they don't make money, in fact strictly banned from such and are heavily monitored to ensure they're not receiving money. It sets a bad precedent for kids which undercuts the moments in life that sometimes things just don't go your way and you have to live with that.

[SP Cook]

LLWS

OK, here goes.  Every LL plays an actual season and then picks an all-star team and they play off down to a state champion., going by the name of their town  Then the team goes by the name of the state in a regional tournament, and then the winners of that go to the actual LLWS, now going by the name of the regions. 

The regions are odd.  Great Lakes, includes KY, which does not border any great lake and is 100% drained to the Ohio, except for the Jackson Purchase which drains to the Mississippi directly.   Metro (metro NY) includes Rhode Island and  Connecticut which are certainly in New England, and al of NY, most of which is not "metro" anything.  Then New England, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Mountain, Southeast, Southwest, and Northwest.  Southeast includes 8 states, including West Virginia.  How is Kentucky not "southeast" but West Virginia is?  It also seems like this is a huge region with vastly more population than all the others. 

Then they divide California and Texas into halves, which is fair enough.  California is OK, Northern California and Southern California are pretty easy to figure out, but they have "Texas East" and "Texas West" which the west version includes most of the state, not just west Texas.

Then the international half.  Canada, OK.  Australia, OK.  Europe and Africa, OK, but why call the team that, no team from Africa has ever played.  Caribbean, OK.  Curacao.  Isn't Curacao in the Caribbean?  Latin America, OK.  Mexico.  Panama.  Aren't both in Latin America?  Japan, OK.  Then a catch all Asia (isn't Japan, Asia?), Pacific (isn't Australia, Pacific?) and Middle East.   IIRC they used to have a team from Europe and the Middle East that was for local kids, and one that was kids from US military bases or AARAMCO facilities in the Middle East, which seemed more fair.

[I-57/Route 66 Fan]

NCAA FBS & FCS

[Max Rockatansky]

NCAA FBS & FCS

What annoys me is when you post comments like this and provide zero context about what "bothers you."  Seems like posting just for the sake of it.

[I-57/Route 66 Fan]

NCAA FBS & FCS

What annoys me is when you post comments like this and provide zero context about what "bothers you."  Seems like posting just for the sake of it.

IDK why they separate it they shouldn't

[jp the roadgeek]

NCAA FBS & FCS

What annoys me is when you post comments like this and provide zero context about what "bothers you."  Seems like posting just for the sake of it.

IDK why they separate it they shouldn't

Probably prefers the old designations of 1-A and 1-AA.  The single letter difference in the acronym can be confusing.

[I-57/Route 66 Fan]

NCAA FBS & FCS

What annoys me is when you post comments like this and provide zero context about what "bothers you."  Seems like posting just for the sake of it.

IDK why they separate it they shouldn't

Probably prefers the old designations of 1-A and 1-AA.  The single letter difference in the acronym can be confusing.

No I just prefer the way basketball does it, no designation split, just one whole thing.

[formulanone]

NCAA FBS & FCS

What annoys me is when you post comments like this and provide zero context about what "bothers you."  Seems like posting just for the sake of it.

IDK why they separate it they shouldn't

Probably prefers the old designations of 1-A and 1-AA.  The single letter difference in the acronym can be confusing.

No I just prefer the way basketball does it, no designation split, just one whole thing.

Probably because there's about 120 FBS programs and 12-14 games; doubling the amount of the teams in the mix with no way to play twice the games and having a longer tournament (like basketball) than before is infeasible outside of fantasy/gaming.

The naming is confusing but it's not like 1A and 1AA was much more coherent. So even if there were say...250 teams and an expanded 16 game schedule, you'd still have something like Pinebraska State College and St. Catharsis complaining they didn't get a bid with a 13-3 record against tiny schools with limited media coverage, and has every right to compete with University of Frankenmuth and Scottsboro State who get more airtime but played in the Cola Wars Bowl.

Money or something.

[hotdogPi]

Tournaments with hundreds of teams and 13 games work fine if you're guaranteed to play against someone with the same record (if able; there will be a few that are paired up or paired down). Tiebreaker to get into the playoffs is average opponents' win percentage.

