FBCB Solo Dynasty (Realignment Tales)
 

So, with all of the conference realignment, I can't resist attempting another FBCB dynasty. Not sure how long it'll go on, but we'll see if I can work it.

Having discovered the ability to edit the FBCB.ini file to make the talent improve considerably, stuff is way more interesting when even your Top 1000 players are potential 5-star recruits. Not realistic though, so I lowered it a bit. But I did like during my few years of simming ahead of looking at it, how Mr. Basketball in even bad states were at least good players. Which seems realistic on some level.

I feel like the game right now is very feast and famine and while I've got a pretty good handle on how it works, I'm ultimately more interested in the AD role (I don't really want to spend time developing offensive schemes. I just wanna fire/hire the coaches) anyway and so, it seems rife for possibilities, especially if bad teams have a possibility of competing.

I made most of the real life realignment changes, but then decided to spice it up a bit. So the Big East is split from itself and a separate conference "The Major League" is an offshoot of the Catholic schools out of that league, with a few superfriends who have joined in. I also replaced the WAC's sad sack schools with a bunch of D2 schools that are rumored to or possible to move up, so that league still exists.

I started with random prestige, so there's that.

Anyway, the program I plan to take over is currently an independent. It's actually Centenary, but since they're not D1 anymore I had to figure out what to do with them. For the moment, they're Minnesota A&M, but that might change. I do like the idea of it being in a state with only one other D1 program.

We'll see. I'm going to dive into it and see where it takes us.

I think the initial goal is probably to get them into a conference. But I'm not sure if the plan is to just progressively get them from smaller leagues up to bigger ones or what. I'd like to do something less predictable and sustainable interesting. Maybe focus on individual players, scoring records and the so forth. Because I've never really done that before.

I'll keep pondering it and we'll see what happens.

I started this universe in 1951. (I have a hard time playing too far into the future in these games, so I always start in the past) and in 1969, I split the Major Conference from the Big East.

Ok, so the Major Conference started with just the Big East Catholic exiles (Marquette, DePaul, St. Louis, Providence, Seton Hall, Georgetown, Villanova)

I added Xavier, Dayton, St. Louis and Creighton to that group to give the league 11 teams. We just finished the 1976 season, so the league is eight years old. In that time, it's risen to a 5 prestige league but there aren't titles showing up.

Xavier is the best team in the league, they've been to two Final Fours and an Elite 8 during their Major League tenure. Georgetown and St. Louis have both had a Sweet 16 and Seton Hall has made the tournament in all but one of the years they've been in the league, including a Final Four and an Elite 8 of their own. St. John's has a Sweet 16 but otherwise, the rest of the league are either one and dones or not making it at all.

But the idea here is to solidify that the league is successful and has been successful as the preeminent private school league in the NCAA thus far.

There were some rumors that the league wanted to woo Boston College and Notre Dame, but all of my moves have been football realistic (despite the year in-game) I've been trying to keep it modern times crazy and so, in the end, those moves didn't happen despite BC really wanting to join since they're languishing in the 16-team ACC but they didn't want to lose out on the football money and while the Big East still exist (I've been wanting to change the name, but didn't yet...) they're not a league capable of taking on that kind of quality to make up the income change.

Anyway, the Major League took a page out of the old Big East playbook by trying to assemble media markets and to boost their tv deal as the top basketball conference in the country. Whether that's true or not, is anyone's guess, but the idea was to essentially help NCAA Division 1-AAA (non-football) schools compete at some level with those programs with football resources.

So for this upcoming 1977 season, the Major League added five new schools: Gonzaga (who aren't as good as real life Gonzaga ever was, for the record), San Diego, Denver, La Salle and Butler.

So you got outside of Spokane (Gonzaga) four major media markets (San Diego, Denver, 2nd team in Philly and Indianapolis) that should help this league cover a national footprint.

I've split them into two different divisions:
-----------------
EASTERN: La Salle, Xavier, Providence, Seton Hall, Dayton, St. John's Georgetown, Villanova
WESTERN: San Diego, Marquette, DePaul, Gonzaga, St. Louis, Butler, Creighton, Denver

La Salle are defending national champions, it was their 2nd title in six years. San Diego made the Final Four last year, it was their first NCAA appearance in nearly a decade. So the idea with them moving was all about the moolah. Butler was about a media market, as was Denver and Gonzaga were as much about media money as travel partners for the western swings teams take.

