There is a real catch-22 in the P-5 thinking. I know ODU went thru this for a few years then started to break thru it. The thinking by P-5's is why play a "pretty good" mid-major that has a chance of beating you". It will be seen as an expected win and a horrible loss. What changes for the P-5's comes when your team consistently breaks into the top 50. Thena win is a good win and a possible loss is not viewed as a "bad" loss. Getting into the top 50 takes a few years of consistent winning against first top 100, then occasionally against top 50 teams. This requires #1 coaching stability (sometimes hard to come by), smart scheduling (sometimes teams scheduled a few years in advance unexpectedly turn into top 100-50 schools the year you play them) and alot of luck.

(03-16-2014 07:26 PM)PaulDel2 Wrote:  

(03-16-2014 07:22 PM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  NC State was 6-11 against the top 100.

The message is clear. Play a bunch of top 100 schools and it doesn't matter how many you win.

But I'm really curious what you guys think about how do you balance winnable games vs. stronger non-conference schedule. It's clear scheduling wins helps the league as a whole while scheduling tougher non-conf opponents helps the chances of the individuals teams at the top of the league. A delicate balance no?

Looking at the A-10, all six schools that got in had non-conf schedules in the top 125. Eight out of their 13 teams had schedules in the top 125 and five had top 100. We had two out of the whole conference with top 125...Tulsa and Middle Tennessee. So, 62% of A10 played a non-conf schedule ranked in the top third or so of CBB; whereas we had 12% that played a schedule at least that difficult, so clearly this isn't just about scheduling easy wins to pad the W/L record. Not only do we need to schedule a little tougher we simply need to win more. What am I missing?

What you are missing is the difficulty in scheduling some of those teams. Near Nashville, it may not be as difficult, but you would be suprised how many teams turned down games with Southern Miss this year.

Why are we having more of a problem than Louisiana Tech, UAB, Tulane, ULL, and ULM when it comes to scheduling solid to big name teams? They're all finding multiple opponents that are either good or have strong national reputations. Their problem was that the weaker teams they scheduled were horrible and drug down their SOS. (On the flip side, those easy schedules gave them wins and kept our RPI high.)

Non-Conference SOS Ratings: http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketba.../sort/ncss .... Most of the Top 100 are mid-majors to low-majors. Yes, there are some cupcakes on there that go for a payday. There are also a lot of very strong mid-majors on there.

I'm just not buying the whole, "We can't schedule good teams."

(03-18-2014 10:21 AM)EagNBran Wrote:  They've already been contacting a ton of teams. Normally they just say "heck no" and then we try to negotiate 2 for 1s or anything we can. But why play USM and possibly lose when you can play the Grambling States of the world. Your conference schedule will make you look good enough.

I see that USM said on that web site that they are losing 4 starters. An attempt to entice schools to buy a winnable game?

(03-17-2014 02:17 PM)blunderbuss Wrote:  

(03-16-2014 07:22 PM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  NC State was 6-11 against the top 100.

The message is clear. Play a bunch of top 100 schools and it doesn't matter how many you win.

yeah, and it's partially b/c the damn RPI formula is based 50% off of your opponents record and 25% off of opponents opponents. So... when you're in a P5 league and play schools like Kansas, UNC, Duke, Cuse, UL, etc multiple times and some creampuffs that happen to have good records you're gonna get a nice artificial boost.

Unfortunately b/c of some of these flaws that can be manipulated, you're not likely to see this problem get much better.

Yep, the loses don't matter as much when you are in a P5 league and have the league's overall strength to help on the back end. If a CUSA school had that type of record against top 100 schools no way it gets in. Just the way it is.

(03-18-2014 10:39 AM)MinerInWisconsin Wrote:  

(03-18-2014 10:21 AM)EagNBran Wrote:  They've already been contacting a ton of teams. Normally they just say "heck no" and then we try to negotiate 2 for 1s or anything we can. But why play USM and possibly lose when you can play the Grambling States of the world. Your conference schedule will make you look good enough.

I see that USM said on that web site that they are losing 4 starters. An attempt to entice schools to buy a winnable game?

That's exactly what they're doing. Probably will take some time for us to gel with so many new starters, but after that look out.

