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GlennMacGrady
Joined: 03 Jan 2005
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 Posted: 07/01/15 8:17 am ::: |
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| ewecon wrote: |
Ladyvol777 said "UCONN will fall down so much when Geno retires unless ESPN keeps propping them up, there football program is so small they will never get in a power 5 conference. South Florida someday will get an invite to a power 5 conference. The AAC is on short time."
A fine example of pure speculation. People said the same thing about the Big East at one point.....and they were wrong.
....and what exactly do you mean "unless ESPN keeps propping them up"? How does ESPN prop them up now? |
LadyVol777 gave a clear answer to the topic question by saying that there are only five Power conferences because football rules.
Do you have an opinion on the topic, which is whether the AAC is a mid-major conference or not? |
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ArtBest23
Joined: 02 Jul 2013
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| Posted: 07/01/15 8:20 am ::: |
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| pilight wrote: |
| ArtBest23 wrote: |
| Are you characterizing a conference's classification as major or mid major seperately for each sport? |
That doesn't seem unreasonable. No one considers the SEC a major conference in ice hockey, for example. |
Because most people don't consider conferences being major or mid on a sport-by-sport basis. The only fans who I ever see try to do that are some women's basketball fans.
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pilight
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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| Posted: 07/01/15 8:30 am ::: |
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| ArtBest23 wrote: |
| pilight wrote: |
| ArtBest23 wrote: |
| Are you characterizing a conference's classification as major or mid major seperately for each sport? |
That doesn't seem unreasonable. No one considers the SEC a major conference in ice hockey, for example. |
Because most people don't consider conferences being major or mid on a sport-by-sport basis. The only fans who I ever see try to do that are some women's basketball fans. |
That's the exact opposite of what I was saying. The SEC is NOT a major in ice hockey, no matter how good their football teams are.
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GlennMacGrady
Joined: 03 Jan 2005
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| Posted: 07/01/15 8:31 am ::: |
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| pilight wrote: |
| ArtBest23 wrote: |
| Are you characterizing a conference's classification as major or mid major seperately for each sport? |
That doesn't seem unreasonable. No one considers the SEC a major conference in ice hockey, for example. |
And it's further reasonable for the conference's classification to vary year by year as the individual sports at each individual school are more or less successful -- what I earlier and pompously called temporal classification relativism?
Perhaps we could have a complex mathematical formula for each sport, at each school, for each year -- all integrated and compared by a "mid-major calculus". Hilbert and Turing are dead, but perhaps we could get Massey or Creme for the job.
I prefer simple, binary rules. They lend themselves to greater predictability, clarity of thought and human contentment. Up-down. In-out. On-off. Yes-no. Power5-others. |
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ClayK
Joined: 11 Oct 2005
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| Posted: 07/01/15 9:14 am ::: |
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| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
| pilight wrote: |
| It is too soon to tell. The conference has only existed for two seasons. It should remain unclassified until we have more data. |
No comprendo.
The issue is the conceptual definition of the classification, not empirical data to support inclusion in or exclusion from a defined classification.
As data change for different sports at different schools in different conferences, basing classification definitions on that would cause greater ontological relativism than what was proposed by Clay. In addition to individual sport classification relativism, we would have temporal classification relativism as empirical data for individual sports changed from year to year. |
Love this ... just like being back in philosophy class.
But to be clear:
There are five major conferences, and the AAC is not one of them. (Football is the engine that pulls the train, and television is the coal.)
In each significant, and national, sport, there are teams that can be relevant that are not in a power conference. (Ice hockey is an anomaly, but it is not a national sport. Neither is gymnastics, nor ultimate frisbee, nor squash, nor bowling, etc. We're talking about national "significance" here, not the NCAA golf title.)
So, we have two words:
Major: The Power 5
Relevant: Powerful teams
Relevance varies from significant national sport to significant national sport. Most relevant teams are in the major conferences, but not all.
It doesn't seem that complicated to me.
