Drake completes schedule

[tornado]

And actually picks up a couple decent D-I opponents.
But watch the critics have a field day because both are away games (neutral site) with no return on their home court.
As it turns out, of all their non-conference foes, only the yearly games with Iowa and Iowa State are any better for their RPI than these two games against Toledo & UTEP. It sure beats adding yet anohter non-D-I.

http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060906/SPORTS02040101/60906027

[Fastbreak]

This story just went out at the Drake Basketball official web site.

http://www.drakebulldogs.org/mensbasketball/newsstory.php?nid=1157645737

But there's something in the Drake version of this article that bugs me.
They say this
"Drake played the most difficult schedule of any team in the
Missouri Valley during the 2005-06 season."

I would contest that whoever made this judgement is NOT in the majority.
Drake's non-conference and conference Strength of Schedules rank them 7th and 7th in the MVC.
Bradley ranks 6th and 3rd respectively in the SOS.

[DUBulldog]

This story just went out at the Drake Basketball official web site.

http://www.drakebulldogs.org/mensbasketball/newsstory.php?nid=1157645737

But there's something in the Drake version of this article that bugs me.
They say this
"Drake played the most difficult schedule of any team in the
Missouri Valley during the 2005-06 season."

I would contest that whoever made this judgement is NOT in the majority.
Drake's non-conference and conference Strength of Schedules rank them 7th and 7th in the MVC.
Bradley ranks 6th and 3rd respectively in the SOS.

In the article it said that "According to Basketball Times, Drake played the most difficult schedule of any team in the MVC...."

So, while it is spin, they did preface it by stating where the info came from, as opposed to just throwing it out there as "fact".

I'm a little confused by the "conference strength of schedule" that you mention.....theoretically, doesn't the last place team in any conference have the toughest conference SOS? After all, they don't get two games against the last place team like everybody else. Conversely, doesn't the first place team have the easiest conference SOS, as they don't play against the best team in the conference. Or, is there something to this conference SOS that I'm missing?

[Da Coach]

I think the conference SOS is just an overall SOS that includes nonconference and conference games, while nonconference would include games outside of conference.

[tornado]

This story just went out at the Drake Basketball official web site.

http://www.drakebulldogs.org/mensbasketball/newsstory.php?nid=1157645737

But there's something in the Drake version of this article that bugs me.
They say this
"Drake played the most difficult schedule of any team in the
Missouri Valley during the 2005-06 season."

I would contest that whoever made this judgement is NOT in the majority.
Drake's non-conference and conference Strength of Schedules rank them 7th and 7th in the MVC.
Bradley ranks 6th and 3rd respectively in the SOS.

In the article it said that "According to Basketball Times, Drake played the most difficult schedule of any team in the MVC...."

So, while it is spin, they did preface it by stating where the info came from, as opposed to just throwing it out there as "fact".

I'm a little confused by the "conference strength of schedule" that you mention.....theoretically, doesn't the last place team in any conference have the toughest conference SOS? After all, they don't get two games against the last place team like everybody else. Conversely, doesn't the first place team have the easiest conference SOS, as they don't play against the best team in the conference. Or, is there something to this conference SOS that I'm missing?

In a way you are right, as the top teams don't have to play themseleves and likewise for the bottom teams, so the bottom guys face more top teams.
But if you throw in the nonconference schedule, then you'd expect some objective measure to prove that Drake played tougher competition than the rest of the Valley, and the evidence just doesn't seem to conclude that.

[MacabreMob]

This story just went out at the Drake Basketball official web site.

http://www.drakebulldogs.org/mensbasketball/newsstory.php?nid=1157645737

But there's something in the Drake version of this article that bugs me.
They say this
"Drake played the most difficult schedule of any team in the
Missouri Valley during the 2005-06 season."

I would contest that whoever made this judgement is NOT in the majority.
Drake's non-conference and conference Strength of Schedules rank them 7th and 7th in the MVC.
Bradley ranks 6th and 3rd respectively in the SOS.

In the article it said that "According to Basketball Times, Drake played the most difficult schedule of any team in the MVC...."

So, while it is spin, they did preface it by stating where the info came from, as opposed to just throwing it out there as "fact".

I'm a little confused by the "conference strength of schedule" that you mention.....theoretically, doesn't the last place team in any conference have the toughest conference SOS? After all, they don't get two games against the last place team like everybody else. Conversely, doesn't the first place team have the easiest conference SOS, as they don't play against the best team in the conference. Or, is there something to this conference SOS that I'm missing?

In a way you are right, as the top teams don't have to play themseleves and likewise for the bottom teams, so the bottom guys face more top teams.
But if you throw in the nonconference schedule, then you'd expect some objective measure to prove that Drake played tougher competition than the rest of the Valley, and the evidence just doesn't seem to conclude that.

I don't know where Fastbreak got his info, so I may be redundant. From Jerry Palm's collegerpi.com, he describes SOS as 2/3 opponents' winning percentage and 1/3 opponents' opponents' winning percentage.

SOS Rank in the MVC:
1) UNI 40
2) Mo St 46
3) Bradley 50
4) CU 55
5) WSU 58
6) SIU 59
7) Drake 69
8.) ISU 80
9) EVille 88
10) Indy St 96

------------------------------------------------------------

"SOS IMPACT" is described by JPalm as 2/3 Teams W% + 1/3 Opp's W%

SOS Impact Rank in the MVC:
1) WSU 29
2) Mo St 35
3) UNI 42
4) SIU 44
5) CU 50
6) Bradley 57
7) Indy St 199
8.) Drake 250
9) EVille 251
10 ISU 267

The Basketball Times? I didn't know they were THE SOURCE for SOS info. Maybe they have a new formula... and I guess a better one, according to Drake fans.

[tornado]

SOS Rank in the MVC:
1) UNI 40
2) Mo St 46
3) Bradley 50
4) CU 55
5) WSU 58
6) SIU 59
7) Drake 69
8.) ISU 80
9) EVille 88
10) Indy St 96

These numbers for SOS are pretty standard and are the same as cited by

Ken Pomeroy

http://www.kenpom.com/conf.php?c=MVC

Warren Nolan

http://www.warrennolan.com/basketball/2006/sos

and RealTime RPI

http://realtimerpi.com/rpi_mvc_Men.html

and I suspect therefore, the SOS formula is pretty standard throughout the "industry".
Thus I also agree it is odd that someone else ("Basketball Times") supposedly claims otherwise that Drake had the strongest schedule.

If there is anyone out there who has the copy of Basketball Times that says this or who knows someone at Drake and can get them to cite the reference, then please do so.

Otherwise, I will assume that this reference to Basketball Times is erroneous or just simply subjective and unprovable.

[MacabreMob]

I like looking at the SOS Impact as well as SOS. It shows how well one does against their 'tuff' schedule. Savannah St can have all buy games and have the #1 Non-Con SOS but go winless, so their SOS Impact is not very good.

So when a team like Illinois played Missouri last year, it actually doesn't help their RPI a lot because of Mizzoo's negative impact. Missouri had an RPI of 139 with an SOSImpact of 176.

Whereas, when Bradley played Deleware State, it had more of a positive impact. Dele St's numbers last year were RPI of 123 and an SOSImpact of 105.

[DUBulldog]

The Basketball Times? I didn't know they were THE SOURCE for SOS info. Maybe they have a new formula... and I guess a better one, according to Drake fans.

??? I haven't seen a single Drake fan say anything like that.

[DUBulldog]

If there is anyone out there who has the copy of Basketball Times that says this or who knows someone at Drake and can get them to cite the reference, then please do so.

Otherwise, I will assume that this reference to Basketball Times is erroneous or just simply subjective and unprovable.

I've subscribed to BT for 20+ years, if I get bored this weekend, I might look for that information.

If you're familiar with Bastketball Times, then you know that they probably have 5-10 different guys with their own version of strength of schedule. So, perhaps Drake's SID should have phrased it "according to John Doe, as published in Basketball Times, Drake had the most difficult OOC in the MVC last season." But, that would be expecting a lot out of Drake's SID

[tornado]

For the most part, this whole topic was for the purpose of
APPLAUDING Drake for the scheduling they have done, and for getting Iowa, Iowa State, and now a couple of other good D-I opponents.

Note the very first post in this thread, in which I was happy to see DU getting some fine opponents, and was actually defending what they did in view of expected criticism like WSU got for NOT getting a return home game.

I have been impressed with most of the Valley teams upgrading and getting even better schedules this season than last season.

[MacabreMob]

I just don't have ANY idea where the basis is for the statement that Drake had the toughest OOC schedule.

So let's try MVC team's schedule versus teams in the NCAA tourney.

MVC School - record - (seeds of teams played, red indicates loss)

WSU 1-3 (4, 6, 11, 14)
Mo St 2-1 (8, 11, 16)
SIU 2-1 (12, 14, 16)
Creighton 2-0 (11, 14)
UNI 3-0 (3, 4, 9)
Bradley 0-0
Drake 0-3 (3, 4, 12)
EVille 0-0
Indy St 1-0 (6)
ISU 0-0

So looking at that, I would say WSU may have had the toughest by playing 4 games against NCAA tourney teams. But then again, I'd say maybe UNI did based on the seeds their opponents got and how successful UNI was against them.

Bottom line is... I don't think Drake can hang their hat on anything about their schedule last year. Anyone who tries to is flat out wrong.

[DUBulldog]

I have been impressed with most of the Valley teams upgrading and getting even better schedules this season than last season.

The key for the MVC teams now is to win a high enough percentage of those tough games. If so, a top 6 or 7 RPI and multiple NCAA bids are possible again.

Overall, I'm not sure how Drake's schedule compares to last season's OOC schedule. Last year's OOC included 3 NCAA teams, including 2 who made it past the first round (BC and Montana which, coincidentally, played each other in the 2nd round). With 3 tournaments in the OOC portion of the schedule, a lot of the opponents are unknown at this point. UTEP and Utah State would be good opponents, but to play those teams, Drake would have to beat Toledo and whoever their first opponent is in Alaska.

[DUBulldog]

Bottom line is... I don't think Drake can hang their hat on anything about their schedule last year. Anyone who tries to is flat out wrong.

Just to make this clear....I'm not in any way saying that Drake had the toughest schedule last year......I'm just pointing out that Drake's SID did not simply make something up.

You can disagree all you want with the assessment of that one Basketball Times writer....and you should.....but, the SID release was not made up. As I mentioned in my first post on the subject, I think it is spin. But, any SID at any school will latch onto whatever they can get, however questionable it may be.

I'm not trying to be argumentive with you, and I'm not questioning your sources. Just disagreeing with your assessment that Drake fans are claiming that BT's numbers are somehow more accurate than anybody else's. I don't think you can equate an SID's press release with being the same as the thoughts of a team's fan base.

[tornado]

DUB, your comments are appreciated, and I can agree each school will "spin" a bit, and maybe someone over there saw something in the Basketball Times to justify that comment.
For the sake of all the great Bulldog fans, I hope their returning group of seniors has a fine season.