(03-18-2014 10:50 AM)VA49er Wrote:  

(03-17-2014 02:17 PM)blunderbuss Wrote:  

(03-16-2014 07:22 PM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  NC State was 6-11 against the top 100.

The message is clear. Play a bunch of top 100 schools and it doesn't matter how many you win.

yeah, and it's partially b/c the damn RPI formula is based 50% off of your opponents record and 25% off of opponents opponents. So... when you're in a P5 league and play schools like Kansas, UNC, Duke, Cuse, UL, etc multiple times and some creampuffs that happen to have good records you're gonna get a nice artificial boost.

Unfortunately b/c of some of these flaws that can be manipulated, you're not likely to see this problem get much better.

Yep, the loses don't matter as much when you are in a P5 league and have the league's overall strength to help on the back end. If a CUSA school had that type of record against top 100 schools no way it gets in. Just the way it is.

I agree that a team should not be punished as harshly for losses to good teams. There's difference between not punishing a team as harshly and actually rewarding them for losses.

My problem with the NCSU selection is that it seems to me like they are being rewarded for their losses.

SMU went 3-4 against the RPI Top 25. I don't think you can overstate that. That is one of the better performances against that group in the country.

SMU went 4-5 against the Top 50
NC State went 3-9 against the Top 50

If I were prioritizing criteria, Top 50 wins would be the #1 criteria for me. This is where you determine how competitive teams are against NCAA Tournament caliber competition.

If you want to stretch it to top 100, okay....

SMU is 4-6.
NC State is 6-10.

That is a little more even but I'd note that SMU's 4-6 was against teams with an average RPI of 27. NC State's 6-10 was against teams with an average RPI of 37 (including a win over #100). To me, the edge is still dramatically in favor of SMU.

Now what NCSU did against sub-100 teams was much better than what SMU did. Seriously, though? How can that be important enough to make up for a vastly inferior Top 50/Top 100 performance?

It's a joke that the NCAA still uses the RPI as its go-to computer metric. As stat-guru Nate Silver says...

Quote:"The answer, almost certainly [to how Louisville got a 4 seed], is the selection committee’s attachment to Ratings Percentage Index (RPI), which somehow evaluates Louisville as only the 18th-best team in the country. RPI, as I’ve written previously, was “developed in 1981 in the era of the DOS prompt and the Commodore 64.”

That being said, as long as the NCAA continues to put so much emphasis on RPI (unless you're Southern Miss, apparently), it's probably important to game the archaic thing.

I think the most important thing is to avoid the SWAC, MEAC, Southland, OVC, and other low major conferences like the plague. The exception to this rule are the aforementioned recently good teams like Murray State, Belmont, Winthrop, etc. But otherwise, those conferences will kill you. It's much better to schedule non D-I teams than it is those teams.

I'd like to see a majority of non-conference schedules stacked with 1-for-1's with the A-10, MVC, MAC, and MWC. I know everybody wants to play more home games than road games, but I think it would be best for everyone if we just avoided the Savannah States and Kennesaw States of the world completely. If you need a couple bodybag games to fill out a home schedule, drop down out of D-I. That sounds gutless and contradictory, but it's probably the best thing to do.

(03-18-2014 10:36 AM)eaglenjxn Wrote:  

(03-16-2014 07:26 PM)PaulDel2 Wrote:  

(03-16-2014 07:22 PM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  NC State was 6-11 against the top 100.

The message is clear. Play a bunch of top 100 schools and it doesn't matter how many you win.

But I'm really curious what you guys think about how do you balance winnable games vs. stronger non-conference schedule. It's clear scheduling wins helps the league as a whole while scheduling tougher non-conf opponents helps the chances of the individuals teams at the top of the league. A delicate balance no?

Looking at the A-10, all six schools that got in had non-conf schedules in the top 125. Eight out of their 13 teams had schedules in the top 125 and five had top 100. We had two out of the whole conference with top 125...Tulsa and Middle Tennessee. So, 62% of A10 played a non-conf schedule ranked in the top third or so of CBB; whereas we had 12% that played a schedule at least that difficult, so clearly this isn't just about scheduling easy wins to pad the W/L record. Not only do we need to schedule a little tougher we simply need to win more. What am I missing?