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ArtBest23
Joined: 02 Jul 2013
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| Posted: 07/01/15 9:36 am ::: |
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| pilight wrote: |
| ArtBest23 wrote: |
| pilight wrote: |
| ArtBest23 wrote: |
| Are you characterizing a conference's classification as major or mid major seperately for each sport? |
That doesn't seem unreasonable. No one considers the SEC a major conference in ice hockey, for example. |
Because most people don't consider conferences being major or mid on a sport-by-sport basis. The only fans who I ever see try to do that are some women's basketball fans. |
That's the exact opposite of what I was saying. The SEC is NOT a major in ice hockey, no matter how good their football teams are. |
The SEC is a major conference. Period. There is no "in sport A" qualifier to that status. It doesn't matter what sports they play or don't play, much less what they're good at. Other than a small number of WBB fans, no one talks in terms of "major in sport X, mid in sport Y". You're either major or your not.
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summertime blues
Joined: 16 Apr 2013
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| Posted: 07/01/15 10:40 am ::: |
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| Mid-major with an anomalous member in WBB and sometimes MBB.
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GlennMacGrady
Joined: 03 Jan 2005
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| Posted: 07/01/15 10:58 am ::: |
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Well, Clay has graciously clarified his ontology, epistemology, cladistics and semantics.
He's an absolutist re the "majorism" of conferences but a temporal relativist re the "relevance" of different schools in different sports.
That seems logical and reasonable to me, both on the conceptual and semantic levels, so I will burglarize that position as my own. |
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ArtBest23
Joined: 02 Jul 2013
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| Posted: 07/01/15 12:11 pm ::: |
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| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
Well, Clay has graciously clarified his ontology, epistemology, cladistics and semantics.
He's an absolutist re the "majorism" of conferences but a temporal relativist re the "relevance" of different schools in different sports.
That seems logical and reasonable to me, both on the conceptual and semantic levels, so I will burglarize that position as my own. |
Probably the classic example of "team-in-one-sport relevance" vs "conference status" is Boise State in football. They've been "relevant" for quite a while, playing at a high major level (higher than an overwhelming majority of P5 conference teams) in the most important sport. But I've never heard anyone claim the Mountain West is anything other than a mid-major conference. (Well, except perhaps the conference commissioner.)
I'll sign on to that position as well.
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GlennMacGrady
Joined: 03 Jan 2005
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| Posted: 07/01/15 12:47 pm ::: |
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| ArtBest23 wrote: |
| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
Well, Clay has graciously clarified his ontology, epistemology, cladistics and semantics.
He's an absolutist re the "majorism" of conferences but a temporal relativist re the "relevance" of different schools in different sports.
That seems logical and reasonable to me, both on the conceptual and semantic levels, so I will burglarize that position as my own. |
Probably the classic example of "team-in-one-sport relevance" vs "conference status" is Boise State in football. They've been "relevant" for quite a while, playing at a high major level (higher than an overwhelming majority of P5 conference teams) in the most important sport. But I've never heard anyone claim the Mountain West is anything other than a mid-major conference. (Well, except perhaps the conference commissioner.)
I'll sign on to that position as well. |
It seems that the majority of clearly expressed opinions in this thread are willing to accept that, at the conference level, "mid-major" means "non-Power 5", even though that term was initially formulated for football.
The practical question is whether pundits and pollsters will be consistent in their usage of the word "mid-major". For example, will the two women's college basketball mid-major polls include UConn and other AAC schools or won't they? I'll note that they carried Princeton as #1 for much of the last part of last season even as Princeton rose near or into the top ten of the major polls.
I see there is at least one mid-major football poll, and last season it included the MWC (Boise State) as well as the AAC. |
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ClayK
Joined: 11 Oct 2005
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| Posted: 07/01/15 1:03 pm ::: |
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I knew that Berkeley philosophy degree would come in handy eventually ...
We used to do mid-major rankings at Full Court Press, and we had to just sort of make up the definition. In general, we stuck to the conference structure, but had to make exceptions for mid-majors that had great years.
In other words, it made little sense but was sort of fun ...
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Conway Gamecock
Joined: 23 Jan 2015
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| Posted: 07/01/15 2:44 pm ::: |
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| pilight wrote: |
| ArtBest23 wrote: |
| Are you characterizing a conference's classification as major or mid major seperately for each sport? |
That doesn't seem unreasonable. No one considers the SEC a major conference in ice hockey, for example. |
That's not a valid counterpoint, because there is no SEC member institutions that I know of that even fields a Ice Hockey program. So by your point a school simply needs to field a sport of any kind, in order for its conference to be considered as a major conference in that sport?
