Schedule Hard

[J Money]

Using your template w/o the holiday tourney I would setup a schedule like this:


Season opener v Oral Roberts 11/8

v Butler 11/12

@ Iowa State 11/19

v George Mason 11/22

@ Michigan State 11/29

@ Wisconsin Milwaukee 12/2

v Akron 12/6

v Siena 12/9

@ Dayton 12/20

v Utah State 12/27

+ @ BracketBuster


This is provided we don't have any other return games I forgot about

This would be one brutal non-conference schedule. It would definitely provide us with plenty of opportunity to prove ourselves outside of the Valley. It might even be to ambitious but it would be fun to watch. Of course if we played another holiday tournament it could be weakened by a Florida A&M or Gulf Coast or Maryland Eastern Shore again.

[BU_EMT128]

This would be one brutal non-conference schedule. It would definitely provide us with plenty of opportunity to prove ourselves outside of the Valley. It might even be to ambitious but it would be fun to watch. Of course if we played another holiday tournament it could be weakened by a Florida A&M or Gulf Coast or Maryland Eastern Shore again.

What a season it would be to beat Mich St at home....

[J Money]

What a season it would be to beat Mich St at home....

You mean on the road. It would be great but I cringe when I think about that game we played at the Breslin Center last year....gross. We better go in there a little better prepared next year.

[BU_EMT128]

You mean on the road. It would be great but I cringe when I think about that game we played at the Breslin Center last year....gross. We better go in there a little better prepared next year.

Yeah thats what I meant... Had to type fast because the girlfriend was pounding on the door

[J Money]

Yeah thats what I meant... Had to type fast because the girlfriend was pounding on the door

Tell her to relax you've got Bradley basketball to discuss.

[BU ICEMAN]

have you some proof, as I suspect you don't have anything credible,
and nobody from the BU athletic dept is likely to substantiate this claim.

This is the first I have ever heard that ESPN or the NCAA would allow coaches to ask for what they want and grant it.
In fact, if this is even remotely true, then why would BU get firstsies?
It's not like we have a track record of getting big favors from NCAA.

I've posted it before, and I'll do it again to back up squirrel's post, to a degree and it's probably as close as we'll get to substantiation (is that a word?) from the AD or MVC.

At the pre-game festivities in Richmond prior to the BU/VCU game a couple of years ago, I got a change to talk with Ken Kavanagh and an MVC administrator whose name I can't remember for the life of me. I asked them how we got setup with VCU and they talked about the intense jockeying and large amount of lobbying that goes on for the BracketBuster by teams/conferences and that specific matchups are requested and do happen.

I don't remember hearing anything that the NCAA proper and ESPN proper have control over the matchups. I want to say that there's a committee for the selections, but I can't tell you who is on that committee. It very well might be that NCAA and ESPN have reps, but are not in control to the extent you think. The tournament committee (we'll work under the assumption it does exist) wants to stay in business just like any other and no doubt does its best to try and make everybody happy by setting up good/desired matchups.

[MacabreMob]

I coulda sworn I heard JLes say he wanted UWM on one of his radio show's.

[numbr_9]

i dont think UWM was a bad "choice", if it was indeed a choice. The return game is good, we have lots of alumni in Milwaukee and who knows what recruiting targets they may have up there.

it was obvious we weren't going to get a top-tier team, and UWM isn't exactly the bottom of the barrel. I don't see the problem.

[real fan]

There are different opinions about whom to schedule and of how hard of a schedule you wish to play: If I have a veteran team then I like to play a tough one; but if you have a lot of new players then an easier one is better as you hope to win a number of games at the start to basically get their confidence up so they believe they can win against anybody. I think that is what Creighton did this season as their non conference schedule was fairly easy and they had a lot of newcomers on their team. Lets face it, as fans we want to see the best teams come to peoria and play us but it just does not happen in the real world.

[thefish7]

I just want to point out for those it's not clear to... Strength of scheudle which is one half of the RPI calculation is nothing more than your opponents winning %. That's why SIU's scheduling concept worked-- they played teams with good records. The reason power conference teams tend to have strong RPIs is because in the beginning of the season they all beat the pants off of weak programs in need of money, so that they all have nice non-conference records. THen when they start to play their conference schedule, some of the teams win or lose to make some differentiation, but they all end up with a pretty strong SOS calc, because of all those non-conf wins.

The rest of the forumla is .25 of your own winning record, and .25 for the SOS of your opponents... So the total wins and losses of all the teams you played. The point then, for scheduling, is to play teams you can beat who also have good records.

They also made it a little more complicated by making it so you get .6 wins for a home win, and 1.4 wins for a road win, along with .6 losses for a road loss and 1.4 losses for a home loss. It's realy important to take care of your business at home, and take a few on the road. But, I think there's a perception that your RPI suffers a lot from losing to a bad program, but what realy happens is that your SOS takes the same hit it would if you had won, but your own winning% suffers.

[Da Coach]

I think Bradley has done a fantastic job with their scheduling in the past several years. If anyone thinks it's easy to put together a quality schedule when you are a midmajor, it is not. Many games are scheduled 2 or more years in advance, and the quality of the teams can change drastically by the time the games are played.
A good measure of the quality of schedule is the NCAA's own SOS (Strength of Schedule) numbers.
Here are the non-conference Strength of Schedule for all the MVC teams in the past 6 years.

Note that Bradley's average non-conf SOS is better than every MVC team except SIU. --

Team..........2008....2007....2006....2005....2004 ....2003....average
Bradley.........90.......15......130......131..... .239.......67......112
Creighton.....104.......24.......84......177...... 258.......47......116
Drake..........128......190.....136......204...... 307.....133......183
UE..............293......207.....259......314..... .173........7......209
IlSU............116......243.....191......302..... ..84........13.....158
InSU...........132......121.....266......220...... 225.......60.....171
MSU.............84.......56.......41......156..... .209......174.....120
SIU...............4........41.......97.......40... ....76........63.......54
UNI............278......194.......46......118..... .132......208.....163
WSU..........149.......173......83......217....... 85.......248.....159

For comparison--
Illinois.........77........33.......192......37... ...114......179......105
And most members of power conferences have an average Non-Con SOS higher than Bradley's.

[MacabreMob]

Boy Da Coach. I hate seeing facts like those. I thought the scheduling was ok. But I know some didn't. I think someone even said (in a different thread a while back)the last couple years have been (something like) the most disappointing in a while. But now when I see a post showing factual stats..... I am amazed how (their) perception does not meet reality.

[BradleyBrave]

I actually wouldn't mind if BU scheduled down a bit. CU did this year, and it kept them in the bubble talk a lot longer than they probably deserved to be. I'm not suggesting all cupcakes, but I think we could maybe add a couple more nice home wins to make that win total look a little better this time of year. I know I would feel a lot better about our postseason chances if we had 19-20 wins rather than 17, even if they were a couple easy non-con home wins.

[BU_EMT128]

I actually wouldn't mind if BU scheduled down a bit. CU did this year, and it kept them in the bubble talk a lot longer than they probably deserved to be. I'm not suggesting all cupcakes, but I think we could maybe add a couple more nice home wins to make that win total look a little better this time of year. I know I would feel a lot better about our postseason chances if we had 19-20 wins rather than 17, even if they were a couple easy non-con home wins.

Could always pick up a game with WIU. The way they have been playing it would be an easy win.

[BradleyBrave]

Could always pick up a game with WIU. The way they have been playing it would be an easy win.

I don't want a total RPI killer.