What you are missing is the difficulty in scheduling some of those teams. Near Nashville, it may not be as difficult, but you would be suprised how many teams turned down games with Southern Miss this year.

Why are we having more of a problem than Louisiana Tech, UAB, Tulane, ULL, and ULM when it comes to scheduling solid to big name teams? They're all finding multiple opponents that are either good or have strong national reputations. Their problem was that the weaker teams they scheduled were horrible and drug down their SOS. (On the flip side, those easy schedules gave them wins and kept our RPI high.)

Non-Conference SOS Ratings: http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketba.../sort/ncss .... Most of the Top 100 are mid-majors to low-majors. Yes, there are some cupcakes on there that go for a payday. There are also a lot of very strong mid-majors on there.

I'm just not buying the whole, "We can't schedule good teams."

Well, all I know is that Southern Miss is reporting that they have over 50 letters and e-mails from teams in ths so called power conferences that declined to talk about scheduling a game with them.

(03-18-2014 10:36 AM)eaglenjxn Wrote:  

(03-16-2014 07:26 PM)PaulDel2 Wrote:  

(03-16-2014 07:22 PM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  NC State was 6-11 against the top 100.

The message is clear. Play a bunch of top 100 schools and it doesn't matter how many you win.

But I'm really curious what you guys think about how do you balance winnable games vs. stronger non-conference schedule. It's clear scheduling wins helps the league as a whole while scheduling tougher non-conf opponents helps the chances of the individuals teams at the top of the league. A delicate balance no?

Looking at the A-10, all six schools that got in had non-conf schedules in the top 125. Eight out of their 13 teams had schedules in the top 125 and five had top 100. We had two out of the whole conference with top 125...Tulsa and Middle Tennessee. So, 62% of A10 played a non-conf schedule ranked in the top third or so of CBB; whereas we had 12% that played a schedule at least that difficult, so clearly this isn't just about scheduling easy wins to pad the W/L record. Not only do we need to schedule a little tougher we simply need to win more. What am I missing?

What you are missing is the difficulty in scheduling some of those teams. Near Nashville, it may not be as difficult, but you would be suprised how many teams turned down games with Southern Miss this year.

Why are we having more of a problem than Louisiana Tech, UAB, Tulane, ULL, and ULM when it comes to scheduling solid to big name teams? They're all finding multiple opponents that are either good or have strong national reputations. Their problem was that the weaker teams they scheduled were horrible and drug down their SOS. (On the flip side, those easy schedules gave them wins and kept our RPI high.)

Non-Conference SOS Ratings: http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketba.../sort/ncss .... Most of the Top 100 are mid-majors to low-majors. Yes, there are some cupcakes on there that go for a payday. There are also a lot of very strong mid-majors on there.

I'm just not buying the whole, "We can't schedule good teams."

Then you are naïve. Our basketball history makes us a bad team to schedule. We have a grand total of three NCAA bids, less than the majority of teams in C-USA.

NCAA bids:
UTEP 17
Tulsa 16
UAB 14
Charlotte 11
Old Dominion 11
MTSU 7
Louisiana Tech 5
Marshall 5
UTSA 4
Rice 4

Newcomer WKU has 23. ULL has 10. ULM has 7.

Scheduling us is way more risk than reward. Maybe a few more years of 20+ win seasons will change that perception.

(03-17-2014 08:30 PM)Tintin Wrote:  

(03-16-2014 07:22 PM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  NC State was 6-11 against the top 100.

The message is clear. Play a bunch of top 100 schools and it doesn't matter how many you win.

But I'm really curious what you guys think about how do you balance winnable games vs. stronger non-conference schedule. It's clear scheduling wins helps the league as a whole while scheduling tougher non-conf opponents helps the chances of the individuals teams at the top of the league. A delicate balance no?

Looking at the A-10, all six schools that got in had non-conf schedules in the top 125. Eight out of their 13 teams had non-conference schedules in the top 125 and five had top 100. We had two out of the whole conference with top 125...Tulsa and Middle Tennessee. So, 62% of A10 played a non-conf schedule ranked in the top third or so of CBB; whereas we had 12% that played a schedule at least that difficult, so clearly this isn't just about scheduling easy wins to pad the W/L record. Not only do we need to schedule a little tougher we simply need to win more. What am I missing?

