Coalherd on the Herdfans board put this together and it has some really good info about CUSA basketball OOC:

What does the League look like heading into conference play? In this era of analytics maybe some numbers from non-conference play can give us some idea.

http://www.sports-reference.com under section cbb (college basketball) has a vast array of stats on college basketball thus far in the 20-21 season. Specifically, the site give CUSA a rating of -5.37 on SOS (strength of schedule) to date which ranks 30th out of 31 D1 conferences (Ouch!). For the 2019-20 season the League ranked a respectable 12th out of 32 (Difference in number of conferences is by the fact that the Ivy League has opted out of this season).

Now in 20-21 thus far CUSA has a rating of -2.07 in the SRS (Simple Rating System) which is a combined rating of the SOS and the average point differential. The CUSA rating is 15th out of the 31 D1 conferences. The CUSA won-loss record in out of conference play is 69-33, a .676 W-L percentage which ranks 9th in the 31 Conferences.

Individually, Marshall at 6-1 has the second best W-L record heading into conference play, just behind
UAB at 7-1. The Herd has a SRS of 10.8 and SOS rating of -1.0. UAB's SRS is 12.3 and a SOS of -11.1. Most of CUSA teams have negative strength of schedule ratings led by Rice and USM at -14.0, LA Tech at -10.7, FAU at -10.5 and FIU at -7.9. WKU's is -0.5, and UTEP and ODU have the strongest SOS ratings at +8.9 and +2.4 respectively.

So I guess all this means that CUSA teams as a whole have been pretty successful in preseason play to date. All this with a caveat that the League's overall strength of schedule hasn't been that good. Of course there are factors that play into these numbers and percentages, the most important being the negative effect COVID has had on the early season, both in caliber of play and in the changes in schedules throughout all of D1 basketball. So, in some, perhaps most of teams' early season records, take them with a grain of salt.

With that, specifically concerning MU, I'm sure I'm not alone in saying I sure would have liked MU to have had a chance to play UK down at Rupp this season, given that the Mild Cats are thus far 1-6 on the season. Same applies to the scheduled game in the CAM with Northern Iowa, now 1-5 after getting waxed by 20 at home today by Missouri State. Coppin State, you say, now 1-7 well I'm sure many of you would have witnessed that "titanic struggle" at the CAM, too.

Some other notes on Herd opponents/potential opponents. Wright State is now 7-1, only loss to MU, after beating Green Bay twice this week end. Robert Morris, another Horizon team and Herd victim, split their two conference games with Purdue-Fort Wayne this week end, winning by 14 and losing by 5. I'll say we're liable to see some swings, maybe wild ones, also in the scores in Conference USA games starting this Fri-Sat when the Conference season opens. As for other cancelled OOC games, we can only guess how the HERD would have fared in road games at Xavier and Virginia Tech, both currently 7-1, and ranked in the top 25!

With that said, for you all to "Digest" at your leisure, let Conference action begin, and GO HERD!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(12-28-2020 11:34 AM)MUther Wrote:  Coalherd on the Herdfans board put this together and it has some really good info about CUSA basketball OOC:

What does the League look like heading into conference play? In this era of analytics maybe some numbers from non-conference play can give us some idea.

http://www.sports-reference.com under section cbb (college basketball) has a vast array of stats on college basketball thus far in the 20-21 season. Specifically, the site give CUSA a rating of -5.37 on SOS (strength of schedule) to date which ranks 30th out of 31 D1 conferences (Ouch!). For the 2019-20 season the League ranked a respectable 12th out of 32 (Difference in number of conferences is by the fact that the Ivy League has opted out of this season).

Now in 20-21 thus far CUSA has a rating of -2.07 in the SRS (Simple Rating System) which is a combined rating of the SOS and the average point differential. The CUSA rating is 15th out of the 31 D1 conferences. The CUSA won-loss record in out of conference play is 69-33, a .676 W-L percentage which ranks 9th in the 31 Conferences.

Individually, Marshall at 6-1 has the second best W-L record heading into conference play, just behind
UAB at 7-1. The Herd has a SRS of 10.8 and SOS rating of -1.0. UAB's SRS is 12.3 and a SOS of -11.1. Most of CUSA teams have negative strength of schedule ratings led by Rice and USM at -14.0, LA Tech at -10.7, FAU at -10.5 and FIU at -7.9. WKU's is -0.5, and UTEP and ODU have the strongest SOS ratings at +8.9 and +2.4 respectively.

