Oh? wrote:
Moving right along wrote:
How to best achieve this without creating unmanageable distances to Regionals is beyond me.
I think that they can't really be balanced without creating regionals too geographically spread out as long as NXN is having to compete with FLN for the athletes. Hypothetically, long term, I think the solution requires a world where no single state has it's own region (yes, even California), which would mean the schedule would have to be pushed back a week to accommodate the California State meet. The best way to find balance is to focus first and foremost on accessibility/location of the NXR regional meets, and make only slight adjustments for balance when distances are similar enough. I feel like a 7-region layout would probably be pretty balanced if you continued maintained a 20-25 team field: at that point, the regional cap can probably safely be raised to a max of 5 per region since there would be fewer regions and more teams representing each region (whether it is 3 AQ teams + 4 national At-Large with a regional cap of 5 for a field of 25 teams, or 2 AQ teams + 6 national At-Large with a regional cap of either 4 or 5 for a field of 20 teams, or somewhere in between).
Hypothetical regions where travel distance is paramount:
Southwest: Massive change as the previous Southwest gets broken up and California gets added. New "Southwest" would be California, Nevada, Arizona and Hawai'i. Only 4 states included (though California is massive), with the lat/long center of population being 35.267, -118.114. Closest reasonable sized cities to host: Bakersfield CA or Lancaster CA. Mesa is roughly the population center of the furthest state, and that's only about 470 miles from the regional center of population.
Northwest: Same as is, except add in Utah and take out Hawai'i. 7 states included, with the lat/long center of population being 45.074, -118.479 (closest reasonable sized cities to host: Boise ID or Tri-Cities WA). Boise ID makes the most sense as the regional location, because although the Tri-Cities are slightly closer to the center of population, it is a more balanced drive from the different state centers of population (not counting ID/WY/AK, it is between 385-465 miles for the rest of the four states). Might as well keep the course at Eagle Island.
Midwest: This is basically the Heartland region, but adding in Illinois along with Indiana and Missouri while taking out Kansas. 9 states included, with the lat/long center of population being 41.714, -90.418 (around Davenport IA or Iowa City IA). The Dakota schools have a ways to travel (SD center of population being a little over 500 miles away and ND a even further), but the rest of the centers of population within the region are within 400 miles.
South: Add in Colorado, New Mexico and Kansas but take out Mississippi. 7 states included, with the lat/long center of population being 33.102, -97.649 (on the NW outskirts of Fort Worth TX). No matter where the regional is located, Colorado is going to have to fly in. New Mexico also has a long trip at just over 600 miles from the NM center of population. Kansas is a more manageable 425 miles as the next furthest.
Southeast: Add in Mississippi but take out Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland (+DC) and Delaware. 8 states included, with the lat/long center of population being 32.556, -83.170 (nearest reasonable city to host: Atlanta GA). Aside from Florida, all the state centers of population are within about 360 miles of Atlanta.
Mid-Atlantic: Ohio, Michigan, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland (+DC), Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. 8 states included, with the lat/long center of population being 40.302, -79.125 (a bit east of Pittsburgh PA). This would be a very compact region, with every state center of population being within 400 miles of the regional center, and aside from Michigan every state being within 300 miles.
Northeast: Basically the current NE region plus NY but without New Jersey and Pennsylvania. 7 states included, with the lat/long center of population being 41.880, -73.358 (between Albany NY, Hartford CT and Newburgh NY). This would essentially be no change to travel distance, it would make sense to keep the course at Bowdoin.
The only real exception to where a state would be traveling to a more distant regional would be New Jersey, which is only about 150 miles from the Northeast meet but about 300 miles from the Mid-Atlantic meet. That would be pretty essential in terms of balancing the strength of the regions, though.
Michigan is also essentially halfway between the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest regions, but if you kept Michigan in the Midwest and moved the Mid-Atlantic meet further east (e.g. the Baltimore area), it would also unbalance the regions (assuming Michigan began sending more teams).
I'll see about making a follow-up post to look at how that would have effected teams (assuming that everyone that the order at NXN would have been the order at NXR, which is extremely unlikely ... but I'm not going to go through the process of merging all the NXR meets together every year to identify all the probable qualifiers and in what order) either today or this weekend - identifying who might have been left out, and maybe who might have been added in, over the last decade or so.