CUSA reminds me of the A10 when Charlotte got there. They had a committee to restructure scheduling. They started playing winnable road games against decent schools in smaller conference, going on the road against top teams, playing in pre season tourneys to try to get neutral court wins, eliminating d-2 games unless they were local teams (and then limiting it to one), and cutting out as many cupcakes as possible.
This strategy improved rpi's, sos', and made the teams tougher as they were playing tougher competition. One school (I feel like it was lasalle) had there RPI jump 40 spots by replacing three sub 300's with three 200's (similar w-l's over the two seasons.
The committee doesn't respect d-2 games, so we need to stop playing them. CUSA also needs to realize that there is no shame in getting blown out on a top 10's court.

We only had one of our guys poo-poo that idea....it was a nasty thing to witness

We have to schedule some of that, but getting into better early tourneys and forming an early allegiance with another conference is where Britton has dropped the fkn ball.

We are too geographically isolated and non-existent to make phone calls in an attempt to schedule h/h with many teams that are 'on the radar'

In reality, it's amazing we had the schedule we had last year.

It's only going to get worse if something doesn't change quickly.

edit: think about it....most early games are duds with the exception of decent tournaments....BB should be trying to ally with somebody else to make this happen with the top tier teams.....gdm, fkn ECU was in a better tournament this year than we were....

yeah, I'm still not happy

(03-17-2014 07:35 PM)Funslinger Wrote:  

(03-17-2014 02:17 PM)blunderbuss Wrote:  

(03-16-2014 07:22 PM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  NC State was 6-11 against the top 100.

The message is clear. Play a bunch of top 100 schools and it doesn't matter how many you win.

yeah, and it's partially b/c the damn RPI formula is based 50% off of your opponents record and 25% off of opponents opponents. So... when you're in a P5 league and play schools like Kansas, UNC, Duke, Cuse, UL, etc multiple times and some creampuffs that happen to have good records you're gonna get a nice artificial boost.

Unfortunately b/c of some of these flaws that can be manipulated, you're not likely to see this problem get much better.

The flaw is that SOS isn't adjusted like the team's record. If the team's AWP was used when calculating SOS instead of the actual record many of these gaudy P5 SOSs would drop. When many of their opponents play two-thirds to three-quarters of their games at home, counting home wins at 0.6 and home losses at 1.4 is going to seriously impact their SOS.

try explaining that to SJ.

(03-18-2014 12:08 PM)keebler645 Wrote:  That being said, as long as the NCAA continues to put so much emphasis on RPI (unless you're Southern Miss, apparently), it's probably important to game the archaic thing.

The RPI needs to be updated. SOS needs to be based on opponents' AWP, not actually record. Plus, a component needs to be added to compensate for the difference in conference strength so that the committee doesn't have to include their own subjective compensation.

(03-18-2014 12:08 PM)keebler645 Wrote:  I think the most important thing is to avoid the SWAC, MEAC, Southland, OVC, and other low major conferences like the plague. The exception to this rule are the aforementioned recently good teams like Murray State, Belmont, Winthrop, etc. But otherwise, those conferences will kill you. It's much better to schedule non D-I teams than it is those teams.

For that team. But it hurts the other teams in the conference by lowering the team's winning percentage against D1 and thereby lowering the RPIs of every other team in the conference. East Carolina hampered the RPIs of every other C-USA team by lowering their D1 winning percentage to .4444 (12-15) from .5161 (16-15). If they had just scheduled D1 dogs and beaten them, every other C-USA team would've had an increase of approximately 0.0012 to their RPI. That would've pushed Southern Miss's RPI from 0.5983 to 0.5995 which would've moved them from 33 to 32. When all other non-D1 opponents on the other C-USA schedules are considered, the cumulative effect is devastating. NO MORE NON-D1 GAMES. PLEASE.

