SMU ranked #64. Amazing really to see that.

(09-06-2013 09:48 PM)stever20 Wrote:  SMU ranked #64. Amazing really to see that.

Well, I wonder if they still have a payroll to meet.

(09-06-2013 09:48 PM)stever20 Wrote:  SMU ranked #64. Amazing really to see that.

Even more amazing is to see where they have turned up on the USA Today list. College Sports Madness only picked them for a bid to the NIT.

USA Today is doing a countdown of the 68 teams that they are projecting to go to the NCAA tournament. On Thursday and Friday, they announced their first two at large teams, Boise State (#49) and SMU (#48). They classify SMU as a "bubble team", but obviously they forecast them landing on the right side of the bubble. Their only reservation is whether the AAC will be strong enough to get a 5th team to the tournament. They see Louisville, UConn, Memphis, and Cincinnati all going to the dance and finishing ahead of SMU.

SMU basketball is really getting some good press these days.

(09-07-2013 11:21 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(09-06-2013 09:48 PM)stever20 Wrote:  SMU ranked #64. Amazing really to see that.

Even more amazing is to see where they have turned up on the USA Today list. College Sports Madness only picked them for a bid to the NIT.

USA Today is doing a countdown of the 64 teams that they are projecting to go to the NCAA tournament. On Thursday and Friday, they announced their first two at large teams, Boise State (#49) and SMU (#48). They classify SMU as a "bubble team", but obviously they forecast them landing on the right side of the bubble. Their only reservation is whether the AAC will be strong enough to get a 5th team to the tournament. They see Louisville, UConn, Memphis, and Cincinnati all going to the dance and finishing ahead of SMU.

SMU basketball is really getting some good press these days.

doesn't the USA Today know the tourney has 68 teams now, not 64?

but yeah, SMU is getting some great press now.

(09-07-2013 12:02 PM)stever20 Wrote:  

(09-07-2013 11:21 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(09-06-2013 09:48 PM)stever20 Wrote:  SMU ranked #64. Amazing really to see that.

Even more amazing is to see where they have turned up on the USA Today list. College Sports Madness only picked them for a bid to the NIT.

USA Today is doing a countdown of the 64 teams that they are projecting to go to the NCAA tournament. On Thursday and Friday, they announced their first two at large teams, Boise State (#49) and SMU (#48). They classify SMU as a "bubble team", but obviously they forecast them landing on the right side of the bubble. Their only reservation is whether the AAC will be strong enough to get a 5th team to the tournament. They see Louisville, UConn, Memphis, and Cincinnati all going to the dance and finishing ahead of SMU.

SMU basketball is really getting some good press these days.

doesn't the USA Today know the tourney has 68 teams now, not 64?

but yeah, SMU is getting some great press now.

Sorry, my bad, they do have 68. I'm easily distracted and hadn't yet taken my meds yet today. The number 64 from College Sports Madness' ranking stuck in my head and I just perseverated.

However, USA Today does have a problem. They're counting back from 68 but have designate the first 4 teams as 16 seeds, the next 4 as 15 seeds, etc. Obviously that won't work.

Three at large bids in the the top 20 in non conference strength of schedule for 2012-13

1. Duke
2. Belmont
3. NM
4. Miami
5. Savannah State
6. MTSU
7. Northern Iowa
8. Florida
9. Pacific
10. Texas Southern
11. Minnesota
12. Lipscomb
13. Oral Roberts
14. South Dakota
15. UTEP
16. Long Beach St.
17. Oklahoma
18. Northwestern St.
19. NM State
20. Indiana State.

It actually gets worse in the 20-100 range. You know why? Because those with the strongest non-conference schedules are often teams to play buy games in their non-con schedule. Any major who plays a schedule in the 100s is actually playing a pretty good non-con schedule since most majors play only one or two road games. The new BE will be fine. Yeah, schools lose games against UL and Cuse. But they also drop one or two games against Rutgers, USF, etc. Plus, most will try to upgrade their non-conf schedule a bit. For example, MU plays Ohio State, Arizona State, Wisconsin, New Mexico, and maybe Miami, with only one at home. Add those to the BE schools and the schedule will be pretty good.

let's look:
A10- Butler(60), VCU(44),La Salle(106),Temple(76)
ACC- Duke(1), UNC(77), NC State(89)
B12- Okla St(117),Okla(17)
BE- Marq(104),Syr(105)
Big Ten-Ind(54),Mich St(52),Minn(11), Ill(35)
MWC- UNLV(79),Col St(126),SD St(116)
P12- Ariz (36), UCLA(59), Colo(42),Cal(51)
SEC- Fla(8), Mizzou(82)

so just in those conferences you have 24 of the 37 at large schools. The WORST OOC SOS of those 24 schools were 126. 18 of these were in the top 100. 4 of the other 13 schools were in the Big East last year(ND 14 CSOS, Pit 24 CSOS, Cin 7 CSOS, Vil 9 CSOS). Add to that in the Big Ten- Ohio St(139 NC SOC, 10 CSOS), Wisc(149 NC SOS, 4 CSOS). So generally speaking you either have to have a freakish conference schedule or play a top 125 OOC SOS. My point is that our conference SOS won't be as freakish as it used to be.

