NSCAA 8 - Signups

[Empire of Cats]

Top Eight university basketball programs from our glorious nation...or not so glorious, depending on who you ask.

1. Emperor's Own University (EOC)
2. Northern Felinistan College at Catstantinople (EOC)
3. West Pipersville Colligate Prepatory (EOC)
4. Empire of Catsian Isles University (EOC)
5. Southern Rochelle University (EOC)
6. College of the Allied States (EOC)
7. Lyrixistan A&M at Cat's Paw (EOC)
8. St. Kitt's University (EOC)

[Kep]

As per these results, the following university will be representing the Kebecois college student-athletes during NSCAA 8:

• Eckenburg Mountain University [ KBC ]

---

P.S.:

• I'd like to host one conference
• What do you have to do to bid to have your stadium host the Final 4?

[Cosumar]

Ramusok Capital University (COS)
Stoneshore College (COS)
Slivelle Academy (COS)
University of the Western Isles (COS)
University of Klyde (COS)
University of Parougan (COS)
Tamarskand Fief University (COS)
Ayronhrod University (COS)

[NSCAA Basketball]

Updated to here. Around 52 hours left to sign up - currently at 173 teams, the most likely possibilities should be as follows:

176 - 11 conferences of 16
180 - 15 conferences of 12 or 18 conferences of 10
190 - 19 conferences of 10
192 - 16 conferences of 12 or 12 conferences of 16

[Newmanistan]

Updated to here. Around 52 hours left to sign up - currently at 173 teams, the most likely possibilities should be as follows:

176 - 11 conferences of 16
180 - 15 conferences of 12 or 18 conferences of 10
190 - 19 conferences of 10
192 - 16 conferences of 12 or 12 conferences of 16

For 176, I'd rather see 16 conferences of 11, instead of 11 conferences of 16.
I'm wondering what you have against conferences of 11, 13, 14, or 15 teams. This is college basketball and part of the fun of conference tournaments is that all conferences are different in their formats (which seeds get byes, etc.) Nothing wrong with a 13 team conferences where seeds 1-3 get byes in the tournament.

Also, most NCAA basketball conferences, save a couple elite super conferences are smaller then 16 teams. I really don't wish to see a bunch of 16-team conferences.

[Newmanistan]

Actually, I don't understand why we have to come to a number where it is an even:
"15 conferences of 12" to begin with.

This is college basketball, not World Cup qualifying. All conferences are unique and independent IRL (I.e. Decisions made by the ACC do not have any relevance to decisions by the SEC in how the conference is run, and the amount of teams they have). Nothing wrong with:
"There will 15 conferences. 10 with 12 teams and 5 with 11 teams", for example. That is actually far more lifelike then a cookie-cutter setup.

[Drawkland]

Actually, I don't understand why we have to come to a number where it is an even:
"15 conferences of 12" to begin with.

This is college basketball, not World Cup qualifying. All conferences are unique and independent IRL (I.e. Decisions made by the ACC do not have any relevance to decisions by the SEC in how the conference is run, and the amount of teams they have). Nothing wrong with:
"There will 15 conferences. 10 with 12 teams and 5 with 11 teams", for example. That is actually far more lifelike then a cookie-cutter setup.

How will this affect seeding then? I'm fine with disjunct conference sizes but that'll make the already-tough job of seeding a little harder. Should it be done by placement? Win record? Or some other metric? Amount of wins clearly won't be fair in this case since different conferences will feature different numbers of games total.

And then who determines the amount of teams per conference? Should it be up to the hosts? It'll be harder to assign hosts to conferences if the number of conferences depends on how many teams the hosts want. And if it's up to the organizer, what method should they use to get a suitable amount of conferences with a certain amount of teams per conference?

I'm totally fine with having different formatted conferences, you bring up a good point with the RL comparison, but it just sounds like it only adds to the monumental nightmare organizing this sort of thing ends up being.

[Frenline Delpha]

Actually, I don't understand why we have to come to a number where it is an even:
"15 conferences of 12" to begin with.

