28 and 3

The skies the limit for the Dukes. That or beating App St, whichever comes first.

Some projections I've seen have JMU on the bubble of being the Last Four Out if they make a run to the finals of the SBC Tournament.

The best at-large scenario for JMU if they lose in the finals, is to play draw and beat Georgia State and Troy. They have the highest NET's in JMU's bracket.

Are you serious ?

They can try not having a pathetic SOS like 339 out of 362 D1 teams for OOC.

If you would have had just an average OOC schedule, you might not have reached 20 wins.

(03-03-2024 10:04 PM)HPCAT Wrote:  Are you serious ?

They can try not having a pathetic SOS like 339 out of 362 D1 teams for OOC.

If you would have had just an average OOC schedule, you might not have reached 20 wins.

No offense but TXST and the rest of the Sunbelt are part of that weak OOC schedule. And you seem to forget that JMU has an undefeated OOC Road record which includes at Michigan State.

As far as the weak schedule they were dealing with past commitments and from my understanding we are working to make the schedule better.

The same can technically be said of Appalachian State and it would be unfortunate if they made it to the final and lost to JMU and not make the tournament. The Sunbelt really deserves 2 teams this year.

Unfortunately I don’t think JMU’s record or NET matter. The powers that be would rather have a .500 P5 team.

South Alabama softball struggled a bit last year in OOC play but started putting it together in conference. We got swept by Louisiana but won every other game. Final RPI before tournament was 28. It wasn’t enough. South was the first team out and stayed home. South Alabama soccer this past year lost one game all year, in the semifinals of the SBC Tournament against JMU. South’s RPI was in the teens and they stayed home. The OOC schedule was too weak. Maybe JMU can break through, but I wouldn’t look for it.

(03-03-2024 10:57 PM)hburg Wrote:  

(03-03-2024 10:04 PM)HPCAT Wrote:  Are you serious ?

They can try not having a pathetic SOS like 339 out of 362 D1 teams for OOC.

If you would have had just an average OOC schedule, you might not have reached 20 wins.

No offense but TXST and the rest of the Sunbelt are part of that weak OOC schedule. And you seem to forget that JMU has an undefeated OOC Road record which includes at Michigan State.

As far as the weak schedule they were dealing with past commitments and from my understanding we are working to make the schedule better.

The same can technically be said of Appalachian State and it would be unfortunate if they made it to the final and lost to JMU and not make the tournament. The Sunbelt really deserves 2 teams this year.

Yeah, we all get a lot of guff for scheduling in some sports. It's only year two of being in the 'belt and some of these guys have no idea what we had to shuffle around to make this happen as fast as it did. Should get better across the board once all the former commitments are taken care of. Agree, by far, the biggest detriment to NET rankings this season is conference play. Last year lots of teams hovered around the top 100. This year we don't even have much top 200, us included. This is not on JMU, who's done everything they could with what they have. Gonna go throw up now.

If everyone did as well as JMU did against their out of conference opponents, half the Sun Belt would be at larges. It doesn't matter how weak your ooc is if the conference overall does well cause you can pick up your quad 1 wins in conference then. The issue was the weak conference hurting JMU not getting a look at as an at large. Not their ooc schedule. There are some plans to improve the conference as a whole. Because short of a few teams, we need it.

(03-04-2024 12:17 AM)Eagleyed Wrote:  If everyone did as well as JMU did against their out of conference opponents, half the Sun Belt would be at larges. It doesn't matter how weak your ooc is if the conference overall does well cause you can pick up your quad 1 wins in conference then. The issue was the weak conference hurting JMU not getting a look at as an at large. Not their ooc schedule. There are some plans to improve the conference as a whole. Because short of a few teams, we need it.

It's more than "short of a few teams." I don't think any of the top teams from last year are at the top this year or have comparable NET, except JMU. We need consistency more than anything and then we can build up those who are struggling. Right now we don't know one year to the next who's gonna fly and who's gonna dump. Can't have teams take 200 point swings in their NET ranking year to year, like we did.

Yes our OOC was weak but some of that was we could not get big schools to play us and some it is a few teams we played normally are better than they were this year. For instance if Kent State and Southern Illinois have their normal seasons we would have a few more good wins. As someone noted if the SBC overall was better that would have really helped both us and App even if we had an extra loss or two.