(03-18-2014 12:08 PM)keebler645 Wrote:  I'd like to see a majority of non-conference schedules stacked with 1-for-1's with the A-10, MVC, MAC, and MWC. I know everybody wants to play more home games than road games, but I think it would be best for everyone if we just avoided the Savannah States and Kennesaw States of the world completely. If you need a couple bodybag games to fill out a home schedule, drop down out of D-I. That sounds gutless and contradictory, but it's probably the best thing to do.

Playing non-D1 games is the absolute worst thing to do from a CONFERENCE perspective.

(03-18-2014 01:41 PM)Funslinger Wrote:  

(03-18-2014 12:08 PM)keebler645 Wrote:  That being said, as long as the NCAA continues to put so much emphasis on RPI (unless you're Southern Miss, apparently), it's probably important to game the archaic thing.

The RPI needs to be updated. SOS needs to be based on opponents' AWP, not actually record. Plus, a component needs to be added to compensate for the difference in conference strength so that the committee doesn't have to include their own subjective compensation.

(03-18-2014 12:08 PM)keebler645 Wrote:  I think the most important thing is to avoid the SWAC, MEAC, Southland, OVC, and other low major conferences like the plague. The exception to this rule are the aforementioned recently good teams like Murray State, Belmont, Winthrop, etc. But otherwise, those conferences will kill you. It's much better to schedule non D-I teams than it is those teams.

For that team. But it hurts the other teams in the conference by lowering the team's winning percentage against D1 and thereby lowering the RPIs of every other team in the conference. East Carolina hampered the RPIs of every other C-USA team by lowering their D1 winning percentage to .4444 (12-15) from .5161 (16-15). If they had just scheduled D1 dogs and beaten them, every other C-USA team would've had an increase of approximately 0.0012 to their RPI. That would've pushed Southern Miss's RPI from 0.5983 to 0.5995 which would've moved them from 33 to 32. When all other non-D1 opponents on the other C-USA schedules are considered, the cumulative effect is devastating. NO MORE NON-D1 GAMES. PLEASE.

(03-18-2014 12:08 PM)keebler645 Wrote:  I'd like to see a majority of non-conference schedules stacked with 1-for-1's with the A-10, MVC, MAC, and MWC. I know everybody wants to play more home games than road games, but I think it would be best for everyone if we just avoided the Savannah States and Kennesaw States of the world completely. If you need a couple bodybag games to fill out a home schedule, drop down out of D-I. That sounds gutless and contradictory, but it's probably the best thing to do.

Playing non-D1 games is the absolute worst thing to do from a CONFERENCE perspective.

And a fan's perspective. No fun watching us beat some NAIA school by 50.

(03-18-2014 12:47 PM)stinkfist Wrote:  

(03-17-2014 08:30 PM)Tintin Wrote:  

(03-16-2014 07:22 PM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  NC State was 6-11 against the top 100.

The message is clear. Play a bunch of top 100 schools and it doesn't matter how many you win.

But I'm really curious what you guys think about how do you balance winnable games vs. stronger non-conference schedule. It's clear scheduling wins helps the league as a whole while scheduling tougher non-conf opponents helps the chances of the individuals teams at the top of the league. A delicate balance no?

Looking at the A-10, all six schools that got in had non-conf schedules in the top 125. Eight out of their 13 teams had non-conference schedules in the top 125 and five had top 100. We had two out of the whole conference with top 125...Tulsa and Middle Tennessee. So, 62% of A10 played a non-conf schedule ranked in the top third or so of CBB; whereas we had 12% that played a schedule at least that difficult, so clearly this isn't just about scheduling easy wins to pad the W/L record. Not only do we need to schedule a little tougher we simply need to win more. What am I missing?

CUSA reminds me of the A10 when Charlotte got there. They had a committee to restructure scheduling. They started playing winnable road games against decent schools in smaller conference, going on the road against top teams, playing in pre season tourneys to try to get neutral court wins, eliminating d-2 games unless they were local teams (and then limiting it to one), and cutting out as many cupcakes as possible.
This strategy improved rpi's, sos', and made the teams tougher as they were playing tougher competition. One school (I feel like it was lasalle) had there RPI jump 40 spots by replacing three sub 300's with three 200's (similar w-l's over the two seasons.
The committee doesn't respect d-2 games, so we need to stop playing them. CUSA also needs to realize that there is no shame in getting blown out on a top 10's court.