The only other conference of oddness (if you're wondering about a particular team ask..) is the WAC. I added a bunch of D2 schools to keep that league afloat.

So here's the current WAC:

New Mexico State
Utah Valley University
CSU-San Bernardino
West Texas A&M
Montana State-Billings
Grand Canyon
Texas-Pan American
CSU-Los Angeles
UC-San Diego
CU-Colorado Springs
Alaska-Anchorage
Metro State (Denver)

I imagine that's the last time I'll be bringing up the WAC though. Anyway, my current idea is maybe to retrofit my independent program into a private school that hopes/dreams of someday inclusion into the Major League. Perhaps I'll just ignore that idea, operate on a parallel track elsewhere and try some other scenario.

I dunno yet. I do think in this dynasty, I'm interested in players and production though. So much of this text-sim business ends up being about ratings and stuff, but I really would just prefer to view these guys through the lens of actual production and see what they can do with that, etc.

I do think that hockey-loving Minnesota is going to remain where our program resides though. For such a large state (not basketball producing, but still) to have just one D1 program seems a bit like an opportunity.

I figured it out, too. Lea College is defunct college that existed in Albert Lea, MN from 1966 to 1973. Seems like a good choice as any to promote to the big leagues.

Lea College Lancers is it, then.

I should have sold you this information on a per-use basis. :D

Yes, you were the culprit. Thanks! Haha...

I'm simming ahead in the interim. With the 1977-78 season heading towards tourney time, the Major League has four bids thus far. San Diego and La Salle aren't as good as they once were, which might make you think "gee, why join that behemoth league" but I think those teams they had were special and the idea is hopefully that the Major League will eventually get as many bids as a bigger league, but that's not happened yet (most I've seen for this league is about six.)

I'm going to sim to selection sunday and take a look at the bid breakdowns.

1977-78 BIDS BY CONFERENCE
America East (1)
Atlantic 10 (2)
ACC (4)
Atlantic Sun (1)
Big 12 (5) * (Big 12 expanded to 12 teams, I added Air Force and Cincinnati)
Big East (1) (My, how the mighty have fallen...)
Big Sky (1)
Big South (1)
Big Ten (7)
Big West (1)
CAA (3)
C-USA (1)
Horizon (1)
Independents (2) (Lea is among these two)
Ivy (1)
Major (6) (Marquette, Dayton, DePaul, Seton Hall, Xavier, Georgetown)
MAAC (1)
MAC (2)
MEAC (1)
MVC (1)
MWC (1)
NEC (1)
OVC (1)
Pac-12 (5)
Patriot (1)
SEC (6)
SoCon (1)
Southland (1)
SWAC (1)
Summit (2)
Sun Belt (1)
WCC (3)
WAC (1)

So in that case, the Major League didn't do bad, just behind the Big Ten and tied with the SEC for most bids this year. In the past, the ACC was a lot better though...they were getting 6-9 bids there for a while, so...I dunno they must be down again.

My plan for next year was to send all of the independents to conferences. So Chicago State will head to the Summit League, Lea College will head to the Horizon League and NJIT will head to the America East.

The Final Four for 1977-78: 4) Florida 5) Michigan 6) Dayton 3) UCLA

So 1 from the SEC, Big Ten, Pac-12 and Major. Not. bad. In the Elite 8, the SEC had two (Texas A&M) Big 12 (TCU), Major had two (DePaul) and independent Chicago State lost in the Elite 8, too.

1978-79 SEASON
 

I moved the teams to their new conferences, independents are gone.

Here's the conference breakdown for the NCAA tourney for this year:

America East (1)
Atlantic 10 (3)
ACC (5)
Atlantic Sun (1)
Big 12 (3)
Big East (2)
Big Sky (1)
Big South (1)
Big Ten (6)
Big West (1)
CAA (1)
C-USA (1)
Horizon (1) (Lea won the auto-bid from the Horizon League after going 22-12 in their first year in the conference and apparently winning the conference tournament.)
Ivy (1)
Major (6) (Marquette, St. Louis, Dayton, Georgetown, Seton Hall, Providence)
MAAC (1)
MAC (1)
MEAC (1)
MVC (1)
MWC (2)
NEC (1)
OVC (1)
Pac-12 (6)
Patriot (1)
SEC (6)
SoCon (2)
Southland (1)
SWAC (1)
Summit (2)
Sun Belt (3)
WCC (3)
WAC (1)

There are rumors that the Missouri Valley Conference is wooing Lea College. Problem is, the MVC is only marginally better than the Horizon League. The real hope would be to hold out for a conference like the A10. The Big East would also be a possibility, but right now, neither of those leagues is necessarily expanding.