If so, then that substantially waters down the definition one is using for what a "major" conference is...
You should at least use a sport as an example that every conference member fields a team for. For the SEC this would rule out soccer, lacrosse, wrestling, and yes....even ice hockey...
Although the other side of that argument also has it's points: not every SEC member fields collegiate gymnastics or equestrian teams, but the SEC schools that do regularly dominates those sports...
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Conway Gamecock
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| Posted: 07/01/15 2:48 pm ::: |
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| calbearman76 wrote: |
At this point UConn is the most MAJOR team so including them in any type of mid-major grouping would seem incongruous. So for now the AAC is not a mid-major. |
"Most MAJOR team" does not always equal "MAJOR team", and one single member institution does not define an entire conference of schools, when the context of debate involves how to label a conference based on it's entire sum of member institutions....
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ball4life
Joined: 26 Jun 2012
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| Posted: 07/01/15 2:49 pm ::: |
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| This will not end until someone says that the AAC is a major conference. Please someone agree this is torture.
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pilight
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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| Posted: 07/01/15 2:55 pm ::: |
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| Conway Gamecock wrote: |
| pilight wrote: |
| ArtBest23 wrote: |
| Are you characterizing a conference's classification as major or mid major seperately for each sport? |
That doesn't seem unreasonable. No one considers the SEC a major conference in ice hockey, for example. |
That's not a valid counterpoint, because there is no SEC member institutions that I know of that even fields a Ice Hockey program. So by your point a school simply needs to field a sport of any kind, in order for its conference to be considered as a major conference in that sport? |
In fact 10 SEC schools have ice hockey programs, albeit as non-scholarship club teams.
http://sechchockey.com/
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pilight
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| Posted: 07/01/15 2:55 pm ::: |
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| ball4life wrote: |
| This will not end until someone says that the AAC is a major conference. Please someone agree this is torture. |
I agree that this is torture
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Conway Gamecock
Joined: 23 Jan 2015
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| Posted: 07/01/15 3:02 pm ::: |
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| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
| ArtBest23 wrote: |
| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
Well, Clay has graciously clarified his ontology, epistemology, cladistics and semantics.
He's an absolutist re the "majorism" of conferences but a temporal relativist re the "relevance" of different schools in different sports.
That seems logical and reasonable to me, both on the conceptual and semantic levels, so I will burglarize that position as my own. |
Probably the classic example of "team-in-one-sport relevance" vs "conference status" is Boise State in football. They've been "relevant" for quite a while, playing at a high major level (higher than an overwhelming majority of P5 conference teams) in the most important sport. But I've never heard anyone claim the Mountain West is anything other than a mid-major conference. (Well, except perhaps the conference commissioner.)
I'll sign on to that position as well. |
It seems that the majority of clearly expressed opinions in this thread are willing to accept that, at the conference level, "mid-major" means "non-Power 5", even though that term was initially formulated for football.
The practical question is whether pundits and pollsters will be consistent in their usage of the word "mid-major". For example, will the two women's college basketball mid-major polls include UConn and other AAC schools or won't they? I'll note that they carried Princeton as #1 for much of the last part of last season even as Princeton rose near or into the top ten of the major polls.
I see there is at least one mid-major football poll, and last season it included the MWC (Boise State) as well as the AAC. |
It depends on the context of what is being debated and considered. Does one or even two programs within any particular conference define that conference? That is what this debate seems to be - is the AAC CONFERENCE a major CONFERENCE or mid-major CONFERENCE? The commonality evolves around the entire conference as a whole, not any one or two member institutions within it, nor any one or two programs within those one or two member institutions.
I guess the position here is that one or two member institutions that have one or two athletic programs that compete at the major level, somehow elevates the entire conference that they reside in, to major conference status. What then is meant when one says "conference"?