The other thing that is bs about all of this is the ability of these big teams to never go on road in OOC. Kansas State and St John’s played one road game each OOC. You should not be able to have the record they both and play one OOC game and even be in the conversation. Finally we should get more credit for our road record as I don’t care who you play going 14-2 in road neutral games is very hard to do.

I believe JMU would be the first 30 win team to miss the NCAA Tournament if they lost to App in the finals and got snubbed. I would hope going 30-1 vs all but one team would be enough to get in. Of course, we both have to get there first.

(03-04-2024 03:14 AM)MUther Wrote:  It's more than "short of a few teams." I don't think any of the top teams from last year are at the top this year or have comparable NET, except JMU. We need consistency more than anything and then we can build up those who are struggling. Right now we don't know one year to the next who's gonna fly and who's gonna dump. Can't have teams take 200 point swings in their NET ranking year to year, like we did.

Hey now... Troy's been consistent. 25-15 in OOC over the past 3 years, beat Florida State, beat FAU to win the Paradise Classic, beat the A-Sun champs, beat the NEC champs... and three straight 20+ win seasons.

Troy women's basketball has been the torch bearer over the past 10 years on that side. Lots of big wins and killing the OOC competition.

Every SBC team should hope App or JMU can get an at-large because there is $ attached that can be reinvested back into their respective basketball programs.

Whether it will happen, is to be seen (and unlikely). But just getting another team into the tournament means $2 million for the conference over the next 6 years (or roughly $25k per year per school). And that doesn't include a team making a run.

Would love if the SBC stipulated these funds must be used for MBB buy games to get better OOC opponents to play at SBC schools.

(03-04-2024 03:14 AM)MUther Wrote:  

(03-04-2024 12:17 AM)Eagleyed Wrote:  If everyone did as well as JMU did against their out of conference opponents, half the Sun Belt would be at larges. It doesn't matter how weak your ooc is if the conference overall does well cause you can pick up your quad 1 wins in conference then. The issue was the weak conference hurting JMU not getting a look at as an at large. Not their ooc schedule. There are some plans to improve the conference as a whole. Because short of a few teams, we need it.

It's more than "short of a few teams." I don't think any of the top teams from last year are at the top this year or have comparable NET, except JMU. We need consistency more than anything and then we can build up those who are struggling. Right now we don't know one year to the next who's gonna fly and who's gonna dump. Can't have teams take 200 point swings in their NET ranking year to year, like we did.

ODU fans appear confident that the Monarchs will very soon be routinely vying for conference championships and NCAA bids after bringing in our new coach - Mike Jones. The last few seasons have been very un-ODU like. I've been following the Monarchs for around 50 years and 7 previous coaches and had never experienced a down period that lasted that long before a change was made.

If every school except App State and maybe Troy didn’t suck out loud, neither JMU nor App State would be in this predicament. So, thanks for a stellar showing, Sun Belt. I honestly thought JMU men’s basketball would be our weak link when we switched conferences.

I'm pretty sure this topic was discussed repeatedly in the past. Looking at the problem from the macro level, we won't have consistent 2nd bid until SBC basketball programs start spending at the A10/WCC level of $4mil per program per year.

Sure, App State finding a way to have a great season with $1.5-$1.6 mil budget range is commendable, is that really sustainable?

I don't think people truly understand how severely underfunded SBC basketball programs are. At the last meeting, Keith Gill warned our ADs about the need to significantly raise our basketball budgets. No one took it seriously. 10 of 14 programs spend less than $2mil/yr.

I posted this on our Bubble thread on the JMU board. FAU's profile last year going into conference tournament was remarkably similar to ours this year.

What if they didn't win the CUSA tourney? Would they get in? Maybe not. And then no FF run. Goes to show these mid majors with gaudy regular season records win a whole lot of games because they are good. Good enough to go to a FF.

On FAU:

in the regular season they went 26-3. They had a nonconference SOS of 294. there 'marquee' win (if you could call it that) and only p5 win in the regular season was over 16-17 Florida. They lost to 12-21 Ole Miss and 17-14 Middle Tennessee.

what ultimately happened with them? they went to the Final Four. A shot away from playing for a title.

but of course, they won the CUSA tournament title to get in the Dance.
Would they have gotten in otherwise? Who knows. But look what they did when given the shot.

