Beginning in 2019-2020. Deal will give each team in all three leagues one guaranteed home game and one guaranteed road game. Matchups will be made to ensure the Top RPI teams in each league are guaranteed to face each other, and lower RPI's will face each other.

Contract is not signed, but this is what is being discussed right now.

SBC announced it's own version of Pod Scheduling today as well, apparently SBC/CUSA are working with the same consultant and will provide feedback to each other to refine the process as it goes.

Interesting. UNT and UTA already play every year, but seeing some of the Horizon schools would be cool.

I'm interested to see the details on this. I wonder if it will be late season OOC games once highest RPI's are known. Or if it will be OOC games early in the season based off prior season RPI's.

This makes absolutely no sense. Why would these be the two leagues with whom C-USA would want to schedule an agreement? C-USA has proven to have a decent shot of obtaining an at large. Sun Belt has a remote shot (i.e. has had one at large bid in the last 10 years and that was MT now in C-USA). Meanwhile, the Horizon has hasn't had one since Butler left years ago and hasn't really come close.

So, what is the point? Neither of these two leagues are going to help the one conference (C-USA) with a decent chance of getting an at large. The is like rearranging the chairs of the Titanic.

Consider the top three team's RPI's over the past few years.

C-USA
2018: 1. MT (30) 2. wkcc (32) 3. ODU (74)
2017: 1. MT (34) 2. Marsh (108) 3. LT (116)
2016: 1. MT (77) 2. UAB (81) 3. ODU (116)
2015: 1. ODU (41) 2. LT (48) 3. UTEP (74)

SBC
2018: 1. ULL (65) 2. UTA (112) 3. GSU (116)
2017: 1. UTA (40) 2. GSU (106) 3. Ark St (113)
2016: 1. UALR (42) 2. ULM (104) 3. UTA (107)
2015: 1. GSU (54) 2. Ga So (111) 3. ULL (123)

HL
2018: 1. Wright (98) 2. UNK (111) 3. Oak (180)
2017: 1. Valpo (78) 2. UNK (85) 3. Oak (103)
2016: 1. Valpo (31) 2. Oak (105) 3. Green Bay (115)
2015 1. Valpo (56) 2. Green Bay (60) 3. Clev St (128)

Number of times a team has gotten in "at large" territory (which if we're being honest none of us are getting in if our RPI is in the 40s or higher):
1. C-USA (3)
2. Horizon (1)
3. SBC (0)

Avg. RPI of Top Teams
1. C-USA (69)
2. SBC (91)
3. Horizon (96)

Avg RPI of Just the Top Team in Each League
1. C-USA (45)
2. SBC (50)
3. Horzon (66)

So, who exactly is this designed to help, because it's damn sure not going to help C-USA.

The Colonial and Missouri Valley conferences are in similar places to where we are. The three of us could benefit from an alliance, but Horizon and Sun Belt? Sorry, that just has no upside for us and probably doesn't do much to help either of those two leagues either.

The other thing that I believe is important to point out is that if you look at how much the league struggled in hoops through all the transition a lot of the problems can be traced to that IMO. Now that the league's membership has settled for a few years you saw what happened this past season. Two teams in the magic RPI territory. Another that came on strong down the stretch and continued our win streak in the first round of the NCAA Tournament and another that posted a solid top 100 season.

With stable membership, the league is going to continue to improve. This deal won't be that beneficial however.

MT, for example, has already been playing better teams in the non-conference than what the SBC and Horizon can guarantee.

(06-05-2018 07:45 AM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  This makes absolutely no sense. Why would these be the two leagues with whom C-USA would want to schedule an agreement? C-USA has proven to have a decent shot of obtaining an at large. Sun Belt has a remote shot (i.e. has had one at large bid in the last 10 years and that was MT now in C-USA). Meanwhile, the Horizon has hasn't had one since Butler left years ago and hasn't really come close.

So, what is the point? Neither of these two leagues are going to help the one conference (C-USA) with a decent chance of getting an at large. The is like rearranging the chairs of the Titanic.