This is college basketball, not World Cup qualifying. All conferences are unique and independent IRL (I.e. Decisions made by the ACC do not have any relevance to decisions by the SEC in how the conference is run, and the amount of teams they have). Nothing wrong with:
"There will 15 conferences. 10 with 12 teams and 5 with 11 teams", for example. That is actually far more lifelike then a cookie-cutter setup.

How will this affect seeding then? I'm fine with disjunct conference sizes but that'll make the already-tough job of seeding a little harder. Should it be done by placement? Win record? Or some other metric? Amount of wins clearly won't be fair in this case since different conferences will feature different numbers of games total.

If you mean seeding for the championship tournament, didn't we allow each host to decide who they wanted in the tournament and then have Ceni compile them all using a general consensus? Using whatever metrics each host desired?

[Drawkland]

How will this affect seeding then? I'm fine with disjunct conference sizes but that'll make the already-tough job of seeding a little harder. Should it be done by placement? Win record? Or some other metric? Amount of wins clearly won't be fair in this case since different conferences will feature different numbers of games total.

If you mean seeding for the championship tournament, didn't we allow each host to decide who they wanted in the tournament and then have Ceni compile them all using a general consensus? Using whatever metrics each host desired?

While I see what you mean there, that holds tons of potential to be abused. Also, that ignores the fact that we might not have an even number of conferences that could submit to it (i.e. how could 15 conferences submit a fair amount of teams to the final 64?) Of course, that would be easy to fix, just have 16 conference and each conference submits 4 teams.

Oh wait, what if, through the luck of the draw, one conference contains 6 teams from 6 RPing users, all of which deserve to go to the final tournament? And what if there's a conference that only has 1 RPing team? How is it fair that 2 deserving teams get shut out while 3 undeserving ones get in? I know this is my scenario I'm asking about but it's a rhetorical question that should be used as food for thought, because it can apply to more situations than this.

The above situation is also the reason that I believe the At-Large Listing from last year was effective. While of course there's a little bit of bias among users, it ultimately ensures the RPers that put forth the most effort get their teams into the tournament.

[Frenline Delpha]

If you mean seeding for the championship tournament, didn't we allow each host to decide who they wanted in the tournament and then have Ceni compile them all using a general consensus? Using whatever metrics each host desired?

While I see what you mean there, that holds tons of potential to be abused. Also, that ignores the fact that we might not have an even number of conferences that could submit to it (i.e. how could 15 conferences submit a fair amount of teams to the final 64?) Of course, that would be easy to fix, just have 16 conference and each conference submits 4 teams.

Oh wait, what if, through the luck of the draw, one conference contains 6 teams from 6 RPing users, all of which deserve to go to the final tournament? And what if there's a conference that only has 1 RPing team? How is it fair that 2 deserving teams get shut out while 3 undeserving ones get in? I know this is my scenario I'm asking about but it's a rhetorical question that should be used as food for thought, because it can apply to more situations than this.

The above situation is also the reason that I believe the At-Large Listing from last year was effective. While of course there's a little bit of bias among users, it ultimately ensures the RPers that put forth the most effort get their teams into the tournament.

I agree that we shouldn't limit how many teams are allowed to come out of each conference. In fact, that'd be quite silly. And I agree that the At-Large listing was helpful, so I would love to see those come back. I was just arguing that we should let each host place whoever they want into the tournament and go from there.

[Chromatika]

While I see what you mean there, that holds tons of potential to be abused. Also, that ignores the fact that we might not have an even number of conferences that could submit to it (i.e. how could 15 conferences submit a fair amount of teams to the final 64?) Of course, that would be easy to fix, just have 16 conference and each conference submits 4 teams.

Oh wait, what if, through the luck of the draw, one conference contains 6 teams from 6 RPing users, all of which deserve to go to the final tournament? And what if there's a conference that only has 1 RPing team? How is it fair that 2 deserving teams get shut out while 3 undeserving ones get in? I know this is my scenario I'm asking about but it's a rhetorical question that should be used as food for thought, because it can apply to more situations than this.

