Saw this thread and decided to post what I had put on our UTA board. Open to comments.
The difference however between C-USA and Southland is the SLC buses pretty much everywhere. That's what makes travel partners fiscally sound. When I was a student broadcaster, we'd travel to UTSA on Wednesday, stay the night, play on Thursday. Then leave after the game for then-SWT, stay Friday, play Saturday, leave after the game. It just makes sence for the pocketbook. Now that didn't apply to baseball or softball, but volleyball and basketball were like that. Now things will be different when divisional play gets up and going. You'll have ten games within you division with five teams. Then six games against six teams in the other division. But I still can't imagine that would change things too much. In fact, travel partners have kind of been thrown out the window with the current unbalanced schedule.
So here's my solution, although not perfect.
Central Arkansas-Conway
Lamar-Beaumont
McNeese-Lake Chuck
Nicholls-Thibodaux
Northwestern-Natichoches
Sam Houston-Huntsville
Southeastern-Hammond
SFA-Nacogdoches
Texas-Arlington-Arlington(duh)
Texas-San Antonio(echo)
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi-Corpus Christi(yup)
Texas State-San Marcos-San Marcos(just had to do it)
Basically what we have is two incomplete puzzles thrown together to make one. Not as concise as the days when we could group UNT with us and ULM with La Tech and NWern with SFA etc., but here we go.
UT-SA/Texas St- :52 minutes
LU/McM- :56
Southeastern/Nicholls- 1:47
These six are the easiest because they are the shortest and/or there isn't another school nearby. Now here's where it gets messy.
Sam H/Tex AM-CC- 5:25
UTA/SFA- 3:36
UCA/NWern- 5:01
Sam is the closest to Corpus christi minus UT-SA and San Marcos, but there is no way you could break that up. I thought Lamar might have been closer, but it is over half an hour longer. No need to break-up what they have with McNeese.
Now I originally put us with UCA to put SFA and NWern together. However, that put the trip at 5:31, but it is only 5 from NWern, which may not mean a lot, but there's a huge difference in a half hour on the road when you've already put in 5. Plus when the travel partner rivalry week comes, I would still rather play SFA. Plus, if you put us with SFA instead of UCA, the west division is all Texas Schools. Here's the divisional breakdown
West
UTA
SFA
UTSA
Tex St
Sam H
Tex AM-CC
East
SELa
Nicholls
NWern
UCA
McNeese
Lamar
The West would incredibly more difficult in volleyball, as generally the Louisiana schools are terrible in that sport. In basketball, I think that the power is equally distributed in both men's and women's. In baseball things are equally distributed as well, but not in softball, where the west is stronger.
|