Question:
Thank you to everyone who offered up suggestions for the career college
basketball sim I'm working on (scroll down the "New College Basketball Sim"
thread on this newsgroup if you missed it). I'm going to try to implement
as many of them as possible, including scheduling your own non-conference
opponents and several more.
In the meantime, I came up with another feature which I thought would be
cool, and I could use some help with it. It's rivalries. Each team can
have a primary rival. When a team plays their biggest rival at home, the
fans go even crazier, and the home team gets an even bigger boost from the
Crowd Meter.
Some teams may be the primary rival for more than one team, and rivals don't
have to be exclusive to one another. For instance, my favorite team, the
Missouri Tigers, would have their biggest rival as Kansas, and Kansas would
in turn have Missouri (it's the oldest rivalry west of the Mississippi
River). However, Kansas State would also probably list Kansas as their
biggest rival. Some of the biggest rivalries are obvious to anyone, but the
lesser known ones need help from a regional level. That's where you come
in. I've listed a few of the top rivalries below (my opinion only!).
Please respond with any others you feel are appropriate. Remember, these
are basketball rivals only! Michigan and Ohio State may be huge football
rivals, but Michigan-Michigan State are probably bigger basketball rivals.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts, especially about some of the
smaller, lesser-known teams and conferences.
A few examples:
Missouri - Kansas
North Carolina - Duke
Kentucky - Louisville
Alabama - Auburn
Indiana - Purdue
Georgetown - Syracuse
Umass - UConn
There must be hundreds more - help me identify them!
Related to this, I've also decided that the Crowd Meter will be partially
influenced by the visiting team - the better or higher ranked the visitor,
the more excited the crowd will be about playing them. The Crowd Meter will
also be slightly influenced if the game is on national tv.
Answer:
I am really looking forward to your game Steve. The idea of factoring in
rivalries is excellent. As a Kentucky fan who goes to most of their home
games and an Indiana grad who attended every home game while I went to
school there, I will offer a few Big Ten and SEC rivalries that may be
somewhat overlooked:
Kentucky/Arkansas--Rupp Arena does not get any wilder than when the
Razorbacks come to town. The Louisville rivalry is definitely huge, but the
crowd is definitely more into the game when Richardson brings his team to
Rupp.
Kentucky/Indiana--Kentucky fans have made hating the General a religion in
and of itself. Losing to Indiana is worse than losing to Louisville in the
minds of many UK fans.
Indiana/Michigan--Great Big Ten rivalry. Not quite as big of a rivalry as
the Purdue games, but a close second.
Indiana/Ohio State--So much stuff involved in this rivalry. The General
went to school at OSU, the whole Funderburke affair, the fact that OSU
spanks IU in football every year and lets 'em know it, etc... Assembly Hall
goes nuts in the IU/OSU games.
Kentucky/Tennessee--During the DeVoe years there was no bigger rival to Cats
fans than the UT Volunteers. This rivalry is on the rise again now that UT
has a solid team and has given the Cats problems in recent years. For UK
football fans, the UT rivalry is without a question the biggest game of the
year. UT usually demolishes UK in football, so UK fans desperately want to
beat UT in basketball.
Tennessee/Vanderbilt--For obvious reasons.
Michigan/Michigan State--Even though the Wolverines have struggled recently,
this game is still a great basketball rivalry.
