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2010-2011 Schedule

Braves4Life said:
No disrespect Rick but PULEAZE!!!!! :!: :!:

If we don't beat this team AT HOME by 20+ points we should be ashamed and embarrassed!!
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I thought the same thing against UT arlington, loyola,etc But either way, this is weak sauce...a SWAC school is bottom of the barrel and regardless of their overall RPI, the rest of their conf schedule just brings them down as the season progresses. 199 is as good as it gets for a school from that awful league. Yet another weak home opponent the season ticket holders get to watch....boo. Our home slate may be even worse than last year, and that's hard to do. Is Utah the best we're gonna have to go see?
 
B4L, I hope you're right. Looking at last seasons schedule/results, we didn't have one 20+ win. We did win one by 20 at Evansville, but that was it. It would be refreshing to win some games by 20+ once in a while :)
 
Agree, we need to learn how to kick 'em when they are down and ask" are they dead?".

You then hear a sharp (BANG)
And respond, "now they are"...
... Much like Duke frequently does, hopefully our first taste of blood is another team, otherwise Duke will make certain we taste our own..
 
chitown fanatic said:
I thought the same thing against UT arlington, loyola,etc But either way, this is weak sauce...a SWAC school is bottom of the barrel and regardless of their overall RPI, the rest of their conf schedule just brings them down as the season progresses. 199 is as good as it gets for a school from that awful league. Yet another weak home opponent the season ticket holders get to watch....boo. Our home slate may be even worse than last year, and that's hard to do. Is Utah the best we're gonna have to go see?
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My sentiments exactly Chi-town F.
We'd better get another home opponent with RPI better than 150. (from last season and throughout next season).
 
LittleBrave said:
My sentiments exactly Chi-town F.
We'd better get another home opponent with RPI better than 150. (from last season and throughout next season).
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At this stage of the game, that is highly unlikely. while still better than other valley schools, it is a far cry from just a few years ago(UNLV, Mich St, Butler,etc) Where's a Dayton, Xavier, or even St.Louis? I have a hard time believing they're not in the same scheduling boat we are.
 
Maybe the depth of the quality of schedule can be argued, but @Duke sitting there in shiny black letters in the middle of that schedule erases a lot of concerns. I mean, even I'm biting my tongue about a SWAC school right now.
 
TheAsianSensation said:
Maybe the depth of the quality of schedule can be argued, but @Duke sitting there in shiny black letters in the middle of that schedule erases a lot of concerns. I mean, even I'm biting my tongue about a SWAC school right now.
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So what if we lose by 20+ at Duke?
Will the rest of the schedule save us and get us consideration as an At-Large team?
I hope we get a shot at N.Mex. St. - they had RPI of 51 last year.
If we don't play well vs. Duke and don't win the H.O.F. Classic tourney, there is nothing that will stand out from our non-conf. schedule, except maybe a win at WCU. That will leave us with the hope of winning the Valley to make the NCAA tourney.
I guess we just need to take it one game at a time.
 
LittleBrave said:
So what if we lose by 20+ at Duke?
Will the rest of the schedule save us and get us consideration as an At-Large team?
I hope we get a shot at N.Mex. St. - they had RPI of 51 last year.
If we don't play well vs. Duke and don't win the H.O.F. Classic tourney, there is nothing that will stand out from our non-conf. schedule, except maybe a win at WCU. That will leave us with the hope of winning the Valley to make the NCAA tourney.
I guess we just need to take it one game at a time.
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Winning the H.O.F. tourney is somewhat mandatory en route to a comfortable at-large bid, so it works out in the end.
 
Here's an interesting article on scheduling...
but a couple quotes pops out...and the guy is aiming his comments directly AT Bradley..

"..some fans screamed: Schedule tougher, even if it means playing at a
marquee opponent without a return game..
Jerry Palm's reply: Be careful. Teams don't grab one of the 34 (now 37)
at-large spots by playing the role of road loser.

"It's almost always better to win," said Palm.
"We can't lose sight as a league of the importance of getting NCAA-caliber
teams to play in our arenas," MVC commissioner Doug Elgin said. "That
doesn't necessarily mean the Dukes of the world."

Don't expect WSU coach Gregg Marshall to sell the Shockers for one night on
the road. He lived that life at Winthrop and wants no part of it.
Getting destroyed some place can hurt your confidence."