The above situation is also the reason that I believe the At-Large Listing from last year was effective. While of course there's a little bit of bias among users, it ultimately ensures the RPers that put forth the most effort get their teams into the tournament.

I agree that we shouldn't limit how many teams are allowed to come out of each conference. In fact, that'd be quite silly. And I agree that the At-Large listing was helpful, so I would love to see those come back. I was just arguing that we should let each host place whoever they want into the tournament and go from there.

It should not be the teams each host wants but the teams each host thinks deserves it the most.

I once again stress the need for fewer more competent hosts.

[The Geeses Commonwealth of Goosedom]

Aero-Academy (OGG)
The Geese's University of Strength (OGG)
National Goose Academy (OGG)
University of Superiority of the Gosling (OGG)
Alliance of the Wings Exchange University (OGG)
Undergoose Reformatory School (OGG)

[Newmanistan]

Actually, I don't understand why we have to come to a number where it is an even:
"15 conferences of 12" to begin with.

This is college basketball, not World Cup qualifying. All conferences are unique and independent IRL (I.e. Decisions made by the ACC do not have any relevance to decisions by the SEC in how the conference is run, and the amount of teams they have). Nothing wrong with:
"There will 15 conferences. 10 with 12 teams and 5 with 11 teams", for example. That is actually far more lifelike then a cookie-cutter setup.

How will this affect seeding then? I'm fine with disjunct conference sizes but that'll make the already-tough job of seeding a little harder. Should it be done by placement? Win record? Or some other metric? Amount of wins clearly won't be fair in this case since different conferences will feature different numbers of games total.

And then who determines the amount of teams per conference? Should it be up to the hosts? It'll be harder to assign hosts to conferences if the number of conferences depends on how many teams the hosts want. And if it's up to the organizer, what method should they use to get a suitable amount of conferences with a certain amount of teams per conference?

I'm totally fine with having different formatted conferences, you bring up a good point with the RL comparison, but it just sounds like it only adds to the monumental nightmare organizing this sort of thing ends up being.

When I seeded my first NSCAA tournament, I earned immediate respect for the real-life selection committee. In the earlier editions each person who scorinated a conference sent a list of their 64 teams, in order. An average ranking per school was calculated and seeded accordingly, and it looks like this is still done today. Deciding what is better: 30-4 or 20-2 will vary, but it's not, for example, going to have one host rank the 30-4 school 4th and the 20-2 school, 24th, so that there would not be a dramatic range. More then likely the schools will be close with where each host ranks them, so when they are averaged out, it really doesn't make a difference.

The bigger variable in seeding comes from, as mentioned in the OP, trying to keep schools from the same nation from playing each other as long as possible in the tournament, and to keep regional hosts from scorinating their own schools as much as possible. I think if you are fine with aspect, then the variances in opinions of whether a 30-4 team is better then a 20-2 team is the same thing.

Who determines the amount of teams per conference?
I would say this is a fair responsibility of the person running the tournament and ultimately seeds the final tournament.

Seeding the final tournament is a headache. But it's one of the painfully enjoyable headaches that becomes satisfying once the bracket is complete.

Oh wait, what if, through the luck of the draw, one conference contains 6 teams from 6 RPing users, all of which deserve to go to the final tournament? And what if there's a conference that only has 1 RPing team? How is it fair that 2 deserving teams get shut out while 3 undeserving ones get in? I know this is my scenario I'm asking about but it's a rhetorical question that should be used as food for thought, because it can apply to more situations than this.

This is just the nature of the NS Sports beast, though. Same thing really happens in any tournament, take World Cup Qualifying where the top 2 teams qualify from a group. You could have one group that's a RP'ing dud, but still gets its two teams, and another group that's RP'd heavily by just about every team, but only 2 get in.

I am not in favor of a set number of teams qualifying from a conference other then the conference tournament winner. It should be at-large bids only, like the real thing.

I think I answered all your questions. Let me know if not.

[Frenline Delpha]

I agree that we shouldn't limit how many teams are allowed to come out of each conference. In fact, that'd be quite silly. And I agree that the At-Large listing was helpful, so I would love to see those come back. I was just arguing that we should let each host place whoever they want into the tournament and go from there.