Also, losing Rutgers and USF in no ways makes up for the loss of Louisville or Syracuse. Rutgers last year was 21 spots ahead of Seton Hall. With 5/6 top teams not playing DePaul 2x, now having to play them a 2nd time(they were 202 last year) is worse than having to play DePaul 1x and USF 1x(151). Also quite frankly, if Villanova didn't play and beat Louisville or Syracuse last year- they don't make the tourney.

We had a lot of crap on our OOC schedule, but you'd think Duke (#2), Syracuse (#3), Kansas (#6), Villanova would be good enough for better than 76th.

I think back 5-10 years ago, Temple's OOC SOS would have been a lot higher. Fact is a lot of teams have really improved their schedules a lot. All those exempt tournaments give teams 2 and occasionally 3 great ooc games.

Well the other thing is that Chaney would just stack the OOC schedule with all power conference teams, which doesn't really work anymore. You need to find a balance between KU/Cuse/Duke and Alcorn State. Fortunately, we're done with our MAC agreement, so that wont hurt us now.

Updated thru #59. No new auto bid teams listed. So, with 58 teams to go, still have 49 spots open. So down to last 9 teams out.

ACC 8
SEC 7
Big East 6
Big 12 6
Big Ten 6
Pac 12 6
A10 5
MWC 5
AAC 4
WCC 2
everyone else 1

probably should see SEC teams coming up pretty soon I would think.

Providence checks in at #60. I'd say probably pretty fair heading into the season.

Providence is ranked too low at #60. They're definitely better than Butler. I'll be shocked if they don't finish in the top half of the Big East and make the tournament. College Sports Madness hedged their bets by saying that they expect the Friars to make a serious run at a tournament spot.

One thing about Providence is they better be definitely up in the standings in the Big East because they won't get a boost from their OOC schedule. They probably don't get in with a 9-9 record in conference. They may need 10 or even 11 wins.

(09-11-2013 10:09 PM)stever20 Wrote:  One thing about Providence is they better be definitely up in the standings in the Big East because they won't get a boost from their OOC schedule. They probably don't get in with a 9-9 record in conference. They may need 10 or even 11 wins.

Hmm . . .

Kentucky
Vanderbilt
BC
Maryland
LaSalle
UMass

La Salle and Maryland are only if they beat Vanderbilt, a team who finished last year sub .500. BC was sub .500. The ONLY tourney team in the 6 you listed last year was La Salle. Kentucky is only guarantee tourney team in that bunch quite frankly.

compare to Ole Miss at #59 who gets NCAA tourney team Oregon, Barclay's classic with Ga Tech and St Johns, and even Middle Tennessee and Mercer- one made tourney last year and other lost to FGCU in the A-Sun title game. Oh, and @ Kansas St.

(09-11-2013 11:13 PM)stever20 Wrote:  La Salle and Maryland are only if they beat Vanderbilt, a team who finished last year sub .500. BC was sub .500. The ONLY tourney team in the 6 you listed last year was La Salle. Kentucky is only guarantee tourney team in that bunch quite frankly.

compare to Ole Miss at #59 who gets NCAA tourney team Oregon, Barclay's classic with Ga Tech and St Johns, and even Middle Tennessee and Mercer- one made tourney last year and other lost to FGCU in the A-Sun title game. Oh, and @ Kansas St.

Those are all solid programs, none of whom will represent a hit to their RPI. Instead of looking in the rear view mirror at last year, look at the fact that Kentucky is picked tO be #1 in the country by almost everyone. They alone will be a big boost to the RPI.

1 game doesn't an OOC schedule make. I mean, look last year at Temple. They played Duke, Syracuse, and Kansas- and still had only the 76th best OOC schedule. Providence's schedule is nowhere near that good.

(09-11-2013 11:49 PM)stever20 Wrote:  1 game doesn't an OOC schedule make. I mean, look last year at Temple. They played Duke, Syracuse, and Kansas- and still had only the 76th best OOC schedule. Providence's schedule is nowhere near that good.

