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Since the MVC did so well this past season, other conferences have set as their agenda to find ingenious ways to improve their own RPI's by trying to "beat the system"
The Conference USA people are ticked because they had a #1 seeded team (Memphis) and still ended up as the 13th ranked conference in RPI, well behind several midmajor conferences (MVC, Mountain West, WAC, Colonial, Atlantic 10, WCC).
And Houston's coach Tom Penders was widely quoted as ripping the selection process and the MVC for getting 4 teams in the NCAA, even though Houston stunk it up in the NIT while the MVC sent 2 teams to the NCAA Sweet Sixteen.
Never mind that the conference really was bad except for Memphis with only four teams ending the season above .500.
The conference officials are meeting this week, including John Calipari to try to figure out how to "beat the system".
Note this quote from the C-USA Commissioner:
"With a task force headed by former Virginia basketball coach and current East Carolina athletic director Terry Holland in place it's reasonable to expect many changes to the hoops set-up. (John) Calipari is involved, after all.
"John has a lot of ideas," said C-USA commissioner Britton Banowsky. "He thinks outside the box."
Dozens of possible changes will be discussed..."
"The wilder the idea the better, so long as it also makes the league better.
"We don't feel like we are bound to any particular way," Banowsky said. "We just want to make sure we do things the best way for our members."
and
"Paying attention to the RPI of the opponent. Woolard said the Missouri Valley Conference is a prime example of that. "They didn't play a whole lot of the Top 50 (last season) but they didn't play a whole lot of the bottom 50 either," Woolard said. "They played a lot of teams in the middle."
Here are some of the ideas they are shooting around so as to beat the RPI formula and look better without actually getting better:
--rig their schedule so that the best teams (like Memphis) won't actually have to go on the road to play the crummiest teams in the conference. In doing so, they'd risk losing to a lousy team on the road with little chance of improving their RPI since crummy teams don't help your RPI.
--Since there are enough teams in the C-USA that they don't actually play a full round-robin conference schedule, they will unofficially "seed" the teams before they make up the conference part of the schedule so that the best teams don't have to play twice against the worst ones.
--having the worst teams in the league (even though they won't be able to beat very many teams of any caliber) sacrifice their seasons by intentionally scheduling tough opponents they know they can't win against, but in the end it will still help the overall conference RPI.
--Consider narrowing the field for their postseason tournament, to avoid the embarrassing possibility of having a bad team win the conference tourament and automatic bid.
--maybe even requiring each team in the conference meet certain standards for wins and scheduling or else they will be dismissed from the conference in order to keep the RPI artificially padded.
--requiring all teams in the conference to have their non-conference schedules reviewed and approved by the other coaches, to assure there are a minimum of laughable cupcakes.
--somehow regulating which coaches the conference member teams hire and how much they're paid to assure they will get & keep guys with top reputations like Calipari & Mike Davis.
--and this one is a joke............
"the conference is considering monetary rewards for more stringent scheduling"
...in other words, take money from the poorer schools in the conference and give it to the better schools if they have the guts and ability to schedule top opponents.
But they actually overlooked the best and most ingenious idea.....
Why not try to actually recruit better and GET better instead of trying to find a way to masquerade as better??
The Conference USA people are ticked because they had a #1 seeded team (Memphis) and still ended up as the 13th ranked conference in RPI, well behind several midmajor conferences (MVC, Mountain West, WAC, Colonial, Atlantic 10, WCC).
And Houston's coach Tom Penders was widely quoted as ripping the selection process and the MVC for getting 4 teams in the NCAA, even though Houston stunk it up in the NIT while the MVC sent 2 teams to the NCAA Sweet Sixteen.
Never mind that the conference really was bad except for Memphis with only four teams ending the season above .500.
The conference officials are meeting this week, including John Calipari to try to figure out how to "beat the system".
Note this quote from the C-USA Commissioner:
"With a task force headed by former Virginia basketball coach and current East Carolina athletic director Terry Holland in place it's reasonable to expect many changes to the hoops set-up. (John) Calipari is involved, after all.
"John has a lot of ideas," said C-USA commissioner Britton Banowsky. "He thinks outside the box."
Dozens of possible changes will be discussed..."
"The wilder the idea the better, so long as it also makes the league better.
"We don't feel like we are bound to any particular way," Banowsky said. "We just want to make sure we do things the best way for our members."
and
"Paying attention to the RPI of the opponent. Woolard said the Missouri Valley Conference is a prime example of that. "They didn't play a whole lot of the Top 50 (last season) but they didn't play a whole lot of the bottom 50 either," Woolard said. "They played a lot of teams in the middle."
Here are some of the ideas they are shooting around so as to beat the RPI formula and look better without actually getting better:
--rig their schedule so that the best teams (like Memphis) won't actually have to go on the road to play the crummiest teams in the conference. In doing so, they'd risk losing to a lousy team on the road with little chance of improving their RPI since crummy teams don't help your RPI.
--Since there are enough teams in the C-USA that they don't actually play a full round-robin conference schedule, they will unofficially "seed" the teams before they make up the conference part of the schedule so that the best teams don't have to play twice against the worst ones.
--having the worst teams in the league (even though they won't be able to beat very many teams of any caliber) sacrifice their seasons by intentionally scheduling tough opponents they know they can't win against, but in the end it will still help the overall conference RPI.
--Consider narrowing the field for their postseason tournament, to avoid the embarrassing possibility of having a bad team win the conference tourament and automatic bid.
--maybe even requiring each team in the conference meet certain standards for wins and scheduling or else they will be dismissed from the conference in order to keep the RPI artificially padded.
--requiring all teams in the conference to have their non-conference schedules reviewed and approved by the other coaches, to assure there are a minimum of laughable cupcakes.
--somehow regulating which coaches the conference member teams hire and how much they're paid to assure they will get & keep guys with top reputations like Calipari & Mike Davis.
--and this one is a joke............
"the conference is considering monetary rewards for more stringent scheduling"
...in other words, take money from the poorer schools in the conference and give it to the better schools if they have the guts and ability to schedule top opponents.
But they actually overlooked the best and most ingenious idea.....
Why not try to actually recruit better and GET better instead of trying to find a way to masquerade as better??
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