Big Sky-Summit Challenge Series 2024-2026

[kiyoat]

So the Summit and the Big Sky conferences have agreed to a yearly challenge, starting in January 2024, extending out three seasons (for now) for both men's and women's basketball.  link   The idea is that every team will play two games against an opponent from the other league (one home, one away).  Matchups will be based on a combination of the NET ranking and conference finish from the previous season.  The idea being to create competitive contests.

So I thought it would be fun to look at potential matchups in the innaugural season (which will be announced sometime soon), as well as to look at what past matchups might have been.  I'll start with the women's teams...

[kiyoat]

possible matchups WBB 2024:

fin	team	W/L	NET	fin		W/L	NET
1	SDSU	18-0	34	1	Sac State	13-5	86
2	NDSU	12-6	186	2	Mt State	13-5	121
3	UND	10-7	184	3	NAU	13-5	122
4	USD	10-8	223	4	E Wash	11-7	130
5	Omaha	8-10	263	5	Mont	10-8	158
6	Denver	8-10	270	6	Idaho	9-9	207
7	ORU	8-10	221	7	Port St	8-10	246
8	UST	7-11	234	8	ID State	6-12	225
9	WIU	5-12	297	9	UNC	5-13	249
10	KC	3-15	311	10	Weber St	2-16	310

This is just using standings to create the matchups, and using the NET to determine a likely winner.  Green means you would be favored to win both games, red means you would be the underdog, and black is a split.  If this were the outcome, the Big Sky would easily be the series winner.

[steelsd]

To put it into perspective the 4 Dakota schools were 3-5 against the Big Sky last year. Based off your graph this challenge will certainly help out the majority of the middle tier SL schools by giving them a positive Net matchup.

[kiyoat]

possible matchups MBB 2024:

fin	team	NET	.	fin		NET
1	ORU	36		1	EWU	128
2	SDSU	155		2	Mt State	103
3	NDSU	215		3	Weber St	187
4	UST	196		4	Mont	167
5	WIU	245		5	ID State	253
6	USD	298		6	Sac State	224
7	KC	309		7	Port St	249
8	Denver	287		8	UNC	235
9	UND	273		9	NAU	231
10	Omaha	317		10	Idaho	310

The comparison is even worse for the men's teams, with the Big Sky (hypothetically) dominating the 2023 series.  Of course, previous year's results is often not a good predictor of the current year in any sport.

[kiyoat]

matchups set:

[kiyoat]

Interesting matchups. Not sure why we would be playing Eastern Washington on the men's side if they were looking at competitive balance. Oh well. Really any matchup between these conferences are relatively equivalent. Nice to see our women will get the chance to redeem themselves and possibly avenge the loss to Montana.