From britdisc-owner@csv.warwick.ac.uk Thu Oct 8 15:39:07 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by pansy.csv.warwick.ac.uk (8.8.7/8.8.8) id PAA17719 for britdisc-outgoing; Thu, 8 Oct 1998 15:15:32 +0100 (BST) Received: from eukscpo2.dundee.ncr.com (tan7.NCR.COM [192.127.94.7]) by pansy.csv.warwick.ac.uk (8.8.7/8.8.8) with ESMTP id PAA17677 for <britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk>; Thu, 8 Oct 1998 15:15:21 +0100 (BST) Received: by eukscpo2.Dundee.NCR.COM with Internet Mail Service (5.0.1460.8) id <S9WRF8RS>; Thu, 8 Oct 1998 15:14:24 +0100 Message-ID: <4B6690540CA9D111846C0000C00339D5F14EE4@eukscpo2.Dundee.NCR.COM> From: "Grayson, David" <graysd@exchange.SCOTLAND.NCR.com> To: "'Britdisc'" <britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Big Funky vs World Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1998 15:14:23 +0100 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.0.1460.8) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: owner-britdisc@warwick.ac.uk Precedence: bulk On the seeding system debate The reactive system would seem to work better for the Tours and I am certainly in favour of that system, but what is the effect of missing an event? (I think I'm right in saying VH missed one this year) Does a team then rejoin the Tour as a wild card left to the discretion of the U8 committee? or do they come in at the bottom? Sounds like a perfect recipe for bitching at the committee! This years system meant that a teams seeding tends not to drop much - particularly after 2 tours or more -by missing one, due to the points scoring system. Before the argument is raised that "if a team is serious they should be able to make all 5 tours" let me just make a couple of points - circumstances can happen to cause a team to be unable to be fielded (food poisoning, transport cancellation, accident, freak set of commitments to reduce available team numbers etc.), and can affect any team and it only has to happen once to cause a problem. Also, some teams at the bottom end of the scale can have entries rejected due to oversubscription - okay they are less likely to be seriously affected by coming in seeded last but the principle holds. Presumably some sort of a provision would be built into the rules to govern such an occurence? While on the subject of points, are people sure the points scoring system was ideal? I am no statto so have no clue how the points ladder was devised but do know that at some crucial stages around the crucial divisional cut off points, teams were separated by a single point or two. Has anyone checked to make sure points for each position were fair?, and not overly or underly influenced by a good result? Just a couple of thoughts, Dave. Mud Culture. > -----Original Message----- > From: HUGHES, Chris [SMTP:CHughes@chelt.ac.uk] > Sent: Thursday, October 08, 1998 01:59 > To: 'Britdisc' > Subject: Big Funky vs World > > I think an argument here is getting distorted, but it raises a number of > points. > > BAFlies performed very poorly at the start of the tour last year, the sent > a > weak team to the critical 1st tournament, Merrick was injured, and so they > finished tour 1 in a low position. Then during the season they picked up > their perfomance - Mezza came back from injury, they practised hard and > improved (Sorry - that's not supposed to sound like it is a one man team). > When it finally came round to nationals they were seeded tenth just > outside > the top eight slot. The nationals rather like NFL / NBA leagues, take the > performance over a year and then let these qualifying teams slug it out > to > finally get a winner. Unless we start again and have Nationals as a > completely open tournament some one just outside the cut is going to get > pissed. > > The argument here should be more about the tour. This was set up so that > teams played teams of approx the same level, but in the tournament format > you would always play some one better than you (unless you won outright). > And the tour WORKS like that. BAF this year, 1st Touch last year, came up > through the ranks as they improved. The argument is that teams are too > hampered / promoted by their initial results. BAF had a bad 1st tour, and > since the seeding is a complicated version of an average result you need a > number of good results to remove the effect of a bad result, which is then > too late in the season. Vhappy and their initial results worked for them > as > they started to struggle later in the tour and were consistently seeded > higher than their previous starting position, BAF always started lower > than > their previous finishing position. > > So why not start each tournament with seedings based on previous finishing > positions. Yes this would promote more movement of teams, and would make > it > easier to remove the effects of a poor tournament, but it also punishes > the > teams who have a poor tournament much quicker. Example Team finishes 1st > in > T1, 9th in T2, then has poor turnout and plays badly and finishes in 9th > position in T3 by loosing a lot of their games. By basing the starting > position on average results they would start T4 approx 4th , could go on > to > win T4 and T5 and the tour. Using the previous finishing position system > the > best they could do in T4 is finish 5th, irrelevant of how good they are > and > then go and win T5 but not the tour, loosing to a team that is > consistently > 2nd. > > Both systems have their ups and downs, the present system makes teams slow > to move, and teams need good results at the beginning, the new system, > which > is not in place yet, is quicker to react to a new result - to the benefit > or > detriment of the team. > > My personal preference is to have the new system used for seedings in the > tour, allowing more movement of teams within groups, and the present to > seed > teams for national, thereby rewarding a consistent team with a slot in > nationals > > > Discuss. > > Chris