There are no loser brackets in nonconference tournaments. If you go out in the first game you've lost 2-3 potential games off your schedule. And frequently many teams don't get placed in tournaments at all and their schedule is not adjusted to compensate. Both of these issues can lead to some teams having significantly fewer games than others. A nonconference schedule comprised of only 9 games is not realistic! And it bugs me immensely. I wish the game systems ensured that every team arrived at 12 games played going into conference play. I don't think that's an unreasonable request.

I buy the game every year, and every year I pray for this issue to be fixed. Has it been fixed in this version? Am I the only one who cares?

There is not a losers bracket in the non-conference tournament games but it seems that we do need to add more NC games to some teams - the scheduling logic is very difficult as I am sure you can imagine with 352 teams to deal with but typically in the past the teams who played a lot of conference games didn't play that many non-conference games. The real season seems to start earlier and some of these teams are packing in more games. I will have to look at the scheduling logic to see what I can do about getting more NC games for those teams

I agree, its my biggest gripe as well. Pre season tournements (what they are called) should have consolation games (loser bracket games) otherwise the schedule will be off. Not to mention the perks of playing in one of these tournements. For example, stealing a win even after you lost earlier in the tournement to potentially help your RPI rating...

not my biggest gripe, but it isn't without concern. adding consolation brackets into in-season tournaments no doubt has problems logistically. I agree with Gary that getting more non-conference games for teams into the season is the real problem. to that extent he still keeps bracket buster Sunday around even though ESPN abandoned it several years ago...adding more in-season tournaments helps as well, which he has done. Getting consolation brackets into in-season tournaments i'm sure is a lot more difficult than what it first appears...just keep this fresh in your mind when you ask for improvements to next years game. One thing I know about Gary, is that he wants to deliver to fans of the franchise that which they most desire.

It's probably small consolation [*looks at all your eye rolls*] to y'all, but for me 27 games is enough for my bottom-dwelling teams. I can only handle so much heart-break.

I wanted to report back here because I do listen to all requests and try to do what I can. I attempted to add additional non conference games and it did not work out well. The scheduling code is just so complex - making a schedule for 352 teams with different amounts of conference games and pre-season tournaments and rivalry games and everything else is an enormously complex task. What really needs to happen I think is that the game needs to start the season a week earlier to give me more dates to add the additional games. All in all it will require making major changes to the code so it will be on the list of things to look for in 2020 but for the 2019 version the scheduling is going to have to stay as it is

Gary Gorski wrote:I wanted to report back here because I do listen to all requests and try to do what I can. I attempted to add additional non conference games and it did not work out well. The scheduling code is just so complex - making a schedule for 352 teams with different amounts of conference games and pre-season tournaments and rivalry games and everything else is an enormously complex task. What really needs to happen I think is that the game needs to start the season a week earlier to give me more dates to add the additional games. All in all it will require making major changes to the code so it will be on the list of things to look for in 2020 but for the 2019 version the scheduling is going to have to stay as it is

Thanks for listening.

[quote="SirMichaelJordan"



Thanks for listening.[/quote]

Gary always listens, it's just way beyond human ability to respond to everyone's needs and desires. But it's one of the reasons he makes use of a team of longtime players who are more able to watch the forums and see what the pulse is, when the next beta session rolls around. But yes, i can vouch for the fact that Gary indeed tried to fix this problem, but the fix created more problems than it solved.

Yes, maybe it could get looked at for a future version.