(01-15-2014 07:16 PM)WKUApollo Wrote:  

(01-15-2014 06:41 PM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  Actually, I'm not looking at this myopically. As a matter of fact, I see the Syracuse example as just that type of instance of looking at this with a narrow lens. Considering they are undefeated and already have five wins against the Top 50 not to mention their future schedule will feature many more top 100 opponents, it's not really a fair analogy to to where we. It doesn't really matter nor does it hurt them that they played a couple of 300+ teams, because their broader schedule strength more than makes up for that. It does; however, matter for us in C-USA because none of us have the luxury of having 8-10 top 50 teams on our schedule. Most of our games are against teams somewhere between 125 and 250, so a 300 RPI game kills our leagues RPI much more so than it does the ACC. That's a key point you guys are glossing over here.

At the end of the day if we all play 300 RPI teams for every OOC game and everyone goes 12-0 or 11-1 in non-conference play we're not going to all of a sudden jump to a top five or even have a top 10 RPI just because once we hit conference play all of us are going to be going up against teams that have a good winning percentage. It's just not that simple.

I guess the moral of the story is you have to create a balance between many of the things that have been brought up in this thread. It still boils down to winning though. We lost a lot of games as a league we should have won. That's why we are where we are. My (perhaps not so narrow) point remains the same though. There isn't enough reward to play these 300 RPI teams to make it worth it particularly for a league like ours because no one in our league is going to be able to get scheduled and play enough good RPI teams to balance that out.

I think you misunderstood what I was saying most likely because I didn't adequately explain what I was trying to say. I agree with what you're saying. My point was more about what the majors are doing, not necessarily what we in the mid conferences can do, even if we wanted to.......Nearly all the majors play 3 or 4 teams in the 200-350 range but they play them all at home. Of their remaining games, they typically only play top 200 teams that are also playing nearly all their games at home which results in them also having good records and by default, good rpi's. The result, they beat all the teams they should (200-350 range) and split with the teams that are doing the same as they are doing.

At our level, we can't schedule nearly all our OOC games at home and can't schedule home and home with teams that also schedule nearly all their ooc games at home.

I'm not sure I'm making any more sense.

This is sooooo true coupled with the bias of the NE media being bone crushing

UAB took down Memphis at home
La Tech took down OU
...we tanked against UL

overall, that is pretty damn good, and I'm sure I missed a few.

I haven't watched UTEP or UAB, but Floyd is working magic and I'm not going to sniff overlooking the Blazers by any stretch.

I really like the idea of trying to somehow develop either a conference challenge scenario with say the A10 or the AAC and go for the better december tournaments.....it's almost impossible (at least for USM) to get a home/home with quality schools

(01-15-2014 03:18 PM)HSV_BLAZER Wrote:  I would love to see a C-USA/A-10 challenge (or MWC or MVC). Match up the top teams against top, middle teams against middle, and bottom against bottom. Every team plays a winnable game. Every team that participates is guaranteed a home game every other year. No good team is stuck with an RPI anchor. Imagine how much easier scheduling would be if every team in the conference had one more guaranteed game each year.

I would like this too. I would also like to see a sort of round robin format to this.(top 3 play top 3, next 3 play next 3 and so on) You play 2 home, 1 away one year, and then 2 away, 1 home the next. Our schedules are terrible, so getting more guaranteed decent games would be a step in the right direction. Plus, doing something like this would generate some more rivalries as the same teams would likely play one another multiple times over the years, which could help attendance.

If the NCAA allows 2 non Div-I games, then I don't believe the conference should try to forbid it.

For me, the key is to avoid games against the Bottom ~50 of the pile. I thin there's 351 teams classified as Division I in MBB this year. So -- when forming next year's schedule -- just resolve that you're not going to schedule teams ranked below 300. Perhaps one exception if an opponent is in close proximity (say, Rice/Lamar or Charlotte/Appalachian State).

(01-15-2014 05:03 PM)WKUApollo Wrote:  

(01-15-2014 04:51 PM)TOPSTRAIGHT Wrote:  I agree with Threeifbylightning but I would still implement a rule limiting nonD1 games to one.This would force teams to scrounge for more 100 to 225 RPI teams.

As a rule, you wanna schedule good rpi teams and win but playing teams with 200+ rpi's is not a killer. The "big" programs do it all the time and maintain great rpi's. They do it by never playing those teams on the road and never losing to them. For example, Syracuse has a #7 rpi at the moment and played 5 teams between rpi's of 220-331. those "big" programs typically play tons of bad teams and most of the OOC games are at home. They only venture from home in OOC against other "big" teams doing the same thing...many times on neutral courts.

It's very similar to what happens in FBS football between P5 and G5 schools.

But those schools also usually play some Top 25-50 teams on neutral courts during early season tournaments which helps their RPI. They also can lean more on their conf. schedule to help build a resume than we can.

(01-15-2014 03:18 PM)HSV_BLAZER Wrote:  I would love to see a C-USA/A-10 challenge (or MWC or MVC). Match up the top teams against top, middle teams against middle, and bottom against bottom. Every team plays a winnable game. Every team that participates is guaranteed a home game every other year. No good team is stuck with an RPI anchor. Imagine how much easier scheduling would be if every team in the conference had one more guaranteed game each year.

How about a C-USA/American Athletic Conference Challenge? It could be an eight-game series between teams from the two conferences. For the AAC, I left out Cincy, UConn, and Temple for geographic reasons.

Here's 8 games I could see between Conference USA and the AAC:

1. Southern Miss (16-3, 36 RPI) vs. Memphis (14-4, 32 RPI)
2. Louisiana Tech (16-4, 74 RPI) vs. SMU (16-4, 41 RPI)
3. UTEP (12-6, 111 RPI) vs. Houston (11-9, 172 RPI)
4. North Texas (9-9, 156 RPI) vs. Tulsa (9-11, 124 RPI)
5. Charlotte (12-7, 112 RPI) vs. East Carolina (7-9, 226 RPI)
6. UAB (11-6, 132 RPI) vs. Tulane (10-10, 227 RPI)
7. Florida International (9-8, 207 RPI) vs. Central Florida (7-8, 213 RPI)
8. Florida Atlantic (5-13, 254 RPI) vs. South Florida (10-10, 166 RPI)

The remaining teams in the east (Western Kentucky, Middle Tennessee State, Marshall, and Old Dominion) could be used for a four-game mini-challenge with another conference like the Ohio Valley Conference.