It should not be the teams each host wants but the teams each host thinks deserves it the most.

I once again stress the need for fewer more competent hosts.

Wouldn't a competent host want the teams they think deserve it to make the tournament?

Therefore, couldn't I have used want and deserve interchangeably there? Wouldn't it be great if we focused on points instead of arguing over semantics?

[Furbish Islands]

Furby Island's Signup

Also, I would like to host a conference. Two or three if possible.

University of Zareski(FUI)
Zlumore College(FUI)
Yochester College(FUI)
University of Furby Island(FUI)
University of Furby City(FUI)
Boreem College(FUI)
Furby City College(FUI)
University of Furby City(FUI)

[Drawkland]

Who determines the amount of teams per conference?
I would say this is a fair responsibility of the person running the tournament and ultimately seeds the final tournament.

Seeding the final tournament is a headache. But it's one of the painfully enjoyable headaches that becomes satisfying once the bracket is complete.

Oh wait, what if, through the luck of the draw, one conference contains 6 teams from 6 RPing users, all of which deserve to go to the final tournament? And what if there's a conference that only has 1 RPing team? How is it fair that 2 deserving teams get shut out while 3 undeserving ones get in? I know this is my scenario I'm asking about but it's a rhetorical question that should be used as food for thought, because it can apply to more situations than this.

I am not in favor of a set number of teams qualifying from a conference other then the conference tournament winner. It should be at-large bids only, like the real thing.

I think I answered all your questions. Let me know if not.

It looks like you've covered anything.

I realized just now that I started a tangent on who should qualify from each conference - that wasn't really my intent. My thoughts on that anyway: I think last year's method of having the conference champions automatically qualify and the rest of the gap filled in by the At-Large listings was perfect for what it was doing.

For the record, my intent was to ask what would happen to teams regarding seeding AFTER they've been qualified into the 64, since you can't just go on wins.

And yeah, I agree it should basically come down to the organizer on how to set up the conferences. I could ask a lot more questions, i.e., how to determine which hosts get what conferences (randomly assigning would be odd in the case of differently formatted conferences), but ultimately it's all out of our hands.

Wouldn't a competent host want the teams they think deserve it to make the tournament?

Yeah, I was about to say this. In a perfect world those should be the same teams. Of course, this is a slightly different scenario (which probably won't happen) than just the straight overall at-large lists, but it's the same concept.

Although that's why I support At-Large over this potential format; At-large makes sure random undeserving teams don't get in just because they're the friends of a single host. But that's sorta redundant anyway since At-Large will likely be used.

The bigger variable in seeding comes from, as mentioned in the OP, trying to keep schools from the same nation from playing each other as long as possible in the tournament, and to keep regional hosts from scorinating their own schools as much as possible. I think if you are fine with aspect, then the variances in opinions of whether a 30-4 team is better then a 20-2 team is the same thing.

This worked out pretty well during the conference stage, I don't think there ended up being any conflicts of interest.

The bracket was a different story, but considering we were all trying to ease into these relatively new waters I can't blame the organizers. There was plenty of scorination assignment issues which required several accounts of 3PS in the first few rounds. And of course there were some same-nation matchups in the first few rounds, but that was just from seeding unluck, I can't say it was a judgement blunder, just unfortunate math (I think I had a possibility of 2 consecutive same-nation matchups between my schools last time but several of the teams flopped so, er, disaster averted? ).

[Free Republics]

Barteaux University (FFR)
University of Jolarus (FFR)
Nejax Republic University (FFR)
Baseton College (FFR)
Republica's Naval Academy (FFR)
Plymouth Republic University (FFR)
The Air Force Academy (FFR)
Army Academy (FFR)

Regarding the question of how many teams get into the tournament, I think the obvious thing to do is to follow RL and give each conference tournament winner an automatic bid. The remaining spots should be arranged based on various factors (ideally records of the schools, how much their nation RPed, strength of conference, etc.) and the weighting should probably favor a school that appears on all (or most) of the lists over a school that is highly ranked on 1 or 2 lists but not on the others at all (obviously a school that is ranked 64th by every host is more deserving of a spot in the tournament than some school that is ranked 1st by one host because its the host's school or the host's friend's school but not included on any of the other lists at all).