JMU could be the same team and DESERVES an at large bid. Winning games matters. At the level we have won.....most wins in the country, most ROAD wins in the country....that is an overwhelming positive that should be in our favor and make us a LOCK with a couple wins in the SB tourney.

we know that isn't the case. But it shows what a joke it is. As i saw someone mention on twitter the other day...failure to put us in shows the system is so rigged that the decision is already made before the season starts. a team like JMU will never get an at large bid

(03-04-2024 01:26 PM)GSUALUM17 Wrote:  I'm pretty sure this topic was discussed repeatedly in the past. Looking at the problem from the macro level, we won't have consistent 2nd bid until SBC basketball programs start spending at the A10/WCC level of $4mil per program per year.

Sure, App State finding a way to have a great season with $1.5-$1.6 mil budget range is commendable, is that really sustainable?

I don't think people truly understand how severely underfunded SBC basketball programs are. At the last meeting, Keith Gill warned our ADs about the need to significantly raise our basketball budgets. No one took it seriously. 10 of 14 programs spend less than $2mil/yr.

So currently no one in the SBC is close to $4 million a year. JMU leads the pack at $3.35 million (from that article your graphic is from).

Let's aim for $3 million in the next few year years and then work towards $4 million. We have 2 programs barely spending over $1 million (Arkansas St and ULM) who will need some time to raise the funds.

(03-04-2024 01:37 PM)Duke Dawg Wrote:  I posted this on our Bubble thread on the JMU board. FAU's profile last year going into conference tournament was remarkably similar to ours this year.

What if they didn't win the CUSA tourney? Would they get in? Maybe not. And then no FF run. Goes to show these mid majors with gaudy regular season records win a whole lot of games because they are good. Good enough to go to a FF.

On FAU:

in the regular season they went 26-3. They had a nonconference SOS of 294. there 'marquee' win (if you could call it that) and only p5 win in the regular season was over 16-17 Florida. They lost to 12-21 Ole Miss and 17-14 Middle Tennessee.

what ultimately happened with them? they went to the Final Four. A shot away from playing for a title.

but of course, they won the CUSA tournament title to get in the Dance.
Would they have gotten in otherwise? Who knows. But look what they did when given the shot.

JMU could be the same team and DESERVES an at large bid. Winning games matters. At the level we have won.....most wins in the country, most ROAD wins in the country....that is an overwhelming positive that should be in our favor and make us a LOCK with a couple wins in the SB tourney.

we know that isn't the case. But it shows what a joke it is. As i saw someone mention on twitter the other day...failure to put us in shows the system is so rigged that the decision is already made before the season starts. a team like JMU will never get an at large bid

Listen I’d love to see JMU sneak in if you win 30 and lose in the championship. But claiming it’s “rigged” if you don’t gets a huge eye roll from me. There is BROAD consensus across virtually every bracket projection I’ve seen that you’re on the outside looking in, which sucks. But the methodology behind why is totally reasonable. The MSU win was great but now they are unfortunately 17-12.

For the same reason I didn’t think Liberty football belonged in the NY6, I can see the justification for JMU not going as an at large.

(03-03-2024 10:57 PM)hburg Wrote:  

(03-03-2024 10:04 PM)HPCAT Wrote:  Are you serious ?

They can try not having a pathetic SOS like 339 out of 362 D1 teams for OOC.

If you would have had just an average OOC schedule, you might not have reached 20 wins.

No offense but TXST and the rest of the Sunbelt are part of that weak OOC schedule. And you seem to forget that JMU has an undefeated OOC Road record which includes at Michigan State.

As far as the weak schedule they were dealing with past commitments and from my understanding we are working to make the schedule better.

The same can technically be said of Appalachian State and it would be unfortunate if they made it to the final and lost to JMU and not make the tournament. The Sunbelt really deserves 2 teams this year.

I feel bad now that I assumed anyone from JMU knew what OOC meant....Out Of Conference....say it after me....Out of Conference.....

That means games not in the SBC to simply it for you.

Don't cry me a river about weak SBC, TXST handed ASU their ass in SM. JMU's SBC schedule was far tougher than their OOC, once again games outside of the SBC.

Try playing some P5 teams and maybe even ranked P5 teams. Take charge of what you can control and schedule better OOC, so that Presbyterian College can not brag about having a more difficult schedule. I know it takes years to accomplish this sometimes.

After TXST won back to back titles in 21 and 22, we realized we needed to beef up the schedule and played Houston, Texas, and Oklahoma this year. You probably will not beat them, but I would rather be 8-4 with quality opponent losses than 12-0 with creampuffs.

And obviously so does the NCAA.