RE: Where does this go
If you're looking for a culprit in the explosion of non-D1 schools on D1 schedules, blame the NCAA. Or to be more precise, blame the metrics they use to rate teams. The RPI, and now the NET, treat games against non-D1 opponents as though they don't exist, meaning they have a null effect on a team's rating. But wins against lower-level D1s often have a negative effect, which makes the non-D1 games less harmful, which shouldn't be the case.
Put it this way: ODU plays Morgan State today. While nobody will confuse Morgan State with a good win, it's not the worst team the Monarchs will play this season (hell, they beat Navy by 24 while ODU beat Navy by 23, and they also beat Towson and had George Mason down in the second half). But because of their low NET rating (249), this game may well hurt ODU even if the Monarchs win. Meanwhile, ODU could play (and lose to) Virginia Wesleyan, Newport News Apprentice, Mid-Atlantic Christian or Regent and it wouldn't do any damage to their numbers whatsoever.
And it's not just CUSA. Just today, Davidson — one of the A-10's best teams — defeated Central Penn. Hofstra is playing something called Rosemont. Schools in the WCC, Mountain West, MAC and MVC had non-D1 games on their schedule this season. And not just D2s, but D3s, NAIA, and sub-NAIA programs. Regent, in its first full year of intercollegiate sports, has played D1 schools in men's and women's basketball. Regent doesn't even have a dedicated site for their athletic department and you can't find their schedules anywhere, but the men have already played NSU, Hampton and Howard.
The answer would appear to be either giving non-D1 opponents some sort of score that makes it less beneficial to play them than any D1 opponent, or reworking the system so that all D1 games give you some sort of benefit versus playing a non-D1 or not playing at all. Otherwise, you're incentivizing teams to avoid potential NET landmines by scheduling dollar-store tomato cans.
|