Pac-12 scheduling oddities
Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2018 10:43 am
After our awful performance following a quick mountain turnaround, I thought I'd go through every Pac12 schedule and track the turnaround for every pair of conference games. This considered every road trip and each paired home stand (i.e. Arizona hosting Oregon schools, but ignoring single rivalry games).
I did find some interesting tidbits, so let me lay out how I looked at this data:
I don't think there's any intentionally bad intent with the scheduling, but it is far more imbalanced than I would have expected. The fact that 6 out of 8 teams have 3 days to travel between Utah and Colorado is interesting, and the fact USC doesn't have any short turnarounds but does have 5 (out of 8!) 3-day turnarounds is very strange. Arizona having 2 of 6 total extreme turnarounds is rough, especially with 2 more TBD. Athletes appear to miss a lot more classes than I would have expected as well.
I know there's a Larry Scott thread but I thought this might be better in its own thread. Mods feel free to move if needed.
EDIT: Miscounted one Cal game, which was also extremely short. They are hurt by scheduling, but overall have it better than we do. Added note about ASU's gracious road trips.
I did find some interesting tidbits, so let me lay out how I looked at this data:
- All turnaround times are the time between tipoff. A 44 to 48 hour turnaround is most common and most reasonable. i.e. 7pm on Thursday, 3pm on Saturday
- Anything below 44 hours is counted as "short." Anything below 42 should be considered "extreme" (i.e. 7pm Thur to noon Sat)
- There are 28 3-day turnarounds ("long"), which are great when traveling. There are no 1-day turnarounds
- Shortest turnaround is 40 and longest is 90 (yes, 4 days)
- I believe that ordering the road trips by travel difficulty would be: Mountain, Washington, (big gap) Arizona, Oregon, NorCal, SoCal
- Each team has 8 total turnarounds (4 home/4 road). There are 96 total for the conference, although 10 are TBD (game times not yet set).
- Additionally, each travel pairing has 8 turnarounds (i.e. 8 teams do the Mountain trip)
- There are 7 total extreme turnarounds (less than 42 hours)
- Arizona has 2 of these, as does Cal. No other team has 2.
- Out of the 8 Mountain trips, 6 teams have a 3-day turnaround. Only us (41 hours) and UW (44) do not have 3 days.
- Arizona has 2 short turnarounds, and 2 long turnarounds. Only Cal has 2 short trips, the rest have 1 or 0.
- OSU and UW do not have any long trips. They each have 1 short trip, and no extreme trips.
- USC has zero short trips, and a shocking 5 long trips.
- There are 3 4-day turnarounds, and Colorado has 2 of them (both at home).
- Arizona has 2 turnarounds TBD, and both appear likely to be short.
- ASU has 3 long turnarounds, all on the road, including Mountain and Washington trips (2 worst).
![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)
I don't think there's any intentionally bad intent with the scheduling, but it is far more imbalanced than I would have expected. The fact that 6 out of 8 teams have 3 days to travel between Utah and Colorado is interesting, and the fact USC doesn't have any short turnarounds but does have 5 (out of 8!) 3-day turnarounds is very strange. Arizona having 2 of 6 total extreme turnarounds is rough, especially with 2 more TBD. Athletes appear to miss a lot more classes than I would have expected as well.
I know there's a Larry Scott thread but I thought this might be better in its own thread. Mods feel free to move if needed.
EDIT: Miscounted one Cal game, which was also extremely short. They are hurt by scheduling, but overall have it better than we do. Added note about ASU's gracious road trips.