So I guess all this means that CUSA teams as a whole have been pretty successful in preseason play to date. All this with a caveat that the League's overall strength of schedule hasn't been that good. Of course there are factors that play into these numbers and percentages, the most important being the negative effect COVID has had on the early season, both in caliber of play and in the changes in schedules throughout all of D1 basketball. So, in some, perhaps most of teams' early season records, take them with a grain of salt.

With that, specifically concerning MU, I'm sure I'm not alone in saying I sure would have liked MU to have had a chance to play UK down at Rupp this season, given that the Mild Cats are thus far 1-6 on the season. Same applies to the scheduled game in the CAM with Northern Iowa, now 1-5 after getting waxed by 20 at home today by Missouri State. Coppin State, you say, now 1-7 well I'm sure many of you would have witnessed that "titanic struggle" at the CAM, too.

Some other notes on Herd opponents/potential opponents. Wright State is now 7-1, only loss to MU, after beating Green Bay twice this week end. Robert Morris, another Horizon team and Herd victim, split their two conference games with Purdue-Fort Wayne this week end, winning by 14 and losing by 5. I'll say we're liable to see some swings, maybe wild ones, also in the scores in Conference USA games starting this Fri-Sat when the Conference season opens. As for other cancelled OOC games, we can only guess how the HERD would have fared in road games at Xavier and Virginia Tech, both currently 7-1, and ranked in the top 25!

With that said, for you all to "Digest" at your leisure, let Conference action begin, and GO HERD!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We can be sure all the basketball guys on herdfans who continually trash the conference in football will now be telling us it is equivalent to the ACC in basketball!!

(12-28-2020 11:48 AM)herdfifteen Wrote:  

(12-28-2020 11:34 AM)MUther Wrote:  Coalherd on the Herdfans board put this together and it has some really good info about CUSA basketball OOC:

What does the League look like heading into conference play? In this era of analytics maybe some numbers from non-conference play can give us some idea.

http://www.sports-reference.com under section cbb (college basketball) has a vast array of stats on college basketball thus far in the 20-21 season. Specifically, the site give CUSA a rating of -5.37 on SOS (strength of schedule) to date which ranks 30th out of 31 D1 conferences (Ouch!). For the 2019-20 season the League ranked a respectable 12th out of 32 (Difference in number of conferences is by the fact that the Ivy League has opted out of this season).

Now in 20-21 thus far CUSA has a rating of -2.07 in the SRS (Simple Rating System) which is a combined rating of the SOS and the average point differential. The CUSA rating is 15th out of the 31 D1 conferences. The CUSA won-loss record in out of conference play is 69-33, a .676 W-L percentage which ranks 9th in the 31 Conferences.

Individually, Marshall at 6-1 has the second best W-L record heading into conference play, just behind
UAB at 7-1. The Herd has a SRS of 10.8 and SOS rating of -1.0. UAB's SRS is 12.3 and a SOS of -11.1. Most of CUSA teams have negative strength of schedule ratings led by Rice and USM at -14.0, LA Tech at -10.7, FAU at -10.5 and FIU at -7.9. WKU's is -0.5, and UTEP and ODU have the strongest SOS ratings at +8.9 and +2.4 respectively.

So I guess all this means that CUSA teams as a whole have been pretty successful in preseason play to date. All this with a caveat that the League's overall strength of schedule hasn't been that good. Of course there are factors that play into these numbers and percentages, the most important being the negative effect COVID has had on the early season, both in caliber of play and in the changes in schedules throughout all of D1 basketball. So, in some, perhaps most of teams' early season records, take them with a grain of salt.

With that, specifically concerning MU, I'm sure I'm not alone in saying I sure would have liked MU to have had a chance to play UK down at Rupp this season, given that the Mild Cats are thus far 1-6 on the season. Same applies to the scheduled game in the CAM with Northern Iowa, now 1-5 after getting waxed by 20 at home today by Missouri State. Coppin State, you say, now 1-7 well I'm sure many of you would have witnessed that "titanic struggle" at the CAM, too.

