I agree with a lot that's been said here. I am of mixed emotions about BSU's schedule this year. In a word, the OOC schedule was awful. Like bottom three in the NCAA awful according to some rankings (more like low-middling in other rankings). The Cards had Utah on the schedule at home, but the Utes backed out. That game was replaced late by IU-Kokomo (an NAIA school), so that caused the SOS to take a huge nosedive. Had the Utah game occurred, things would have looked better. Beyond that, three in-state rivals, all of which are solid opponents in most seasons, some puke, and a few opponents with potential that had a bad year. That all being said, after a 5 win and 7 win season the prior two years, an argument could be made that an easier schedule was needed to re-establish a winning culture (not sure I buy that). Hoping to see an improved OOC next year.

(03-21-2016 11:51 PM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  

(03-21-2016 10:34 PM)JSF Wrote:  

(03-21-2016 07:46 PM)indianasniff Wrote:  But it takes two to tanto. Teams have to want to play you

This can't be said enough. There's a reason why schedules look the way they do.

I'm sorry that's horse shaq. You cant blame "two to tango" for 4 freaking DII schools on the schedule or a slew of sub 250 teams.

Teams are likely better off playing a D-II than a sub-300, as they won't hurt the computer numbers.

The reality is there are more games that need to be scheduled and there are teams who will flat-out refuse to play good MAC teams under anything resembling reasonable circumstances or even at all. Dates have to be filled and schools want home games.

(03-22-2016 08:25 AM)pennies4everybody Wrote:  I agree with a lot that's been said here. I am of mixed emotions about BSU's schedule this year. In a word, the OOC schedule was awful. Like bottom three in the NCAA awful according to some rankings (more like low-middling in other rankings). The Cards had Utah on the schedule at home, but the Utes backed out. That game was replaced late by IU-Kokomo (an NAIA school), so that caused the SOS to take a huge nosedive. Had the Utah game occurred, things would have looked better. Beyond that, three in-state rivals, all of which are solid opponents in most seasons, some puke, and a few opponents with potential that had a bad year. That all being said, after a 5 win and 7 win season the prior two years, an argument could be made that an easier schedule was needed to re-establish a winning culture (not sure I buy that). Hoping to see an improved OOC next year.

BSU played *8* teams with an RPI below 200 out of conference and five below 300 and that is *not* counting the NAIA school.

I'm not so much talking about top RPI teams because RPI is sometimes a very flawed metric. I'm talking about avoiding the Longwoods and Chicago St's of the world.

(03-22-2016 09:23 AM)JSF Wrote:  

(03-21-2016 11:51 PM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  

(03-21-2016 10:34 PM)JSF Wrote:  

(03-21-2016 07:46 PM)indianasniff Wrote:  But it takes two to tanto. Teams have to want to play you

This can't be said enough. There's a reason why schedules look the way they do.

I'm sorry that's horse shaq. You cant blame "two to tango" for 4 freaking DII schools on the schedule or a slew of sub 250 teams.

Teams are likely better off playing a D-II than a sub-300, as they won't hurt the computer numbers.

The reality is there are more games that need to be scheduled and there are teams who will flat-out refuse to play good MAC teams under anything resembling reasonable circumstances or even at all. Dates have to be filled and schools want home games.

Again I don't buy it. Buffalo manages ok and we're "a mac school". If you mean a lot of schools won't fill a 1:1 that's true and in the case of a Saint Johns that might mean you bite the bullet and do a 1 and done.

But you can't tell me that Ohio could not have found a better opponent than AR Pine Bluff.

To be fair Ohio's schedule was not as terrible as some of the others in the MAC. Swap out APB and UC Riverside for a couple of top 200 schools and it's almost in line with what I proposed.

Call it pride before the fall or cutting off your nose to spite your face but the schools living on a diet of 150+ rpi opponents out of conference are not doing themselves any favors.