For the Big East, they'd be the only midwestern team (The "new" Big East is comprised of USF, Temple, Houston, Memphis, SMU, UCF, UTSA, Charlotte and Tulane) and I don't even know how long I'm going to keep them in that name anyway since outside of Temple none of the originals are there.

You're making me want to restart a Zeroed Out dynasty and I don't have time for it.

One way to do this would be to "appoint" readers as conference commissioners. Instead of making someone constantly read this, though, the idea would just be that I'd appeal to the thread before making a conference decision and you can use whatever (logic) you want to employ to determine whether to let them into that league or not.

Ultimately, all of this realignment stuff is infuriating and fascinating all at once. You can even make suggested moves for teams I don't mention or whatever, to give me ideas. This whole thing is taking shape, so I welcome possibilities or ideas. (Georgia Tech to the B1G? FSU to the SEC?) Whatever...I'm open to it, especially from the basketball end of this, since we've seen a lot of what the football stuff might look like, I'm curious to see what these leagues end up looking like going forward.

Hahaha...you can give me inspiration in the meantime. I'm just sort of throwing stuff on the wall here.

1978-79 FINAL FOUR:
1) Nebraska 1) Virginia Tech 3) Auburn 11) Arkansas

Elite 8:
1) Kentucky 3) Tennessee 9) Seton Hall 2) UConn

Lea was a 13-seed this year and beat 4th seed Cansius in the 1st round in the East region before losing to 5th seed USF (73-54) in the 2nd round.

1979-80 REALIGNMENT MOVES
 

SEC: NC State & Virginia Tech
Big Ten: Virginia & Kansas

Along with the Major Conference, the SEC and Big Ten are the only 16-team leagues in existence right now.

The ACC being raided resulted in a chain reaction.

West Virginia and Cincinnati are going to the ACC (From the Big 12). For the 16th school, the ACC is reportedly interested in either Iowa State (Big 12) or South Florida (Big East). The latter is actually good (and since USF is actually the only good team in the Big East (4 Sweet 16s and a Final Four since 1970), but Miami and Florida State don't want them anywhere near the league and would prefer to have an out of market club to expand the ACC's footprint, despite the name of the conference and the fact that Iowa isn't near the Atlantic in any way, shape or form.

The ACC tried breaking up the Major League by offering several of the schools (Georgetown, St. John's, Providence) a chance at membership in everything but football, but none of them would bite after the Big East debacle of yore.

ACC accepts Iowa State as the 16th member, they'll join for the upcoming season.

With the Pac-12 watching the other moves, they've positioned themselves to consider a bold move of their own. With the newly renamed "Big 8" plumb for raiding, they're considering a move to take Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State to make a Pac-16.

The remaining teams would join the Big East. They're has been no definitive answer on this move and whether it'll happen or not, will be the issue of speculation into the coming season, as we'll have the Big 8 for at least one year before a final decision gets made by the parties involved.

1979 Big 8 Conference Standings

TEAM CW CL Pct W L Pct RPI Prestige
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#1 Texas Christian 0 0 .000 0 0 .000 2 98
Oklahoma State 0 0 .000 0 0 .000 40 73
Baylor 0 0 .000 0 0 .000 53 96
Texas 0 0 .000 0 0 .000 57 82
Kansas State 0 0 .000 0 0 .000 69 87
Oklahoma 0 0 .000 0 0 .000 114 67
Air Force 0 0 .000 0 0 .000 119 60
Texas Tech 0 0 .000 0 0 .000 142 57

The Mountain West Conference has emerged as a suitor for the possible quartet of Baylor, TCU, Kansas State and Air Force, should the Big 8 break up after this year. The conferences are about even prestigewise, the average prestige of both is about even (Big East 60.2, MWC 60.1) but the Big East only has nine teams to the Mountain West's 10.

The debate naturally will reside in which league can secure a larger TV deal as a result of the merger of the new teams. The Big East's media markets would seem to make it a more likely choice:


But the Mountain West is a better geographic fit. Though admittedly, the Big East already has three Texas schools in it.


There's no indication that Texas plans to break the league up, yet. The Pac-12 won't take the quartet without Texas, though.