This will be long winded and be full of facts, but oh well. I keep seeing you harp on OOC schedules, which I agree is important. But in the big picture, the majority of the BE has been fine by comparison to other conferences. According to rpiforecast.com, here are the OOC RPI schedules for the BE teams from last season:

Butler - 48
Creighton - 51
DePaul - 336
Georgetown (Florida game cancelled) - 164
Marquette (Ohio St. game cancelled) - 84
Providence - 266
St. John's - 166
Seton Hall - 253
Villanova - 157
Xavier - 76

Of this group, the only ones I would be harping on would be DePaul, Providence and Seton Hall. The others are in the average to above-average range for major conference teams. According to rpiforecast.com, here are the last season OOC RPI schedules ranking by conference (does not include NCAA tournament) for certain conferences (limited to top 100 OOC schedule ranking):

A-10
VCU - 45
Butler - 48
Temple - 66
UMass - 71
Rhode Island - 72
Xavier - 76
LaSalle - 100
(Davidson - 16)

ACC
Duke - 1
Miami - 4
UNC - 69
NC St. - 80

BIG
Minnesota - 13
Illinois - 41
Michigan St. - 50
Indiana - 63
Nebraska - 64

B12
Kansas - 17
Oklahoma - 24
Baylor - 47

BE
UofL - 26
UConn - 56
Marquette (Ohio St. game cancelled) - 84

CUSA
UTEP - 14
Memphis - 59
USM - 77

MVC
UNI - 10
Indiana St. - 19
Creighton - 51
Wichita St. - 68
Drake - 99

MWC
New Mexico - 3
UNLV - 73
SDSU - 82

Pac-12
Arizona - 27
Colorado - 37
Cal - 49
UCLA - 53
USC - 60
Stanford - 85
Washington - 94

SEC
Florida (Georgetown game cancelled) - 7
Tennessee - 44
Kentucky - 58
Texas A&M - 61
Vanderbilt - 70
Alabama - 78
Missouri - 81

WCC
Gonzaga - 33
BYU - 54
(Pacific - 6) - in this season, BW last season

Of the 131 teams actually in these 11 conferences last season, only 49 (37.4%) teams made the top 100 for OOC RPI schedules. So 51 spots in the top 100 OOC RPI schedules were held outside of these 11 conferences. Creighton, Butler, Xavier and Marquette (despite the cancelled OSU game) were all in the top 84 for RPI OOC schedules. By comparison, the new conferences (by the 2014-2015 season) look like this for teams in the top 100 OOC RPI schedules:

BE - 4 (40%)
A-10 - 5 (28.6%)
AAC - 3 (27.3%)
ACC (w/ Louisville) - 5 (33.3%)
BIG - 5 (35.7%)
B12 - 3 (30%)
CUSA - 2 (14.3%)
MVC - 4 (40%)
MWC - 3 (27.3%)
PAC 12 - 7 (58.3%)
SEC - 7 (50%)
WCC - 3 (30%)

Only the Pac 12 and SEC have a higher percentage of teams in the top 100 for RPI OOC schedules than the BE. Saying that schedules need to improve is fine, but by comparison, the philosophy for most of the current BE teams has been appropriate. Only 3 really need to step it up.

Providence at 266 is important because they are looking like a big bubble team. That's the kind of OOC schedule that keeps a team out of the tourney. Even St John's is in the same boat at 153.

Also, of the teams you mention, how many made the tourney at large? By my count, 21 of those 49 teams. Another 6 won their conference tournament- but wuold have made the NCAA tournament regardless. So, 27/49 teams with top 100 OOC schedules make the tourney. Only 16 teams outside the top 100(by RPI forecast which I don't think is accurate, I think for instance they still counted in their numbers the 2 cancelled games for example)- made the tourney at large.

Of the 37 at larges last year..
24 had a top 126 OOC SOS.
4 weren't but played in the Big East
2 more played in the Big Ten

The thing is, we won't be in the Big East/Big Ten boat with the freakish SOS in conference play. Last year, 17 of the 20 top conference SOS were in the Big East or Big Ten. 11 of those were Big East teams. That just won't be the case this season. Not when we have to play DePaul 2x, Seton Hall 2x, and odds good 1 other team that doesn't turn out well(Butler maybe) 2x. The algebra has changed. Even look at your numbers. the 2012-13 BE had 3/15 teams with top 100 schedules. Using your figures, the ONLY conference worse was CUSA. So, the coaches have figured that out- I mean this year, the BE according to ESPN is the best conference in OOC scheduling

Finally, look at the last 4 teams in last year.... Look at their SOS OOC(who Providence would be going up against).
MTSU 9
La Salle 100
St Mary's 112
Boise St 202

Only Boise would they have to compare maybe favorably to. I think bottom line, our conference schedele won't blow folks away like it has in the past, so our OOC schedule is going to become more and more important. It's not a slam on the new conference, but more an acknowledgement that the old conference was one of the best ever. There will be a drop of some sorts for sure. Providence is a team that could easilly test that out this season.