Congratulations to USD for winning it. It is interesting that BYU did not win it, as BYU finished 3rd in men's and women's categories, but second overall.
Remember when BYU first joined and there was talk about BYU dominating the conference in everything? Kudos to PP who analyzed it at the time and pretty much called it exactly as it turned out.
What's interesting (to me, anyway) is that they only out-performed my predictions in two sports men's XC (which was a toss-up anyway) and volleyball. Yet they under-performed in six sports.
Also worth pointing out? BYU won exactly one conference championship - in men's cross country. Their last season in the MWC? They won nine.
Long story short? The WCC is legit.
As for why BYU "underperformed" in my predictions... because I used RPI rankings and other similar rankings to make my initial comparisons, that just leads me to believe that the WCC is perpetually under-ranked in such "objective" measures. There is a poster on the UP board that has gone super in-depth into soccer RPI rankings, and he has conclusively proved that teams on the west coast (especially smaller conferences) are pretty much criminally discriminated against in the RPI rankings. We see it in soccer and baseball for sure, and I bet it happens in volleyball, golf, tennis, etc as well.
The problem, in a nutshell, is that due to travel costs and time, teams from the west generally only play other teams from the west, while teams in the midwest, south, and northeast are able to play more teams from various geographical regions, which the computers like because that helps create wider sample sizes. The computers struggle to properly place west coast teams in the rankings because they can't adequately compare them against other regions without more inter-regional games.
Posted by Dons69 on 7/5/2012, 2:35 pm, in reply to "Re: Andy Staples"
The WCC is tough in every sport.
Re: Andy Staples
Posted by Conference TBD on 7/9/2012, 7:00 pm, in reply to "Re: Andy Staples"
Just read a blog saying that if Air Force joined the Big East in football - AF's Olympic sports would go to WCC because they have better chance of winning in more sports in WCC than in MWC.
Re: Andy Staples
Posted by Purple Pride on 7/9/2012, 7:36 pm, in reply to "Re: Andy Staples"
Translation? Comparing sports both the MWC and WCC sponsor... in its last season in the MWC, BYU won four championships and finished in the top three in eight sports.
In its first season in the WCC, BYU won one championship and finished in the top three in six sports.
It the WCC, BYU placed lower in seven sports, higher in four.
While of course there is variance from year to year in terms of competitiveness, it's pretty obvious from finishing lower in 63% of the sports and only winning one conference championship that the level of competition top-to-bottom in all sports is higher in the WCC than in the MWC.
Really, it's not even close to an argument.
Dig deeper, and Air Force would be in some serious trouble if it went from the MWC to the WCC.
Air Force finished dead last in five sports, and bottom half in three others. They only finished in the top half in two sports, and only in the top three in one.
If 64% of BYU's teams finished lower in the WCC upon their move, how in the world is Air Force going to do better in the WCC when most of its sports already finished in last place in the MWC? It's absolutely crazy talk for anyone to even suggest that Air Force's teams would place higher in the WCC than the MWC. If BYU's legitimately strong teams couldn't, how could Air Force's weak teams hope to do it?
