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http://www.sunherald.com/2014/03/29/5455...ption.html

"The best way to reverse that trend is to start winning more games against top programs in non-conference play and win NCAA Tournament games."

Well, duh.

This article is weak, even for somebody that is pro C-USA.

Hate when people argue respect just because a team beat one or two good teams. There are 28+ games in a regular season. One game does not define anybody.

Our win against UNC meant something for about 2 months. The second we lost to North Texas, it's actual worth (other than sentimental) was gone.

(03-30-2014 05:25 PM)UAB Band Dad Wrote:  "The best way to reverse that trend is to start winning more games against top programs in non-conference play and win NCAA Tournament games."

Well, duh.

Easier said than......well, you know the rest. "Top programs" are not eager to play lesser OOC programs, especially H&H, except on occasions when the two coaches involved have a special prior relationship. And if you can't GET into the NCAA Tournament in the first place, how can you then win games there? Do wins in the NIT count?

You don't have to play top tier programs to make the Dance.

(03-30-2014 05:25 PM)UAB Band Dad Wrote:  "The best way to reverse that trend is to start winning more games against top programs in non-conference play and win NCAA Tournament games."

Well, duh.

It's not the good teams that CUSA beat is what makes them have a bad perception. It's the bad teams they lost to. The article doesn't mention anything about those.

16 teams are too many. A bad 16 team conference is always going to look worse than a bad 14 team conference. It will improve next next year when we only have 14 bad teams, rather than 16 bad teams

We don't have 16-14 bad teams.

The only big OOC game Southern Miss played was at Louisville, where they lost 69-38. Otherwise their big OOC wins were over North Dakota State and Georgia State. They played two non-DI schools. Their best win overall was a home win over Louisiana Tech. But Southern Miss needed a better OOC resume to get an at-large bid. A big negative for them in conference games was they lost to UAB.

La Tech did beat Oklahoma, and they did play (and lost to) Oklahoma State and Saint Mary's. But they also played five teams with Pomeroy rating worse than 300 and one non-DI school in OOC games.

Hey, I hate it but C-USA is a bad conference.

(03-30-2014 07:09 PM)ATTALLABLAZE Wrote:  We don't have 16-14 bad teams.

He didn't say that.

Unfortunately, You have to be a top 10 league to get multiple bids. Cusa is the 13th best or was this year. The aac next season will be around 9th or 10th too BTW.

We can get multiple bids, we are just going to need the top half to be strong. Having 4/5 teams in the top 100 won't cut it. We are going to need 4 teams in the top 60 or so. We have the programs to make it work(8 of the 14 are decent programs) we just need to make it happen on the court now.

C-USA has some really awful programs in it now though, and that is going to be an issue for years because they are landmines in a league with little margin for error.

The biggest thing is not having losses to very bad RPI teams. When the bottom of your league is full of possible bad losses, you damn well better take care of business there or you'll sink like a rock. You can't "smart schedule" away from bad teams in conference, so you and all the other good teams in the conference better not screw around and lose to them or the conference as a whole takes an RPI and schedule strength hit.

LA Tech had the ECU (227) loss, MT lost to Maine (333), USM lost to us (153), Tulsa lost to TCU (222) twice. If the top teams avoid sub-150 losses then C-USA can get multiple bids.

We were a couple bad losses away from a three bids. Take care of business. I still would have taken Southern Miss over Nebraska.

(03-31-2014 10:36 AM)BeliefBlazer Wrote:  LA Tech had the ECU (227) loss, MT lost to Maine (333), USM lost to us (153), Tulsa lost to TCU (222) twice. If the top teams avoid sub-150 losses then C-USA can get multiple bids.

UTEP lost to New Orleans and Tulsa also lost to us. Southern Miss also had the WKU loss on their resume. We didn't have enough good wins as a conference to overcome all the bad losses.

(03-31-2014 10:38 AM)ATTALLABLAZE Wrote:  We were a couple bad losses away from a three bids. Take care of business. I still would have taken Southern Miss over Nebraska.

Nebraska was a lot stronger at the end of the season than USM was.

Maybe, maybe not. I think Southern Miss would have beat them head to head. Doesn't matter now. Teams just have to stop losing to bad teams.