1979-80 NCAA TOURNAMENT BIDS BY CONFERENCE
------------
America East (1)
A10 (3)
ACC (5)
Atlantic Sun (1)
Big 8 (5)
Big East (3)
Big Sky (1)
Big South (1)
Big Ten (4)
Big West (1)
CAA (2)
C-USA (1)
Horizon (1) (Lea finished 22-14, but 3rd in the conference and no way they'd have made it as an at-large. But they won the Horizon League tournament for the 2nd straight year and claimed the league's auto-bid.)
Ivy (1)
Major (5) (Butler, Marquette, Xavier, DePaul, Seton Hall)
MAAC (1)
MAC (3)
MEAC (1)
MVC (1)
MWC (1)
NEC (1)
OVC (1)
Pac-12 (5)
Patriot (1)
SEC (9)
SoCon (1)
Southland (1)
Summit (1)
SWAC (1)
Sun Belt (2)
WCC (2)
WAC (1)

It's already been announced for next year, that the Big East has accepted Georgia State as it's 10th member. They made the tournament this year out of the Sun Belt. If the Big 8 splits, that'd give the Big East 14 teams total. Only Air Force out of that group didn't make the NCAAs this year, so it'd bolster the Big East's footprint competitively for sure.

I think I'm finally going to dispense with the Big East name too. I think we're going to go with the Big Country Conference or Big League or Big American. We'll see.

Also worth noting that the demise of the Big 8 would result in another at-large bid being available for the tournament.

1979-80 ELITE 8
West Region: 9) George Washington (A-10) over 2) Arizona State (Pac-12) 68-42
Midwest Region: 3) Illinois (B1G) over 9) Pittsburgh (ACC) 93-65
South Region: 5) Georgia Tech (ACC) over 2) Virginia Tech (SEC) 81-62
East Region: 4) Louisville (ACC) over 2) Michigan State (B1G) 76-70

I track this conference stuff, because it's interesting to see how much super-conferences affect team dominance on the whole and whether they emerge in the muck of all of this after the dust settles.

It seems they do with 3 ACC teams in the Elite 8 and 2 B1G teams joining them.

Ok, so the PAC-16 move is a-go: Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State will head west starting next year. The Big 8 is dead.

Kansas State, Baylor, TCU and Air Force are debating whether to go together somewhere as a bloc or whether to go separately to other leagues, as there are options for each. The Mountain West would take them all, gladly. But the revenues of the Big East (Which will be renamed next year) will surpass what the MWC can offer because of the media market strategy that league employed and will continue to do with the addition of at least Georgia State next year and the possibility of adding some non-football members.

TCU and Air Force are headed back to the Mountain West. Which gives that league 12 teams. TCU is nationally ranked in basketball now and believes crashing that party gives its football and basketball teams the best chance to be competitive and Air Force feels the same way.

The other dominoes:

Temple is moving its football down to FCS. As a result, they'll be joining the CAA as a full member, leaving the Big East and the last original-ish Big East member to leave that league. Which is why the name will change.

Baylor and K-State are mulling offers to become football only members of that rebranded Big East. K-State would put all of its other athletic programs in the Horizon League and Baylor would move its programs to the Major League, with the Major League going out and getting an 18th member in the process to stay ahead of the football-centric superconferences.

No decision has been made yet, though.

Ok, so here's the final domino in the demise of the Big 8.

Kansas State was #1 in the polls at the end of last regular season, so they're a commodity and their football product is strong. So they opted, despite being the most western team in that league to join the Big East (rebrand) because they felt like it gave them an opportunity to emerge as the "Texas" of their own league.

Plus the joke is "we're in Manhattan. So our TV market is strong."

The debate was whether to join for football only or to join all sports, though. The Horizon League offered them a lifeline and it'd be a boon to their other athletic programs at least in terms of geography, but the fear is that going from being associated with Texas and Oklahoma to being associated with Youngstown State and UW-Milwaukee would be a huge drop in prestige.

So they opt to join the Big East in all sports, believing themselves to have the ability to be the "Texas" of that league athletically, despite their media market.

Meanwhile, Baylor will join the Major League, a huge coup for the upstart basketball conference. As the 18th team? George Washington was lobbying hard. After losing in the national championship game to Louisville, they had a strong case. But Georgetown opposed to move and the league didn't see an incentive for having two teams in the same market.

The next best mid-major program are the Lea Lancers out of the Horizon League. So they were invited to join the Major League as the 18th team.

The Big 8/12 was officially dissolved.

What do you call this league?!

I think we're going to resurrect the Metro Conference in name only.