One problem fans here have had this year is suffering under the delusion that conference RPI really meant the MAC was better this year. I am baffled that people, especially mid-majors, still embrace RPI as being meaningful. RPI mostly just measures SOS. 75% of it is based on the performance on a team's opponents and opponents' opponents. Then people want to use RPI along with SOS to add meaning to the rating when it already IS SOS. It's just not useful. It doesn't measure quality. Maybe Pomeroy is better--it at least showed the MAC really had no one close to tournament at-large worthy, which was accurate. There may well have been an anti-mid-major bias in the selection this year, and I think there clearly was, but it really didn't affect the MAC. There were other mid-majors who deserved selection ahead of any MAC team. The middle and the bottom of the MAC was more competitive this year, hence the overall rise, but part of that was due to the top not being all that great. The MAC had a lot of really flawed teams. By the end, Buffalo emerged as the best of the lot, but they had a lot of struggles to get there.

It's perverse, but one of the reasons the RPI was what it was this year was BECAUSE so many non-DI teams were on MAC teams' schedules. Rather than adding a bunch of typical MAC opponents who tend to drive down SOS, MAC teams added lower division teams who have no effect at all. The smaller sampling actually played to the MAC's advantage.

(03-22-2016 09:46 AM)axeme Wrote:  ... It's perverse, but one of the reasons the RPI was what it was this year was BECAUSE so many non-DI teams were on MAC teams' schedules. Rather than adding a bunch of typical MAC opponents who tend to drive down SOS, MAC teams added lower division teams who have no effect at all. The smaller sampling actually played to the MAC's advantage.

Good point!!!

Better to play a couple non-D-I teams than play some really weak teams from say the SWAC, MEAC, etc.

AND those (e.g., NAIA) games are cheap.

I was told recently (by a D-I assistant coach) that lower tier D-I opponent home games can cost say 50 -75K.

(03-22-2016 09:46 AM)axeme Wrote:  One problem fans here have had this year is suffering under the delusion that conference RPI really meant the MAC was better this year. I am baffled that people, especially mid-majors, still embrace RPI as being meaningful. RPI mostly just measures SOS. 75% of it is based on the performance on a team's opponents and opponents' opponents. Then people want to use RPI along with SOS to add meaning to the rating when it already IS SOS. It's just not useful. It doesn't measure quality. Maybe Pomeroy is better--it at least showed the MAC really had no one close to tournament at-large worthy, which was accurate. There may well have been an anti-mid-major bias in the selection this year, and I think there clearly was, but it really didn't affect the MAC. There were other mid-majors who deserved selection ahead of any MAC team. The middle and the bottom of the MAC was more competitive this year, hence the overall rise, but part of that was due to the top not being all that great. The MAC had a lot of really flawed teams. By the end, Buffalo emerged as the best of the lot, but they had a lot of struggles to get there.

It's perverse, but one of the reasons the RPI was what it was this year was BECAUSE so many non-DI teams were on MAC teams' schedules. Rather than adding a bunch of typical MAC opponents who tend to drive down SOS, MAC teams added lower division teams who have no effect at all. The smaller sampling actually played to the MAC's advantage.

I think RPI is a pretty good indicator of overall conference strength, probably somewhat less so if a conference like the MAC plays so many games against lower division, thus fewer games that count, for measurement purposes. The higher conference RPI does not indicate that the top few teams should have been in the NCAA via at-large, since they didn't have that high of an RPI. It was simply that the bottom of the MAC was better. The top teams simply weren't as good as they needed to be.

With NIU's young team this year, I suppose it was good for confidence to win a bunch of OOC games. But I don't recall them ever playing more than 1 non-division 1 school, and they had 4 this year. I don't get that.

(03-22-2016 11:21 AM)emu steve Wrote:  

(03-22-2016 09:46 AM)axeme Wrote:  ... It's perverse, but one of the reasons the RPI was what it was this year was BECAUSE so many non-DI teams were on MAC teams' schedules. Rather than adding a bunch of typical MAC opponents who tend to drive down SOS, MAC teams added lower division teams who have no effect at all. The smaller sampling actually played to the MAC's advantage.