I'd be able to scorinate though ideally just a single conference given RL conflicts and other tournaments that I'll be scorinating (I'm currently bidding for the RUWC and about to open signups for a college baseball event).

I once again stress the need for fewer more competent hosts.

There has to be a balance struck there since its generally a good thing to give inexperienced hosts an opportunity (especially if it appears that they'll be competent at it) but the more hosts, the more chance that one of the hosts either makes a complete mess of scorination or doesn't scorinate on time (and, in that case, the organizer has to be ready to jump in and either take over that conference or give it to somebody else to keep the entire competition running on schedule).

[Ceni]

The reason why I was thinking in the mindset of an equal teams group is because of:
a) we want the schedules to be fairly even so there's not much waiting for that one haggard group who has way more teams to finish so we can get things started (and before you say, oh! what about just having more matches per day read point b)
b) we want each host per conference to have roughly the same hosting burden for each conference - with 1 conference having more there will be more nations RPing, more RPs to read, and generally more scorination behind-the-scenes work (which is more of a pain than actually scorinating)
c) because I want to not have to worry about sorting through different sized groups when apportioning out conferences - the old fashioned way I can just zip it through excel's RNG and do it that way, with only a few manual adjustments, but an uneven group size would just be a whole lot harder to deal with
d) this is the way we did it last year.

I feel what we did last year for selecting teams for the tournament through At-Large was fairly equitable:
a) we had 14 conference champions automatically make it through
b) each host sent me a list of their 40 favored teams - ranked - and I collated them into one spreadsheet, publicly available, which took the best 40 schools over the cumulative rankings of the 8 or so hosts last year. This minimized host bias, since bias towards your own teams will get cancelled out by the other hosts (unless your teams actually deserved to go in the championships).

And for seeding last year, I used a fancy-schmancy, publicly available, Google Docs spreadsheet that took into account whether they won their conference championship or their position on the at-large list, win percentage (since there actually were some uneven sizes last year, although mostly due to mistakes iirc), rank in conference, an extremely wide version of RP bonus, and a small host bonus. This was converted into points and then sorted from best to worst. Now, I admit I did get kind of lazy and just stuck the ensuing list into Challonge, but I felt that this worked out alright, considering that many nations had all 8 of their teams in the main bracket (I think Drawkland, Chromatika, and myself had all 8, maybe Vangaziland too), but Drawk, Chrom, and myself all had been hosts and were assigned rounds in the main conference - this meant there would be either a) each of us had our schools limited to 3/4 or about of the bracket, which meant our schools clashing with higher-seeded schools more often, earlier or more school-on-school clashes earlier on, or b) we would have to have third-party scorers earlier on. I chose option b. Oh, and I kind of feel nation-on-nation matches are kind of inevitable, especially when you have a couple of nations dominating the tournament.

So, in conclusion, I'd rather stick with what we did last year because it's easier and I already have the spreadsheets set up. But if the consensus of the community is that we should have a more RL-based version of the NSCAA, then I'm more than happy to take Newmanistan up on his offer to organize the whole thing again (and sorry, I think I forgot to reply to your TG...)

[Newmanistan]

The reason why I was thinking in the mindset of an equal teams group is because of:
a) we want the schedules to be fairly even so there's not much waiting for that one haggard group who has way more teams to finish so we can get things started (and before you say, oh! what about just having more matches per day read point b)
b) we want each host per conference to have roughly the same hosting burden for each conference - with 1 conference having more there will be more nations RPing, more RPs to read, and generally more scorination behind-the-scenes work (which is more of a pain than actually scorinating)
c) because I want to not have to worry about sorting through different sized groups when apportioning out conferences - the old fashioned way I can just zip it through excel's RNG and do it that way, with only a few manual adjustments, but an uneven group size would just be a whole lot harder to deal with
d) this is the way we did it last year.

a/b) Fair point, but a group of 11 teams or 12 teams would have the same amount of matchdays due to bye days. That's why I haven't really worried about this.
c/d) Fair enough. I will say that the main reason I have said having an uneven groups was to be inclusive based on the number of signups and why it would be ok. That point did go on a bit of a tangent to a point where I think it was becoming implied that I wanted uneven groups. I was just saying that it would be ok if we had too. I agree with you that it is best to have even groups.