"Whatever benefit you may get from playing Duke on the road as opposed to
playing Western Illinois at home is negligible," Palm said. "You're not going to
impress anybody either way. Beating Western Illinois is better than losing to
Duke for the RPI in almost every case."

"Bradley coach Jim Les, already one of the Valley's best schedulers, is doing
just that. His team, experienced with three senior guards, is playing at Duke
on ESPN or ESPN2 this season. He let the team vote, and said the Braves
unanimously wanted the challenge.

"I'm not crazy about (playing road games without a return)," he said. "This is
a special situation, a special experience. In the past nine years, this is the
only one we've done."



Also - a little about WSU's schedule...
"WSU's 2010-11 schedule isn't complete. From what's known, it appears to
hit the marks for a smart schedule. The Shockers play in a Maui Invitational
field that also includes Kentucky, Michigan State, Connecticut, Oklahoma,
Virginia, Washington and Chaminade. The Shockers travel to Mountain West
Conference tournament champion San Diego State, meet LSU at Shreveport,
La., and play host to Tulsa. The unknown is how home games against weak
opponents will affect schedule strength. In 2010, CollegeRPI.com ranked
WSU's strength of schedule No. 105 overall and No. 284 for non-conference
games. Five non-conference opponents ranked No. 250 or lower."
http://www.kansas.com/2010/07/25/1418137/basketball-scheduling-has-pitfalls.html
 
It's funny because I've noticed a trend in the past few years of the selection committee devaluing wins against RPI 51-100 teams, against good but not great teams in upper-major conferences, and the like. It seemed like the true marquee wins were more apt to get rewarded more than a good solid "pocket collection" of wins against decent teams (borrowing my own phrase).

It's becoming increasingly more difficult to find an optimal scheduling path to get an at-large bid.
 
Palm is right, in that, it's not enough to go on the road and play Duke.

I haven't been sold on JL the scheduler the way many others have. I do think last year's schedules and this year's could be by far his best, and deserve commendation.

But playing Florida and Michigan State and losing doesn't do anything for you when you balance it out with SIUE, UMKC, SEMO, Milwaukee, FGCU and go on the road to UIC. In fact that does more damage than the benefit you gained.

So, playing 1-2 of those games is OK, but you can't sacrifice the quality of the rest of your schedule. If you do, then it's not OK.
 
squirrelgotdead said:
... with SIUE, UMKC, SEMO, Milwaukee, FGCU and go on the road to UIC.
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SIUE mighta been a "gift" for a previous assistant coach.
UMKC was in a holiday tourney.
We gave SEMO a buy game.
Milwaukee was BracketBuster.
FGCU were in holiday tournies.
UIC was a home-n-home series.
 
squirrelgotdead said:
Palm is right, in that, it's not enough to go on the road and play Duke.
...
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I am not in agreement....I know he's an expert, and he's entitled to his opinion, but let me state mine....
I think one of the main points of that column is to show how far from the mainstream and how far out on a limb Palm is what that theory of his...because Doug Elgin and all the AD's in the MVC are among the MANY who will disagree!

He says......
"I can't think of a single team that missed the NCAA Tournament that would have made it by replacing wins by losing to better teams."

But I sure can....and two of them were in OUR conference!!
Had ISU ended 2009-2010 or 2008-2009 with a SOS in the Top 40, they'd have gotten a bid....but they didn't strictly due to the fact they didn't go on the road to play or beat anyone!!

Palm takes the viewpoint that winning gobs of easy games at home against absolute nobodies is the way to go!
What??? Has he been under a rock the last 3-4 years?? Is he just maybe referring ONLY to teams in BCS conferences that KNOW they are going to be in the upper part of their conference and that they are going to easily secure an NCAA bid anyway?


Intentionally scheduling gobs of softies and cupcakes at home for easy wins, had CLEARLY proven beyond question
to be ABSOLUTE SUICIDE for any mid-major wanting an NCAA bid....just ask any ISU fan!! I'll bet 100% of them wishes they'd gone on the road and played Duke last year....it WOULD have helped BOTH their RPI and SOS!
 
tornado said:
I am not in agreement....and I think one of the main points of that column is to show how far from the mainstream and how far out on a limb Palm is what that theory of his...


Intentionally scheduling gobs of softies and cupcakes at home for easy wins, had CLEARLY proven beyond question
to be ABSOLUTE SUICIDE for any mid-major wanting an NCAA bid....just ask any ISU fan!! I'll bet 100% of them wishes they'd gone on the road and played Duke last year....it WOULD have helped BOTH their RPI and SOS!
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I think the point Palm was making was that going on the road to play several Dukes is not good. Also doing what ISU is doing is not good. It's the middle ground, the equilibrium, that he's saying is optimal. He's not saying to pull an ISU.
 
Exactly. It's perfectly ok to play those games, conditionally.

Again, the RPI numbers do not hold up if you counter 2 games against those types of teams with 6 baddies.

It's much better to have better average quality.

Again using 2009 as an example, I would have much rather sacrificed the tournament and Florida (where as Mob points out we had FGCU and UMKC) for a couple home games vs 2 mids that were strong league or NCAA contenders or even middle-pack or also-ran BCS or CUSA type. I'm not saying it would have been easy or even possible, but simply pointing out how that would be a more favorable schedule for the RPI.

And when I see Duke on the schedule, and also a SWAC team, that tells me we're doing something to counter the loss. And that's bad practice.
 
Palm is taking it from a pure numbers perspective. Almost any win will help more than any loss for your RPI. Which is true, but beating Western Illinois at home isn't going to help you with anything.
 
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squirrelgotdead said:
Exactly. It's perfectly ok to play those games, conditionally.

Again, the RPI numbers do not hold up if you counter 2 games against those types of teams with 6 baddies.

It's much better to have better average quality.

Again using 2009 as an example, I would have much rather sacrificed the tournament and Florida (where as Mob points out we had FGCU and UMKC) for a couple home games vs 2 mids that were strong league or NCAA contenders or even middle-pack or also-ran BCS or CUSA type. I'm not saying it would have been easy or even possible, but simply pointing out how that would be a more favorable schedule for the RPI.

And when I see Duke on the schedule, and also a SWAC team, that tells me we're doing something to counter the loss. And that's bad practice.
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I can agree with ya Squirrel.

Here's an example for ya that fits your argument.

Duquesne 2008-09 season
RPI 75
SOS 97

L @ #1 (RPI) Duke
L @ #2 Pitt
L home to #21 W Virginia

W @ #322 St Francis-PA
W home vs #325 High Point
W home vs #332 Furman
W home vs #336 NCCU (NC Central)

Duquesne finished the year 21-12, 9-7 tied for 5th in the A10 (which finished the 8/9th best conference in rpi). In the A10 Tourney, they won 3 games over #152 UMass, #68 URI, and #27 Dayton before losing the title game to #30 Temple. Dayton and Xavier got at-large bids to the NCAA while Duquesne didn't get a sniff (along with URI).
 
bdhove12 said:
Palm is taking it from a pure numbers perspective. Almost any win will help more than any loss for your RPI. Which is true, but beating Western Illinois at home is going to help you with anything.
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How could beating WIU be helpful?

I think if we play Duke tough and lose, and if Duke stays in Top 10 - people will look us, whereas people will gloss over a 30-pt. win over a cupcake team.
 
Great example Mob. Even if they drop one of those 300+ teams, they would have been on the outside looking in, IMO.

I think one also has to take into account the disparity that has been created by the addition of nearly 40 teams to DI in the last 15 years, as well.

Sure it creates more buy games and cupcakes to fatten up on, but realize those teams at the bottom of the barrel are nearly 20-33% more harmful to your RPI.

That's a dynamic that has just evolved really the last 10 years, and it doesn't get adequate discussion in the RPI convo.

In other words. . .many of the newbies to DI are only too eager to take buy games. So the market is flooded with teams (and leagues) who have overwhelmingly bad records.

And unfortunately, while the BCS types can feast all they want and win 1/3 of the games on their schedule with those schools basically without penalty because all their conference brethren are building up gaudy records too, the MVC, CAA, and A10 see the greatest impact.

The MVC et al. schools are kind of caught in the middle. They need to adopt the same model as the BCS, but given the fact that some of the teams in the conference need to venture out on the road and take some buy games, the W-L % isn't always going to be there.

Secondly, with more teams willing to be bought in the bottom 1/3 of DI, that means more schools are able to do the buying. So where 10-15 years ago the MVC had more scheduling power due to greater buying power, a good deal of that leverage is gone because more teams at and even a little below the MVC level are increasingly less likely to play on the road against a Valley team, and in greater numbers are more willing to be bought by the BCS schools and so therefore the quality of schools that the MVC can schedule has thinned considerably.
 
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