The South Central Conference. :D

I actually like the SCC acronym. I think I might adapt it to Southern Coast Conference, basically merging the ACC and SEC monikers. But in any case, good call.

I ultimately went with Big Country Conference (BCC)

The final realignment move of this cycle, is the Big Country Conference added four more schools. UMass (A10), Northeastern (CAA), Akron (MAC) and Northern Illinois (MAC) will all join the fledgling league this upcoming year.

As a result, UMBC moved to the Atlantic 10 to keep that league at ten teams. Mercer and Campbell moved to the CAA.

I think I want to be more player-focused for the upcoming year and beyond. For this first season, I will pick a few one-star recruits, make them JUCO transfers and enhance their potential stats a bit to see if they can develop into useful players for the programs they head to.

Because I'm editing in the recruits area, I won't even know where these guys are signed to play, which should make it even more interesting in some ways.

Also makes me wish the game had a search feature.

These are three guys I'll be following this season. I'll find out where they play once I sim to the next stage.

SF Dennis Wisdom (6'7", 244, Ocean City HS (NJ)) JUCO Transfer from Western Nebraska CC

PF Tony Neal (6'11" 269, Healy HS (MN)) JUCO TRANSFER from Vincennes University

SG Tomas Marek (6'6" 206, Czech Republic)

Did you build a larger database of JCs and CCs? Can you share it?

I did not, actually. I just edited the high schools of these players (But not their home state) and converted them to JUCO players in the editor so they show up as juniors rather than freshmen.

Dennis Wisdom plays for Lafayette. Tony Neal is at North Dakota. Tomas Marek ended up going to the NBA after his redshirt freshman year and was the 1st overall pick.

All of this realignment madness just helps me craft more bizarre scenarios based on what works for this league and my whims.

1981-82: MOST BIDS
ACC - 7
B1G - 8
MAJOR - 6
MWC - 5
PAC-16 - 6
SEC- 5
WCC - 3
Big Country - 3

1981-82 FINAL FOUR: 4. South Carolina (SEC), 5. Utah State (MWC), Nebraska (B1G), Mississippi State (SEC)

REALIGNMENT FOR NEXT YEAR

B1G: Vanderbilt (SEC), Georgia Tech (ACC)
SEC: Baylor (Major)
ACC: Navy (Patriot)
Major: Davidson (CAA)
CAA: Stony Brook (America East)
A10: Mercer (CAA)
America East: Bryant (Northeast)
Big Country: East Carolina (CAA), Boston University (Patriot)
MAC: Northern Illinois, Akron (Big Country)

The goal was really to see how many bids a league could get. I was curious, after all, whether quality would diminish as leagues swelled to larger sizes.

MOST TOURNEY BIDS (1982-83)
-----------
ACC: 4
Big Country: 3
B1G: 10
MAJOR: 8
MWC: 3
Pac-16: 5
SEC: 7
WCC: 3

Elite 8: 3) TCU (MWC) def. 1) Georgia Tech (B1G) 83-74, 1) Mizzou (SEC) def. 2) Purdue (B1G) 80-79, 1) Seton Hall (MAJOR) def. 3) Akron (MAC) 83-42, 2) VPI (SEC) def. 5) Vandy (B1G) 73-64

So 3 SEC teams in the Elite 8, 3 B1G teams...and so there's little question of which teams sit atop the totem pole if nothing else.

THE NEXT CHALLENGE
Herman Jones of Quinnipiac owns the career scoring record with 3295 points, set in 1974. My next challenge is to create recruits (one at a time) and follow their careers, a season at a time (and game-by-game if we get closer) to see if we can create the right guy to break that all-time record.

Once he does, then I'll create him in NBA2K12 for PC and we'll follow his NBA career too until I get bored with it. :)

Justin Guillory (Blue Valley North HS, Overland Park, KS) is our 1st recruit. He's a freshman and I won't know where he's going until I advance into the season. He's a SF and obviously a 5-star recruit. We'll follow his career and see if it's possible for him to challenge Jones record. I feel like it'll take a guy from an unheralded program to do it, so they can drive the entire offense through him.

This guy was already a 5-star before I edited him, so I doubt he's going to end up on a bad team.

Guillory plays for Nebraska. Nebraska is a year removed from back to back Final Four appearances, so they're no slouches. So there's no doubt this team has tournament aspirations, they're looking for more than just a tournament though. They want to win it all.

I turned off recruits leaving early, so we can watch 4 years of our guys careers.

I had to re-run the first year because I didn't save.

Year 1: