A thorough analysis of non-conference scheduling

[thefish7]

Awesome stuff, TAS. Thanks!

[SFP]

TAS as said earlier great stuff. You are doing a lot more then most of the pubs and papers out there.

[TheAsianSensation]

A couple of addendums:

Now that I know of all those Drake tourneys, there's a fairly good chance Binghamton got scheduled before they blew up. So I'll upgrade them to a C- instead of a D+, but it's pretty ridiculous to play 3 tourneys in a season, regardless of the benefits of extra games.

And I was informed on North Dakota and South Dakota - as provisional D-1 members, they have to play a set number of games against D-1 competition as they make the move, and the NCAA sometimes apparently rewards teams that play them with financial considerations, to help the transition. If this is the case for Drake and UNI, they're forgiven to an extent.

On the subject of the MWC/MVC challenge, from what I can tell, these were the pre-existing games:

Wyoming/UNI
Creighton/New Mexico
TCU/Wichita St

Tough break for UNI, because I think they would've gotten BYU in their place. Too sexy a matchup to resist. Admittedly, I think both leagues should've waited a year on this to organize fully.

[TheAsianSensation]

Missouri St (10-1) SoS 204

Tournament games? They played on 3 straight days in late November, but I can't find evidence of an actual existing tourney (I'm not looking hard, though). Looks like a 4 team round-robin:
Missouri St 70, Maryland-Eastern Shore (3-8 ) 53 (11/20)
Missouri St 72, The Citadel (4-7) 55 (11/21)
Missouri St 75, Eastern Michigan (5-5) 61 (11/22)

Home games:
Missouri St 73, Auburn (7-6) 62
Missouri St 83, Tulsa (9-3) 75
Missouri St 58, Air Force (5-5) 48
Missouri St 79, Tennessee-Martin (0-9) 51

Away games:
Missouri St 75, Arkansas-Little Rock (2-9) 62
Missouri St 75, Arkansas St (4-5) 64
Missouri St 73, St Louis (8-4) 63
Arkansas (7-5) 66, Missouri St 63


The good: Good road game at St Louis. Two SEC games, no matter if they're lower division ones. Tulsa at home. For a team predicted in the lower depths of the MVC, good solid front half of the schedule.

The bad: That oblong looking tournament.

Analysis: First, the SEC schools. Yes, those 2 teams aren't good. I know. But they're still 2 power conference teams, and this was a preseason 9th place team. Go ahead and get one in your building if you can. Go ahead and play those 2. I'm perfectly fine with it. Just recognize the Auburn win means jack crap.

MSU took a page from the upper division teams and got a couple helpful games: Tulsa and @St Louis. Two solid games that can be used as building blocks for the SoS. I like. Much like Evansville, get two games to build around.

However, the difference between UE and MSU is what they used to surround those games. UE filled it with trash. MSU filled it, with....something a little better than trash, but not that much. UALR was actually a really good team last year - I won't fault the idea of playing a road game there. Arkansas St? Ok, there's a fault.

I think the real problem is that tourney. I understand the need and want for more games, but there's negative impact on your SoS from playing that type of tourney on your home court. I guess if you're a bottom-feeder in the conference, you go ahead and play that. As it turns out, it's a bit of a killjoy. I understand these tourneys often exist for non-profile reasons, so I don't dock them too much for it. But those are the 3 types of teams you want to draw in those.

The dreadful UT-Martin? BB return game if you're curious. AFA was a fair draw for the MWC challenge.


My grade: B-. I'm taking into account expectations here. This team wasn't supposed to be nearly this good, so this makes that tournament make more sense. And no matter how bad they are, two SEC teams is a reasonable scalp, and there's two other teams on the sked that have reasonable value to the profile. I also like their willingness to go on the road. Yes, it's inferior competition, but for a "bad" team, they needed to test themselves.

The two main problems: The tournament provided negative profile value, and the "BCS" teams they got are terrible for power conference teams. But, given the expectations, those are forgivable sins to me.

They get the B- because they got quite unlucky with Tulsa and UALR slipping. This feels like a 140 SoS, not a 200. And 140 is not great, but not bad either for this type of team.

[MacabreMob]

Missouri St (10-1) SoS 204

Tournament games? They played on 3 straight days in late November, but I can't find evidence of an actual existing tourney (I'm not looking hard, though).

The Hispanic Fund Classic (Md-ES, tCitadel, E Mich)

[Tulsa Brave]

Tulsa is not slipping. Yes they had a dreadful performance last out in Vegas, but most teams have one or two of these a season (look at New Mexico last week at ORU). Anything short of an NCAA berth for Tulsa in March will be disappointing, and will then mean that the team underachieved. C-USA has at least 3, and maybe 4 teams that will at least be on the NCAA bubble come March.

[MacabreMob]

Others...

Illinois St
Basketball Traveler's Tourney Nov 27,28,29
Norfolk St, SEMO, St Bonnies

SIU
Las Vegas Tourney Dec 19, 20
San Diego, San Fran

Wichita St
CBE Classic Nov 15, 18, 23, 24
Fair Dickerson, Ark-Monticello, Pitt, Iowa

Creighton
Old Spice Classic Nov 26, 27, 29
Michigan, Xavier, Iowa

[MacabreMob]

C-USA has at least 3, and maybe 4 teams that will at least be on the NCAA bubble come March.

Wow - ok, I guess saying 3-4 on the bubble isn't the same as saying 3-4 will get in to the NCAA. Maybe the same as saying the MVC will have 3 on the bubble.

[TheAsianSensation]

Creighton (5-6) SoS 117

Tournament games (Old Spice Classic):
Michigan (5-5) 83, Creighton 76
Xavier (8-4) 80, Creighton 67
Iona (8-5) 63, Creighton 55

Home games:
Creighton 78, Florida A&M (1-10) 53
Creighton 80, Arkansas-Little Rock (2-9) 65
Creighton 67, Nebraska (10-3) 61
Creighton 77, Savannah St (3-8 ) 62
Creighton 85, Houston Baptist (1-11) 56

Away games:
Dayton (10-2) 90, Creighton 80
George Mason (6-5) 75, Creighton 72
New Mexico (13-1) 66, Creighton 61


The good: Plenty. The Old Spice Classic. Very very high quality road games.

The bad: The FAMU-SSU-HBU trifecta. A tripod of SoS Death.

Analysis: I think George Mason was the BB game, and it's perfect. They also had that trip to The Pit scheduled - PERFECT. And a road game at Dayton - what a perfect, absolutely perfect 3-pack of road games for the schedule. Very well done. And Nebraska, we all know that's automatic.

And a nice job getting in the tournament. Obviously, it ends up hurting when you crap the bed in the tournament, but that tourney also had Baylor, Marquette, and Florida St in there. And Michigan was supposed to be a lot better. Just like I said with UNI - give yourself the chances for major scalps first. If you're a good team, you'll get them. But give yourself a chance. Perfect job getting this tournament.

I won't punish them for UALR for reasons described above.

So basically, the perfect schedule, with 3 games left to discuss.

Florida A&M.

Houston Baptist.

Savannah St.

There is no way you'd expect these teams on the good side of RPI 300. Sure, there's a lot of goodwill in the rest of the schedule. HOWEVER. Are you trying to torpedo yourselves? You're undoing all your hard scheduling work by putting all 3 on. I can see one of them sneaking on. But for God's sake, at least try to find RPI 175 or RPI 200 teams instead. Find healthier cupcakes.

Yes, there's degrees of cupcakes. Creighton should expect to beat everyone, say, RPI 125 and below, easily. So take your time and get RPI 200 teams in your building. Not RPI 320 teams. By scheduling these 3 teams, they undid so much brilliant work.

My grade: B. It would be A+ if you ignored the 3 cupcake games. A plus. A plus plus plus. It was that good. When you're a power like Creighton, resist the fattening cupcakes and get the lighter ones. Go on a scheduling diet, so to speak.

Their actual SoS over 100 looks worse than it is because they turned out to actually be, you know, not good. Getting Iona instead of, say, Florida St, hurt them in the SoS. A good Creighton team beats Michigan, gets two better opponents in the tourney, and are closer to SoS 75, which puts them in a very solid category.

Outside of the cupcake 3, I can't stress how BEAUTIFUL the schedule looks. It's like a work of art.

[TheAsianSensation]

Tulsa is not slipping. Yes they had a dreadful performance last out in Vegas, but most teams have one or two of these a season (look at New Mexico last week at ORU). Anything short of an NCAA berth for Tulsa in March will be disappointing, and will then mean that the team underachieved. C-USA has at least 3, and maybe 4 teams that will at least be on the NCAA bubble come March.

Maybe my expectations were too high, I was thinking of stuff like a 10-1 start.

CUSA will be a 4-team breakaway. 2 or 3 into the field of 65, we'll see.

[Tulsa Brave]

Wow - ok, I guess saying 3-4 on the bubble isn't the same as saying 3-4 will get in to the NCAA. Maybe the same as saying the MVC will have 3 on the bubble.

Memphis, UAB, and Tulsa for sure bubble or better. UTEP may join them with upcoming games at Texas Tech and vs. BYU. As TAS says, the rest of the league is far behind those 4, which may hurt one or more of them.