Some other notes on Herd opponents/potential opponents. Wright State is now 7-1, only loss to MU, after beating Green Bay twice this week end. Robert Morris, another Horizon team and Herd victim, split their two conference games with Purdue-Fort Wayne this week end, winning by 14 and losing by 5. I'll say we're liable to see some swings, maybe wild ones, also in the scores in Conference USA games starting this Fri-Sat when the Conference season opens. As for other cancelled OOC games, we can only guess how the HERD would have fared in road games at Xavier and Virginia Tech, both currently 7-1, and ranked in the top 25!

With that said, for you all to "Digest" at your leisure, let Conference action begin, and GO HERD!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We can be sure all the basketball guys on herdfans who continually trash the conference in football will now be telling us it is equivalent to the ACC in basketball!!

It clearly says 15th thru 30th in different categories. Don't see why one would stretch that to ACC material. The top teams in CUSA will be competitive with anyone as usual. We've only lost one tournament opener in like 7 years. That means we beat a 1-5 seed every year in the NCAA tournament, but once.

Thanks for posting. Like most everything this COVID-contrived* past year, it will be fascinating to see how our teams respond to weird - - and not always fair - - playing conditions. From empty arenas (giving the F_U's a presumed advantage - - ) to the Fri.-Sat. double-home/double-away matches (I presume the deeper teams, such as WKU/UNT will have an edge in the Saturday match ups), this will be an odd conference season.

I can say that I am VERY happy to have Marshall visiting Norfolk. My fingers are crossed that our spineless Governor will have once again shifted with the winds and lifted some of the restrictions by early February, in which case I will happily be attending both games. Taevion Kinsey is a joy to watch in person.


________________________
* So there is no confusion, the disease is very real. It is our over-reactive response that is mostly contrived.

Paul Sabin at ESPN projects CUSA as a two-bid league:




I know it is controversial but I think we as a conference often overschedule.

Teams should schedule the toughest opponents that they can win against. If that means playing all SWAC teams in the non-conference then so be it. If you are poised to have a good year then schedule tougher. But the worst thing for at-large chances is a bunch of teams with losing records. By luck or not we don't have a bunch of teams with losing records this year.

(12-28-2020 01:09 PM)AdoptedMonarch Wrote:  Thanks for posting. Like most everything this COVID-contrived* past year, it will be fascinating to see how our teams respond to weird - - and not always fair - - playing conditions. From empty arenas (giving the F_U's a presumed advantage - - ) to the Fri.-Sat. double-home/double-away matches (I presume the deeper teams, such as WKU/UNT will have an edge in the Saturday match ups), this will be an odd conference season.

I can say that I am VERY happy to have Marshall visiting Norfolk. My fingers are crossed that our spineless Governor will have once again shifted with the winds and lifted some of the restrictions by early February, in which case I will happily be attending both games. Taevion Kinsey is a joy to watch in person.


________________________
* So there is no confusion, the disease is very real. It is our over-reactive response that is mostly contrived.

May be your last chance, he is getting nba draft buzz now. Some projecting him 1st round.

some what related basketball news
from the press release by CUSA;
Conference USA men’s and women’s basketball will move to a divisional standings format for the 2020-21 season, as approved by the league’s Board of Directors.

C-USA will feature East and West divisions and will crown divisional champions at the conclusion of conference play in March. Standings will be based on overall conference winning percentage. In addition, divisional seeding will be utilized for the C-USA Men’s and Women’s Championships. A cross-divisional bracket will be used to determine first-round matchups.

sounds like they know games will be canceled in the near future

(12-28-2020 01:09 PM)AdoptedMonarch Wrote:  Thanks for posting. Like most everything this COVID-contrived* past year, it will be fascinating to see how our teams respond to weird - - and not always fair - - playing conditions. From empty arenas (giving the F_U's a presumed advantage - - ) to the Fri.-Sat. double-home/double-away matches (I presume the deeper teams, such as WKU/UNT will have an edge in the Saturday match ups), this will be an odd conference season.

I can say that I am VERY happy to have Marshall visiting Norfolk. My fingers are crossed that our spineless Governor will have once again shifted with the winds and lifted some of the restrictions by early February, in which case I will happily be attending both games. Taevion Kinsey is a joy to watch in person.


________________________
* So there is no confusion, the disease is very real. It is our over-reactive response that is mostly contrived.

Kinsey was a rather unheralded recruit. But man, you could just tell he belongs.

Long, athletic. He just glides. Not sure his fit in the NBA. But he definitely has an athletic advantage over most college athletes.