Good point!!!

Better to play a couple non-D-I teams than play some really weak teams from say the SWAC, MEAC, etc.

AND those (e.g., NAIA) games are cheap.

I was told recently (by a D-I assistant coach) that lower tier D-I opponent home games can cost say 50 -75K.

I've heard similar numbers. MAC teams make ~100k to Big 10 and other similar opponents.

http://www.mlive.com/wolverines/index.ss...s_and.html

If NIU played a tougher schedule, NIU would have lost a lot more games. So for the Huskies, a 20 win season - even against poor opponents - was a vital part of trying to turn around a moribund program.

A few years from now, no one remember who you beat. Only that "last year we won 20 games."

(03-22-2016 11:21 AM)emu steve Wrote:  

(03-22-2016 09:46 AM)axeme Wrote:  ... It's perverse, but one of the reasons the RPI was what it was this year was BECAUSE so many non-DI teams were on MAC teams' schedules. Rather than adding a bunch of typical MAC opponents who tend to drive down SOS, MAC teams added lower division teams who have no effect at all. The smaller sampling actually played to the MAC's advantage.

Good point!!!

Better to play a couple non-D-I teams than play some really weak teams from say the SWAC, MEAC, etc.

AND those (e.g., NAIA) games are cheap.

I was told recently (by a D-I assistant coach) that lower tier D-I opponent home games can cost say 50 -75K.

I wasn't recommending it. It's an awful idea if you want to develop a team against tough competition. If your only purpose is to rack up meaningless wins and game a metric that has little real value anyway, then you should play as many non-DI teams as you can. But it's bad for your team and your season.

There are a couple of things not addressed here ... 1) - Scheduling is about the only way coaches can somewhat protect their jobs via 20-win seasons, or at the least get the full five years out of that first contract.

As any program in the MAC well knows, an injury at the wrong time to the wrong person for any extended (6 games) period of time - Western Michigan/Tava, Central Michigan/Fowler, Akron/Robotham, Northern Illinois/Hightower - among others can be devastating, even against the mild schedules currently on the books.

Coaching is their job, and they are trying to keep it.

2) Far and away the biggest impact on mid-major basketball in recent years has been the loss of BracketBusters ... even if ESPN wants no part of it (after all, they killed it) there are enough other broadcats partners out there to try and get it back ... those two high mid-major games a season (one in February, one in November/December) were very importantant when it cam to strength of schedule.

If you get Bracket Buster back, and tighten up the sub-200 RPI games, maybe one extra power conference game on the schedule would be all that's needed, instead of two or three.

I remember long ago, somebody posted a link to a message board used by schools to set up basketball scheduling. It was interesting to see which schools were looking for what. Does anybody else remember that?

(03-22-2016 01:10 PM)axeme Wrote:  

(03-22-2016 11:21 AM)emu steve Wrote:  

(03-22-2016 09:46 AM)axeme Wrote:  ... It's perverse, but one of the reasons the RPI was what it was this year was BECAUSE so many non-DI teams were on MAC teams' schedules. Rather than adding a bunch of typical MAC opponents who tend to drive down SOS, MAC teams added lower division teams who have no effect at all. The smaller sampling actually played to the MAC's advantage.

Good point!!!

Better to play a couple non-D-I teams than play some really weak teams from say the SWAC, MEAC, etc.

AND those (e.g., NAIA) games are cheap.

I was told recently (by a D-I assistant coach) that lower tier D-I opponent home games can cost say 50 -75K.

I wasn't recommending it. It's an awful idea if you want to develop a team against tough competition. If your only purpose is to rack up meaningless wins and game a metric that has little real value anyway, then you should play as many non-DI teams as you can. But it's bad for your team and your season.

True, but how can EMU compete when UofM pays MEAC, SWAC, etc. schools 90K+ for a beat down in Ann Arbor.