It helps if these games (I'm going to presume one against the Sun Belt and one against the Horizon for a CUSA team) replace ones against low-major teams with sub-150 or 200 RPIs. So let's say WKU, instead of playing Kentucky Wesleyan and Indiana State last season, get UTA and Northern Kentucky instead. Now that isn't going to be enough to get them an at-large on its own, but it definitely helps their SOS and RPI. And combined with the late-season pods, it potentially cuts four, five poor-RPI games from the schedule.

If a CUSA school is scheduling well enough on its own, can it opt out? Because with 14 CUSA schools vs. 10 Sun Belt and 10 Horizon, that's four CUSA teams with no date to the dance. Wonder if schools will have the ability to not participate, or would CUSA just not include its bottom four teams.

Good research. I agree I'd rather see this alliance with CAA & The Valley.

Not a bad idea, just a bad grouping.

clt would prefer an entente

Horizon wouldn't help CUSA at all

Last year, Wright St. was their best RPI and that was 98

http://warrennolan.com/basketball/2018/c...zon-League

(06-05-2018 12:33 AM)chiefsfan Wrote:  Beginning in 2019-2020. Deal will give each team in all three leagues one guaranteed home game and one guaranteed road game. Matchups will be made to ensure the Top RPI teams in each league are guaranteed to face each other, and lower RPI's will face each other.

Contract is not signed, but this is what is being discussed right now.

SBC announced it's own version of Pod Scheduling today as well, apparently SBC/CUSA are working with the same consultant and will provide feedback to each other to refine the process as it goes.

Where did you find the details or announcement of this deal?

Love it. Hope they're able to convince some more conferences to jump on board as well. Getting teams to agree on home and away is becoming more and more difficult, even on the mid-major to mid-major level.

I imagine this was done as an alternative to some schools being forced to schedule DII. In that regard it could be a tremendous help no matter who we're playing. Just beat the teams you're matched up with. That's 2 games per year OOC we don't have to scrape to find.

I feel like it will help out from the aspect it will allow a WKU/MTSU/Marshall with a top 50 RPI to play a SB/Horizon top 100 team late in the season instead of having WKU/MTSU/Marshall play a 2nd game against a 200+ CUSA team like USM/Rice/FIU

After listening to a couple of interviews and reading more from Mark Adams, it sounds as if this is the second part of his proposal made to several different conferences. Sounds as if CUSA, SBC and Horizon are the first on board, but could be more coming. Skip to the last interview. It gives the most info. Games with peer conferences will be assigned by Mark on Nov. 26 and 30th, one home and one away based on best match-ups. Also talks about mids owing their own tourneys (preseason).

(06-05-2018 11:00 AM)gulfcoastgal Wrote:  After listening to a couple of interviews and reading more from Mark Adams, it sounds as if this is the second part of his proposal made to several different conferences. Sounds as if CUSA, SBC and Horizon are the first on board, but could be more coming. Skip to the last interview. It gives the most info. Games with peer conferences will be assigned by Mark on Nov. 26 and 30th, one home and one away based on best match-ups. Also talks about mids owing their own tourneys (preseason).

I was coming over here to post that Bison 1660 interview and see that Gulf Coastal already pasted a link for everyone. If you passed over the Soundcloud link without listening----DON'T do that. It absolutely is a MUST listen interview for CUSA basketball fans (and really all fans who like the Cinderella aspect of the NCAA tournament).

https://soundcloud.com/user-744211984/es...um=twitter

Why do I get the feeling that I-AA basketball is coming to a town near you?

It almost seems like phase 1 was the voting coup pulled by the P5 to give them more control over decisions.

Phase 2: Limit and minimize both regular season and post season opportunities for the non-power conferences.

Phase 3: Destruction of the NCAA and reclassification of the P5 programs and everyone else.

What I understand is the 2 games will be based on previous year s RPI. So the top Sun Belt RPI team would play the top CUSA RPI team from the previous year and so on down the line