I feel what we did last year for selecting teams for the tournament through At-Large was fairly equitable:
a) we had 14 conference champions automatically make it through
b) each host sent me a list of their 40 favored teams - ranked - and I collated them into one spreadsheet, publicly available, which took the best 40 schools over the cumulative rankings of the 8 or so hosts last year. This minimized host bias, since bias towards your own teams will get cancelled out by the other hosts (unless your teams actually deserved to go in the championships).

I am perfectly fine with this. Seems like a system that works.

And for seeding last year, I used a fancy-schmancy, publicly available, Google Docs spreadsheet that took into account whether they won their conference championship or their position on the at-large list, win percentage (since there actually were some uneven sizes last year, although mostly due to mistakes iirc), rank in conference, an extremely wide version of RP bonus, and a small host bonus. This was converted into points and then sorted from best to worst. Now, I admit I did get kind of lazy and just stuck the ensuing list into Challonge, but I felt that this worked out alright, considering that many nations had all 8 of their teams in the main bracket (I think Drawkland, Chromatika, and myself had all 8, maybe Vangaziland too), but Drawk, Chrom, and myself all had been hosts and were assigned rounds in the main conference - this meant there would be either a) each of us had our schools limited to 3/4 or about of the bracket, which meant our schools clashing with higher-seeded schools more often, earlier or more school-on-school clashes earlier on, or b) we would have to have third-party scorers earlier on. I chose option b. Oh, and I kind of feel nation-on-nation matches are kind of inevitable, especially when you have a couple of nations dominating the tournament.

Agree that it's all inevitable. I know I have never complained about seeding in the RL tournament ever again after setting up my first bracket here.

But if the consensus of the community is that we should have a more RL-based version of the NSCAA, then I'm more than happy to take Newmanistan up on his offer to organize the whole thing again (and sorry, I think I forgot to reply to your TG...)

We are far more in agreement here then I think you had the impression we were. I hope this reply helps you see that more.
As for my telegram (I never got a reply), I sent that on the day you announced your retirement from NS Sports on the WCDT, and that you said you were just going to finish out what you were obligated to. Just wanted to let you know that I would be willing to take the lead if you did not really want to follow through with this, so it could be done smoothly. If you want to follow through then by all means, its all yours.

[Nuevo Caracas]

Yeah.

Universidad Central de Venezuela (NCS)
Universite Franco-Coreene d'Altamira (NCS)
Universidad Bolivarianos de Caracas (NCS)
Universidad Chavez (NCS)
Instituto Universitario Politecnico de Carabobo (NCS)
Universidad Indigena de Tachira (NCS)
Universidad Elias de Bakholdt (NCS)
Universidad Nacionale de Amazonas (NCS)

[NSCAA Basketball]

Signups closed here. We have 203 signups - I'm going to add Nassau Bay University (NGD) as a numbers entry, so we have 17 conferences of 12 at 204 entries.

We should have our lists of conferences and hosts up in the next couple of days with this!

[Musterfield]

Why did some people not get chosen as hosts (like me?)?

[LukakuLaw]

I send a telegram to the host, but one of my teams Crystal Chambers is in two conferences...not sure how that will work.

[NSCAA Basketball]

I send a telegram to the host, but one of my teams Crystal Chambers is in two conferences...not sure how that will work.

Looks like a mistake on my part. Furby Islands entered one of his schools twice, which threw off my program to sort the colleges & minimize people having two schools in the same conference. Will substitute a Gelderlish team for Crystal Chambers in FJELL KONFERANSE.

[Musterfield]

I'm dropping this. I don't have time for this.