Recent Entries
 | Cup ideas (spoiler) Posted by |
Yes, this is entirely because I'm about to lose to Cincinnati next weekend.
I have two quick ideas for the TMVL Cup.
1. Right now the draw is a random bracket, which is great! But the WGM Cup is done in pods so you get to play a larger variety of teams. I'd prefer if the first round draw was also done in pods, where the game picks one team from each conference and then randomly assigns them games. That way you are guaranteed to play two teams from outside your conference in the first two rounds of the cup. 4 Big East teams wound up in my pod and 4 out of the 7 games in the pod so far are all Big East matchups.
2. There is currently a big advantage to being the last team drawn out of the cup and a big disadvantage to the team being drawn first, as the first team will play no home games, and the last team will play only home games. I forget if the final is neutral.
My proposed rule change here is to keep the current structure, but if team Away has played fewer home games in the cup than team Home, then team Away gets to host the game.
Example, where 1 is the best and would always host:
Team 1 (home) beats Team 4
Team 3 beats Team 2 (home)
Normally Team 1 would host Team 3 in the second round, but because Team 1 hosted the first match and Team 3 did not, Team 3 gets to host the second round match.
So far this rule would not have come into place, the one time it may have the team which benefited was already scheduled to host. This could also potentially be applied from the quarterfinals onward to preserve the sanctity of the pods!
Just a couple thoughts!
Readers Comments
Aren't all TMVL Cup/Shield games played at a neutral venue?
Roger, yes all TMVL Cup/Shield games are neutral courts. I think there's an advantage being the "away" team as you receive first in sets 1, 3 and 5. Teams win more points on receive than serve. Assuming a 40% chance to win the point on your serve and the score is 13-13 in the 5th set you have a 16% chance of winning 15-13 and a 24% chance of losing 13-15. The math(s) is much trickier if it goes to 14-14 as it depends who is serving next.
John, are you suggesting 8 pods as in the WGM? Random on who plays who, winners in each pod go into the Cup and play each other. Losers go into the Shield and play each other.
Roger: Yes, was just looking at the bracket page and not the schedule page! The bracket page has (H)...
Steve: Yes. Not groups like the WGM, still a random draw, but you won't face a team from your conference in the first or second round, which can only be done if there is one team from each conference in each pod.
Sometimes new ideas don't take into account all the changes (like what specific match numbers mean and how they are all over the java and php code) I'd need to make to implement an idea and it drives me a little crazy. Yup, great idea, but that's 40 hours I won't be spending time on. 😎
However, John's idea is straightforward and doesn't violate that (like I don't have to rewrite an entire competition).
If I understand it right it just means putting 4 teams (from different conferences) in each section of the bracket so that a team will play 2 of the other 3 conferences in the first 2 rounds of the TMVL Cup or "1st round" of the TMVL Shield.
This is more of an initial draw scheduling thing which while not trivial (for me), shouldn't take too much time.
The bracket of TMVL Cup (though not the Shield it appears) INCORRECTLY shows a (H) for home. TMVL Cup matches are all NEUTRAL court. So I'll put that on my list to fix. It shows correctly everywhere else, just not the bracket page.
I don't know when I'll implement this (next year or future) but I think its a good suggestion. Its on my list.
Thanks John.