We only had one of our guys poo-poo that idea....it was a nasty thing to witness

We have to schedule some of that, but getting into better early tourneys and forming an early allegiance with another conference is where Britton has dropped the fkn ball.

We are too geographically isolated and non-existent to make phone calls in an attempt to schedule h/h with many teams that are 'on the radar'

In reality, it's amazing we had the schedule we had last year.

It's only going to get worse if something doesn't change quickly.

edit: think about it....most early games are duds with the exception of decent tournaments....BB should be trying to ally with somebody else to make this happen with the top tier teams.....gdm, fkn ECU was in a better tournament this year than we were....

yeah, I'm still not happy

List of early season tournaments and teams participating. Doesn't appear to have been updated in a few weeks. Looks like UAB and ODU are in a good one.
http://www.bloggingthebracket.com/2013/1...events-MTE

(03-18-2014 02:38 PM)USMSTUD Wrote:  

(03-18-2014 12:47 PM)stinkfist Wrote:  

(03-17-2014 08:30 PM)Tintin Wrote:  

(03-16-2014 07:22 PM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  NC State was 6-11 against the top 100.

The message is clear. Play a bunch of top 100 schools and it doesn't matter how many you win.

But I'm really curious what you guys think about how do you balance winnable games vs. stronger non-conference schedule. It's clear scheduling wins helps the league as a whole while scheduling tougher non-conf opponents helps the chances of the individuals teams at the top of the league. A delicate balance no?

Looking at the A-10, all six schools that got in had non-conf schedules in the top 125. Eight out of their 13 teams had non-conference schedules in the top 125 and five had top 100. We had two out of the whole conference with top 125...Tulsa and Middle Tennessee. So, 62% of A10 played a non-conf schedule ranked in the top third or so of CBB; whereas we had 12% that played a schedule at least that difficult, so clearly this isn't just about scheduling easy wins to pad the W/L record. Not only do we need to schedule a little tougher we simply need to win more. What am I missing?

CUSA reminds me of the A10 when Charlotte got there. They had a committee to restructure scheduling. They started playing winnable road games against decent schools in smaller conference, going on the road against top teams, playing in pre season tourneys to try to get neutral court wins, eliminating d-2 games unless they were local teams (and then limiting it to one), and cutting out as many cupcakes as possible.
This strategy improved rpi's, sos', and made the teams tougher as they were playing tougher competition. One school (I feel like it was lasalle) had there RPI jump 40 spots by replacing three sub 300's with three 200's (similar w-l's over the two seasons.
The committee doesn't respect d-2 games, so we need to stop playing them. CUSA also needs to realize that there is no shame in getting blown out on a top 10's court.

We only had one of our guys poo-poo that idea....it was a nasty thing to witness

We have to schedule some of that, but getting into better early tourneys and forming an early allegiance with another conference is where Britton has dropped the fkn ball.

We are too geographically isolated and non-existent to make phone calls in an attempt to schedule h/h with many teams that are 'on the radar'

In reality, it's amazing we had the schedule we had last year.

It's only going to get worse if something doesn't change quickly.

edit: think about it....most early games are duds with the exception of decent tournaments....BB should be trying to ally with somebody else to make this happen with the top tier teams.....gdm, fkn ECU was in a better tournament this year than we were....

yeah, I'm still not happy

List of early season tournaments and teams participating. Doesn't appear to have been updated in a few weeks. Looks like UAB and ODU are in a good one.
http://www.bloggingthebracket.com/2013/1...events-MTE

thx for that....

UAB is in the Battle 4 Atlantis
UAB Blazers (C-USA)
Butler Bulldogs (Big East)
Florida Gators (SEC)
Georgetown Hoyas (Big East)
North Carolina Tar Heels (ACC)
Oklahoma Sooners (Big 12)
UCLA Bruins (Pac-12)
Wisconsin Badgers (Big Ten)

We also travel to UNC and host LSU, IIRC. Hopefully there won't be as many 250+ RPI teams this year.

