07-08-2011, 10:18 AM
The Capital One Cup is a fraud. Pure and simple. Clearly, designed to get some East Coast ACC or SEC program to bubble to the top at least some of the time.
Though it should be noted that Stanford won the women's side, and scored more points overall than any program. So I am not comfortable with the idea that Stanford didn't win.
In any event, the Credit Card/ESPN Cup overweights Football and Men's and Women's Basketball with a 3X score. One could see that logic, I suspect. But then the Cup puts Women's Volleyball, Softball and Baseball in the same 3X category. The Cup used to promote "Every Sport Counts" as the tagline. And yet the Cup did not count Men's and Women's Water Polo, Fencing, Men's Gymnastics, Men's Volleyball. It is hard to miss that Stanford just so happens to have a very rich history in all of those sports. (Women's Bowling was also not included, but that's not an Olympic sport so whatever) Ultimately that Cup dropped the Every Sport Counts tagline. If those NCAA & Olympic sports were included with any weight at all, Stanford would have finished #1 or #2 on the men's side and destroyed the field on the Women's side.
Then to really cook the books lacrosse is given rather elite 2X scoring status, similar to Soccer, Track & Swimming even though Lacrosse is played in only a handful of mid-Atlantic states. Of course, one can't help but notice that Men's Lacrosse is not in the Pac-12 or MPSF list of sports. One note there, Lacrosse actually helped Stanford Women to some degree. Yet the women are so far out ahead of the rest that almost any scoring system is going to result in a Stanford win.
The cup has other minor flaws. The cup awards point based on final polls, so it is possible for a team to get 3rd or 4th place points even if they lost in the round of 16. The cup breaks ties with quirky systems, including alphabetical order. But those are all minor to the weights allocated to the various NCAA sports.
Though it should be noted that Stanford won the women's side, and scored more points overall than any program. So I am not comfortable with the idea that Stanford didn't win.
In any event, the Credit Card/ESPN Cup overweights Football and Men's and Women's Basketball with a 3X score. One could see that logic, I suspect. But then the Cup puts Women's Volleyball, Softball and Baseball in the same 3X category. The Cup used to promote "Every Sport Counts" as the tagline. And yet the Cup did not count Men's and Women's Water Polo, Fencing, Men's Gymnastics, Men's Volleyball. It is hard to miss that Stanford just so happens to have a very rich history in all of those sports. (Women's Bowling was also not included, but that's not an Olympic sport so whatever) Ultimately that Cup dropped the Every Sport Counts tagline. If those NCAA & Olympic sports were included with any weight at all, Stanford would have finished #1 or #2 on the men's side and destroyed the field on the Women's side.
Then to really cook the books lacrosse is given rather elite 2X scoring status, similar to Soccer, Track & Swimming even though Lacrosse is played in only a handful of mid-Atlantic states. Of course, one can't help but notice that Men's Lacrosse is not in the Pac-12 or MPSF list of sports. One note there, Lacrosse actually helped Stanford Women to some degree. Yet the women are so far out ahead of the rest that almost any scoring system is going to result in a Stanford win.
The cup has other minor flaws. The cup awards point based on final polls, so it is possible for a team to get 3rd or 4th place points even if they lost in the round of 16. The cup breaks ties with quirky systems, including alphabetical order. But those are all minor to the weights allocated to the various NCAA sports.