[Grassman]

Great Job Asian Dude! This should be mandatory reading for all Mo. Valley AD's and coaches.
Elgin needs to bring back the ol' 150 avg SOS for all Valley teams.
Keep it up.
It is work like this that seperates Bradley Fans from the others!
Thank you for your efforts.

[PTTB]

FWIW, UNI scheduled the Denver series as a home/home starting last year. Denver is a place that UNI has a good portion of alumni, plus it's a commercial flight. Wyoming was scheduled as a semi-neutral/home matchup (in Casper, WY last year, at UNI this year). The NIU game is scheduled as a home/home that gets UNI into Chicagoland (for recruiting purposes), and is a bus trip. North Dakota is where UNI's head coach Ben Jacobson played ball and grew up. UND's head coach, Brian Jones also played basketball at UNI. It's a 2-for-1, with a home game coming back to CF next year.

North Dakota has a contract with Fox College Sports, so like 9 of their 12 home games are available on national television (Fox College Sports Atlantic, Pacific, or Central...UNI's game was on FCS Central), so it was also a game that UNI could be on national tv.

Bottom line, UNI knew the kind of teams they were scheduling, but in all honesty, a good portion of it was dictated by $$$. UNI can't really afford to dole out 'guarantee' games on a yearly basis. The finances are not good enough at UNI to do that. Next year, I think we do the Las Vegas Tourney where UNI will host 2 games and be in Vegas for the other 2. UNI charter flights to Wichita, Springfield, Carbondale, Evansville, and sometimes Terre Haute/Normal/Peoria (depending of if it's midweek or weekend). I think you will continue to see UNI schedule economically in the non-conference, as having built in games with Iowa/Iowa State, the MVC/MWC Challenge, Bracket Busters (current year and return game), and an exempt event, they are going to have plenty of resume builders most years. The other games are going to be of regional interest, 2-for-1's, home/homes, and cheap commercial flights only (my guess).

[chitown fanatic]

TAS, I think you're doing a great job with analysis of each team, though i have to disagree with Mo St. I think they did a very good job of scheduling and though picked to finish 9th, I could very easily see them sweeping BU as they seem to play with purpose night in and night out...something we don't do consistently at all.

[TheAsianSensation]

FWIW, UNI scheduled the Denver series as a home/home starting last year. Denver is a place that UNI has a good portion of alumni, plus it's a commercial flight. Wyoming was scheduled as a semi-neutral/home matchup (in Casper, WY last year, at UNI this year). The NIU game is scheduled as a home/home that gets UNI into Chicagoland (for recruiting purposes), and is a bus trip. North Dakota is where UNI's head coach Ben Jacobson played ball and grew up. UND's head coach, Brian Jones also played basketball at UNI. It's a 2-for-1, with a home game coming back to CF next year.

North Dakota has a contract with Fox College Sports, so like 9 of their 12 home games are available on national television (Fox College Sports Atlantic, Pacific, or Central...UNI's game was on FCS Central), so it was also a game that UNI could be on national tv.

Bottom line, UNI knew the kind of teams they were scheduling, but in all honesty, a good portion of it was dictated by $$$. UNI can't really afford to dole out 'guarantee' games on a yearly basis. The finances are not good enough at UNI to do that. Next year, I think we do the Las Vegas Tourney where UNI will host 2 games and be in Vegas for the other 2. UNI charter flights to Wichita, Springfield, Carbondale, Evansville, and sometimes Terre Haute/Normal/Peoria (depending of if it's midweek or weekend). I think you will continue to see UNI schedule economically in the non-conference, as having built in games with Iowa/Iowa State, the MVC/MWC Challenge, Bracket Busters (current year and return game), and an exempt event, they are going to have plenty of resume builders most years. The other games are going to be of regional interest, 2-for-1's, home/homes, and cheap commercial flights only (my guess).

I think if budgetary concerns were part of the UNI scheduling philosophy, then they actually did a very good job. It'll be very interesting to see what kind of road games UNI can get in the future. I think the elevated status of their program could give them a chance at marquee home-and-home deals.

TAS, I think you're doing a great job with analysis of each team, though i have to disagree with Mo St. I think they did a very good job of scheduling and though picked to finish 9th, I could very easily see them sweeping BU as they seem to play with purpose night in and night out...something we don't do consistently at all.

I still think they did a slightly above average job, having that weak of a "bottom half" of the schedule still irks me slightly. But yes, at least comparatively speaking, MSU did pretty darn good for themselves, despite winding up with an SoS on the bad side of 200.