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Conway Gamecock
Joined: 23 Jan 2015
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| Posted: 07/01/15 3:08 pm ::: |
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| pilight wrote: |
| Conway Gamecock wrote: |
| pilight wrote: |
| ArtBest23 wrote: |
| Are you characterizing a conference's classification as major or mid major seperately for each sport? |
That doesn't seem unreasonable. No one considers the SEC a major conference in ice hockey, for example. |
That's not a valid counterpoint, because there is no SEC member institutions that I know of that even fields a Ice Hockey program. So by your point a school simply needs to field a sport of any kind, in order for its conference to be considered as a major conference in that sport? |
In fact 10 SEC schools have ice hockey programs, albeit as non-scholarship club teams.
http://sechchockey.com/ |
No they don't. It's not the SEC (Southeastern Conference), it's the SECHC or the South Eastern Collegiate Hockey Conference. It may contain SEC member schools, but the SEC is not affiliated with the SECHC beyond that coincidence. If a member school of the SECHC actually wins a hockey national championship, that member school may tout the achievement on it's own dedicated websites and social networks, but you'll never see anything posted about it on the SEC official website, and why should you?
But I am surprised to see so many club ice hockey teams by the SEC schools, so thanks for the info. I wasn't prepared to delve as deeply into intramural sports in making my debating points regarding major conferences...
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GlennMacGrady
Joined: 03 Jan 2005
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| Posted: 07/01/15 4:46 pm ::: |
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| Conway Gamecock wrote: |
I guess the position here is that one or two member institutions that have one or two athletic programs that compete at the major level, somehow elevates the entire conference that they reside in, to major conference status. |
CG, I think only one participant in this thread has claimed the AAC to be a major conference, one or two others are mugwumping the issue, and the majority are accepting that the AAC is a mid-major because it's not one of the football Power 5. If I'm wrong in my counting recollection, sorry, but I'm not rereading the whole thread.
The impetus for the thread was the admission by a major WBB writer, ESPN's Graham Hays, quoted in the first paragraph of my OP, to the effect that he wasn't sure how to define a term, "mid-major conference", that sports writers use all the time. This is a very practical issue for writers and rankers. |
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linkster
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| Posted: 07/01/15 5:54 pm ::: |
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I think there has been a general agreement that the single sport that defines a conference as a major is football.
Wcbb is a minor sport at all but a relative handful of schools in the entire country. So what does the term "major" have to do with wbbb conferences? Does membership in a powerful football conference bestow some sort of aura of "majorness" on any school's wbb program? And why is this conversation being held on a wbb site? IMO it's the same reason there are so many discussions on wbb boards about which conferences are tops in wcbb, namely that the typical debate that fills the forums of other sports, namely "which school is the best" is avoided due to it's obvious answer. With the exceptions of the Griner and Diggens eras, one team has virtually dominated wcbb for the last 8 years, making it tough for anyone else to brag about their program without drawing the haughty laughter of UConn fans down upon themselves.
So those who want to extol their team have instead been reduced to extolling their conference, and, as an benefit (to them), belittling the AAC. In the last 20 years only seven different programs have won national titles in wbb and two programs have 14 of those 20. What we have to face is that in the last 15 years there have been 30 teams that have played in the NNC game and 17 of them were named UConn, Tenn & Notre Dame.
There is barely enough "power" teams in wcbb to create even one "power" conference.
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Oldfandepot2
Joined: 05 Jul 2013
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| Posted: 07/01/15 7:53 pm ::: |
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| linkster wrote: |
I think there has been a general agreement that the single sport that defines a conference as a major is football.
Wcbb is a minor sport at all but a relative handful of schools in the entire country. So what does the term "major" have to do with wbbb conferences? Does membership in a powerful football conference bestow some sort of aura of "majorness" on any school's wbb program? And why is this conversation being held on a wbb site? IMO it's the same reason there are so many discussions on wbb boards about which conferences are tops in wcbb, namely that the typical debate that fills the forums of other sports, namely "which school is the best" is avoided due to it's obvious answer. With the exceptions of the Griner and Diggens eras, one team has virtually dominated wcbb for the last 8 years, making it tough for anyone else to brag about their program without drawing the haughty laughter of UConn fans down upon themselves.
So those who want to extol their team have instead been reduced to extolling their conference, and, as an benefit (to them), belittling the AAC. In the last 20 years only seven different programs have won national titles in wbb and two programs have 14 of those 20. What we have to face is that in the last 15 years there have been 30 teams that have played in the NNC game and 17 of them were named UConn, Tenn & Notre Dame.