How would we feel paying say 75K to play Florida A&M or Grambling?

That would be crazy. If you can't make back at least a good chunk of the guarantee at the gate, it's just a bad idea for a whole host of reasons. The reason to do it offers such a minimal benefit.

(03-21-2016 07:46 PM)indianasniff Wrote:  Scheduling depends a lot on your roster. Toledo for example had seven freshmen on the roster. Sometimes you need to build a teams confidence a bit. A senior laden team might be the opposite. But it takes two to tanto. Teams have to want to play you

Sent from my KFTHWI using Tapatalk

NIU was in the same boat, but i can come back to bite you in the butt. The weak schedule gave NIU fools gold to think they could get through conference play with the same effort they gave in those first few games.

Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk

(03-22-2016 04:04 PM)emu steve Wrote:  

(03-22-2016 01:10 PM)axeme Wrote:  

(03-22-2016 11:21 AM)emu steve Wrote:  

(03-22-2016 09:46 AM)axeme Wrote:  ... It's perverse, but one of the reasons the RPI was what it was this year was BECAUSE so many non-DI teams were on MAC teams' schedules. Rather than adding a bunch of typical MAC opponents who tend to drive down SOS, MAC teams added lower division teams who have no effect at all. The smaller sampling actually played to the MAC's advantage.

Good point!!!

Better to play a couple non-D-I teams than play some really weak teams from say the SWAC, MEAC, etc.

AND those (e.g., NAIA) games are cheap.

I was told recently (by a D-I assistant coach) that lower tier D-I opponent home games can cost say 50 -75K.

I wasn't recommending it. It's an awful idea if you want to develop a team against tough competition. If your only purpose is to rack up meaningless wins and game a metric that has little real value anyway, then you should play as many non-DI teams as you can. But it's bad for your team and your season.

True, but how can EMU compete when UofM pays MEAC, SWAC, etc. schools 90K+ for a beat down in Ann Arbor.

How would we feel paying say 75K to play Florida A&M or Grambling?

Akron plays 4 guarantee games vs. MEAC, SWAC, etc. per year. I'm sick of seeing them but if that's what you are after, getting them is achievable.

(03-22-2016 09:37 AM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  

(03-22-2016 09:23 AM)JSF Wrote:  

(03-21-2016 11:51 PM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  

(03-21-2016 10:34 PM)JSF Wrote:  

(03-21-2016 07:46 PM)indianasniff Wrote:  But it takes two to tanto. Teams have to want to play you

This can't be said enough. There's a reason why schedules look the way they do.

I'm sorry that's horse shaq. You cant blame "two to tango" for 4 freaking DII schools on the schedule or a slew of sub 250 teams.

Teams are likely better off playing a D-II than a sub-300, as they won't hurt the computer numbers.

The reality is there are more games that need to be scheduled and there are teams who will flat-out refuse to play good MAC teams under anything resembling reasonable circumstances or even at all. Dates have to be filled and schools want home games.

Again I don't buy it. Buffalo manages ok and we're "a mac school". If you mean a lot of schools won't fill a 1:1 that's true and in the case of a Saint Johns that might mean you bite the bullet and do a 1 and done.

But you can't tell me that Ohio could not have found a better opponent than AR Pine Bluff.

Ohio buys 4-5 home games each year. At the moment its bought the first 3 rounds of the CBI tournament all played at home in Athens.

Schedule was so-so this year because last year Ohio won only 10 games. While normally Ohio is in that category you call for as consistent MAC school that should step up the scheduling, with a second year head coach this was a rebuilding year.

(03-22-2016 06:13 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  

(03-22-2016 09:37 AM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  

(03-22-2016 09:23 AM)JSF Wrote:  

(03-21-2016 11:51 PM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  

(03-21-2016 10:34 PM)JSF Wrote:  This can't be said enough. There's a reason why schedules look the way they do.

I'm sorry that's horse shaq. You cant blame "two to tango" for 4 freaking DII schools on the schedule or a slew of sub 250 teams.