When I suggested this before, I said that the algorithm should only start after the end of week 4 so that historical rivalries where pairs of teams that play every year can still do so, and when there are multiple options (e.g. there are 40 3-3s), attempt to minimize travel distance.

Maybe allow free scheduling for those that are mathematically eliminated.

[I-57/Route 66 Fan]

The new March Madness format.

[Max Rockatansky]

The new March Madness format.

Sports fans complaining about things they don't like and not explaining why (again).

[SP Cook]

 I A and I AA were better.  A was the major schools with 95 scholarships and AA was smaller schools with 75.  ESPN, the focus of evil in the sports world, came up with this FBS and FCS convention.  Except the bowls no longer matter and both divisions play in championships.

Most people that follow I AA still call it I AA.

The over expansion of the be basketball tournament is stupid. 64 is sufficient.  Seeing SEC 11 playing ACC 10 is not needed.

[kphoger]

Sports fans complaining about things they don't like and not explaining why (again).

Care to explain why? 

[I-57/Route 66 Fan]

The new March Madness format.

Sports fans complaining about things they don't like and not explaining why (again).

It's too big now, 64 was perfect.

[Max Rockatansky]

Sports fans complaining about things they don't like and not explaining why (again).

Care to explain why? 

Feels suspiciously like post count boosting.

[kphoger]

64 was perfect

Nope.  There are no perfect numbers between 28 and 496.

[Max Rockatansky]

64 was perfect

Nope.  There are no perfect numbers between 28 and 496.

Really though, any single elimination tournament is a pretty shitty way to determine a basketball championship.

[NWI_Irish96]

64 was perfect

Nope.  There are no perfect numbers between 28 and 496.

Really though, any single elimination tournament is a pretty shitty way to determine a basketball championship.

It works for American football playoffs but not really any other sport.

[I-57/Route 66 Fan]

While were on the topic double elimination tournaments, it is a little too confusing for me.

[JayhawkCO]

While were on the topic double elimination tournaments, it is a little too confusing for me.

It's not so bad. There's just a consolation bracket that you get seeded in when you lose. The earlier you lose, the earlier you go in the bracket essentially. The teams that won one game and then lost "get a bye" in the consolation bracket. The consolation bracket itself is just "a single elimination tournament".

[1995hoo]

While were on the topic double elimination tournaments, it is a little too confusing for me.

You mean like the NCAA baseball tournament? I don't find the format confusing to follow, but I find it hard to describe in a concise way that is easy to understand. That is, "you have to lose twice to be eliminated" is easy enough to explain. But explaining the "winners' bracket" and the "losers' bracket" in a way that's easy for someone unfamiliar with the arrangement to understand is something I find difficult. And in the specific context of NCAA baseball, for the regionals and the College World Series the nature of the winners' and losers' brackets are important for understanding why it's so important to win your first two games (because doing so allows you to avoid playing two games against two different opponents on the third day).

[NWI_Irish96]

While were on the topic double elimination tournaments, it is a little too confusing for me.

You mean like the NCAA baseball tournament? I don't find the format confusing to follow, but I find it hard to describe in a concise way that is easy to understand. That is, "you have to lose twice to be eliminated" is easy enough to explain. But explaining the "winners' bracket" and the "losers' bracket" in a way that's easy for someone unfamiliar with the arrangement to understand is something I find difficult. And in the specific context of NCAA baseball, for the regionals and the College World Series the nature of the winners' and losers' brackets are important for understanding why it's so important to win your first two games (because doing so allows you to avoid playing two games against two different opponents on the third day).

Probably the easiest way to describe a double elimination tournament is that you are always playing a team with the same number of losses as you until there are only two teams left, one with 0 losses and one with 1 loss. What adds to the confusion is that the college baseball and softball world series use two segregated double elimination brackets instead of a single one, with the winners of each bracket playing a best-of-3 series for the title. The Little League WS, going on right now, similarly uses separate brackets for US and international teams, though with a single game championship instead of a series.