There is barely enough "power" teams in wcbb to create even one "power" conference. |
Bingo! If not for the fact that UCONN is in the AAC would this thread exist. Think not. Definitely not.
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linkster
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| Posted: 07/01/15 8:08 pm ::: |
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I think there has been a general agreement that the single sport that defines a conference as a major is football.
Wcbb is a minor sport at all but a relative handful of schools in the entire country. So what does the term "major" have to do with wbbb conferences? Does membership in a powerful football conference bestow some sort of aura of "majorness" on any school's wbb program? And why is this conversation being held on a wbb site? IMO it's the same reason there are so many discussions on wbb boards about which conferences are tops in wcbb, namely that the typical debate that fills the forums of other sports, namely "which school is the best" is avoided due to it's obvious answer. With the exceptions of the Griner and Diggens eras, one team has virtually dominated wcbb for the last 8 years, making it tough for anyone else to brag about their program without drawing the haughty laughter of UConn fans down upon themselves.
So those who want to extol their team have instead been reduced to extolling their conference, and, as an benefit (to them), belittling the AAC. In the last 20 years only seven different programs have won national titles in wbb and two programs have 14 of those 20. What we have to face is that in the last 15 years there have been 30 teams that have played in the NC game and 17 of them were named UConn, Tenn & Notre Dame.
There is barely enough "power" teams in wcbb to create even one "power" conference.
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ewecon
Joined: 28 Dec 2012
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| Posted: 07/02/15 12:09 pm ::: |
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MGM said "LadyVol777 gave a clear answer to the topic question by saying that there are only five Power conferences because football rules.
Do you have an opinion on the topic, which is whether the AAC is a mid-major conference or not?"
Firstly, I wasn't attacking LadyVol777, nor was I disputing what she said about there being 5 power conferences. I was simply stating that what was said about UConn and the AAC is pure speculation...and it is. You have an issue with that?
.....and yes, I do have an opinion.....UConn is a Power 5 basketball school team stuck in a mid-major conference because it's football program sucks. That OK with you?
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Conway Gamecock
Joined: 23 Jan 2015
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| Posted: 07/02/15 5:38 pm ::: |
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SEC:
2. Alabama
5. LSU
8. Auburn
9. Florida
16. Tennessee
17. Georgia
20. South Carolina
23. Arkansas
25. Kentucky
28. Texas A&M
41. Missouri
51. Mississippi
61. Vanderbilt
64. Mississippi State
Big 10:
3. Ohio State
4. Michigan
7. Wisconsin
10. Penn State
14. Iowa
18. Minnesota
24. Nebraska
32. Michigan State
34. Indiana
42. Purdue
50. Rutgers
52. Northwestern
54. Maryland
56. Illinois
Big 12:
1. Texas
6. Oklahoma
21. Kansas
26. Oklahoma State
31. Baylor
39. West Virginia
40. Texas Christian
46. Kansas State
53. Iowa State
57. Texas Tech
PAC-12:
12. Stanford
13. Southern California
19. Washington
22. Arizona
27. California
33. UCLA
35. Oregon (Nike)
45. Arizona State
55. Oregon State
60. Colorado
62. Washington State
65. Utah
ACC:
11. Notre Dame
15. Florida State
29. Louisville
30. Syracuse
36. Virginia
37. North Carolina
38. Duke
43. Clemson
44. Virginia Tech
47. Miami (Fla.)
49. North Carolina State
58. Pittsburgh
59. Boston College
66. Wake Forest
67. Georgia Tech
Those are the Power Five. Now let's look at the AAC:
AAC:
48. Connecticut
68. SMU
69. Central Florida
70. South Florida
71. Memphis
73. Cincinnati
75. Houston
76. Temple
79. East Carolina
90. Tulsa
94. Tulane
www.bbstate.com/info/teams-revenue
https://uproxx.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/peter-dinklage-mic-drop.gif?w=540
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Stephen Shirley
Joined: 18 Dec 2006
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| Posted: 07/08/15 4:57 pm ::: Simple math |
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How to determine if your program is a mid-major: Did your conference write you a check for $20+ million?
If your answer is "No," then you are a mid-major.
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