Teams are likely better off playing a D-II than a sub-300, as they won't hurt the computer numbers.

The reality is there are more games that need to be scheduled and there are teams who will flat-out refuse to play good MAC teams under anything resembling reasonable circumstances or even at all. Dates have to be filled and schools want home games.

Again I don't buy it. Buffalo manages ok and we're "a mac school". If you mean a lot of schools won't fill a 1:1 that's true and in the case of a Saint Johns that might mean you bite the bullet and do a 1 and done.

But you can't tell me that Ohio could not have found a better opponent than AR Pine Bluff.

Ohio buys 4-5 home games each year. At the moment its bought the first 3 rounds of the CBI tournament all played at home in Athens.

Schedule was so-so this year because last year Ohio won only 10 games. While normally Ohio is in that category you call for as consistent MAC school that should step up the scheduling, with a second year head coach this was a rebuilding year.

Really ... more like reloading with two HM transfers and what proved to be the MAC POY. ... Kaminsky and Simmons saw more action at Michigan State and Houston than at Ohio. ... LAME EXCUSE ... Play somebody ... Saul is no second year coach ... he's a NCAA Tournament coach ... that's what got him the job. ... Play somebody.

That's saw more action against better competition ... even as reserves ... (sorry)

MAC teams win too many home games against higher level non-conf competition. Those games turn out fans, pump up the team and usually produce excellent efforts. As a result, coaches at schools that have easier time scheduling than MAC coaches, avoid playing at MAC schools. Back in the day most Big ten teams would play a game or two each non-conf season at a MAC or Horizon school. That rarely happens these days. Xavier, Dayton, Evansville, Indiana St, Cincy, Temple, Butler, S. Illinois, Illinois St, all used to schedule at least 1 if not 2 or 3 MAC home and homes. Few of those still do, some won't even risk a home game against a good MAC team these days. Ironically, the rise in the pre-season tourneys has made it easier for medium-high level programs to fill out their schedules without playing many neighboring mid level programs. I know Toledo is addressing the scheduling by focusing on home and home series with A10, Conf USA and Valley schools. Some of those schools will do it if they know you won't hurt their computer numbers (are usually decent to good). Still it's no guarantee. Monmouth won AT Notre Dame AT Georgetown AT UCLA vs USC on a neutral court (lost to them at USC) and lost a one possession game AT Dayton and were not invited to the NCAA. I think the only "mid major" at large bids this year were Whicita State (lowballed into the first four) and Gonzaga (lowballed as an 11 seed). And both of those are among the 5 or so marquee mid-major programs that get consistent national air time. I suppose you could call Temple, VCU and Dayton mid-major, but the NCAA has considered that league as a high major for NCAA selections the past 6 or 7 years and they have produced in the dance.

The MAC may also really promote it's members playing more money games at the weaker programs in the big leagues. Those are still tough games, but can change the perception of a school. Say Akron hadn't just won at Arkansas (a 500% SEC school) but won 2 out of 3 at Depaul, Penn St, Kansas St as well. I think they would have at least got an NIT home game if not made the first 4. An ideal MAC non-conf schedule to me would look like this

3 winnable home game (low level D1, maybe 1 vs a nearby D2 or NAIA)
4 home and homes (2 home/2away per yr) vs easier to schedule solid mid majors (Horizon, nearby Valley CONF USA or A10
1 name home game (spend the money, work a connection, do a 2 for 1, find a way to excite your fans in Nov/Dec)
2-3 money games on the road (try to keep most of these somewhat winnable say Northwestern, Tennessee, TCU)
every other year play an exempt-tournament with a chance to play a couple good teams on a neutral court

also the league can help by bringing back something like the Rock-n-Roll Shootout. Bring a couple name teams into a MAC area pro arena in a high level recruiting area for a one night televised event. Think rotating this between Cleveland, Indianapolis, Chicago and Detroit. Put the 2 best MAC teams from that area in the event each yr.