Another thing Charlotte did to improve scheduling a few years back was scheduling the really good mids or lows that had scheduling problems.
Davidson is easy for Charlotte, but we went to Valpo, ODU, Richmond, and S. Ill among others in the past.
Teams that have trouble scheduling need to find like schools that have trouble scheduling. The A10 should be looking for partners in this regard.

(03-18-2014 02:38 PM)USMSTUD Wrote:  

(03-18-2014 12:47 PM)stinkfist Wrote:  

(03-17-2014 08:30 PM)Tintin Wrote:  

(03-16-2014 07:22 PM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  NC State was 6-11 against the top 100.

The message is clear. Play a bunch of top 100 schools and it doesn't matter how many you win.

But I'm really curious what you guys think about how do you balance winnable games vs. stronger non-conference schedule. It's clear scheduling wins helps the league as a whole while scheduling tougher non-conf opponents helps the chances of the individuals teams at the top of the league. A delicate balance no?

Looking at the A-10, all six schools that got in had non-conf schedules in the top 125. Eight out of their 13 teams had non-conference schedules in the top 125 and five had top 100. We had two out of the whole conference with top 125...Tulsa and Middle Tennessee. So, 62% of A10 played a non-conf schedule ranked in the top third or so of CBB; whereas we had 12% that played a schedule at least that difficult, so clearly this isn't just about scheduling easy wins to pad the W/L record. Not only do we need to schedule a little tougher we simply need to win more. What am I missing?

CUSA reminds me of the A10 when Charlotte got there. They had a committee to restructure scheduling. They started playing winnable road games against decent schools in smaller conference, going on the road against top teams, playing in pre season tourneys to try to get neutral court wins, eliminating d-2 games unless they were local teams (and then limiting it to one), and cutting out as many cupcakes as possible.
This strategy improved rpi's, sos', and made the teams tougher as they were playing tougher competition. One school (I feel like it was lasalle) had there RPI jump 40 spots by replacing three sub 300's with three 200's (similar w-l's over the two seasons.
The committee doesn't respect d-2 games, so we need to stop playing them. CUSA also needs to realize that there is no shame in getting blown out on a top 10's court.

We only had one of our guys poo-poo that idea....it was a nasty thing to witness

We have to schedule some of that, but getting into better early tourneys and forming an early allegiance with another conference is where Britton has dropped the fkn ball.

We are too geographically isolated and non-existent to make phone calls in an attempt to schedule h/h with many teams that are 'on the radar'

In reality, it's amazing we had the schedule we had last year.

It's only going to get worse if something doesn't change quickly.

edit: think about it....most early games are duds with the exception of decent tournaments....BB should be trying to ally with somebody else to make this happen with the top tier teams.....gdm, fkn ECU was in a better tournament this year than we were....

yeah, I'm still not happy

List of early season tournaments and teams participating. Doesn't appear to have been updated in a few weeks. Looks like UAB and ODU are in a good one.
http://www.bloggingthebracket.com/2013/1...events-MTE

Not sure why we're not listed, but we're playing in Charleston.

The other teams in the field are:

Akron Zips (MAC)
Cornell Big Red (Ivy)
Miami Hurricanes (ACC)
Penn State Nittany Lions (Big Ten)
South Carolina Gamecocks (SEC)
USC Trojans (Pac-12)
And one other unlisted team.

Could be another winnable tournament for Charlotte next year. A lot of big name programs that aren't powerhouses.

Everyone needs to schedule better. The real problem wasn't individual non conference schedules for the top teams it was the league as a whole. There were not enough TOP 100 wins to be found within Conference Play. The last time ODU went to the NCAA Tournament they had 11 TOP 100 wins within the CAA alone. The CAA!

A few good teams combined with the rest of the league scheduling UP creates a formula where more teams will have Top 100 RPI's thus providing more opportunities for those games during league play.

Exempt tournaments are huge and so is playing people away from home. ODU literally got an at large several years ago by winning at Georgetown when they were #5. It was their only big win but it defined their RPI.

(03-18-2014 09:43 AM)USMSTUD Wrote:  Found this website that has contact information and the type of games different schools are looking to schedule for next year.

http://www.basketballtravelers.com/game-.../?e_type=1

That was the site I was referring to in another post about a list of games that teams are looking for (and the fact that they want e-mail contacts)