MVC/MWC Challenge Improvement

[UEACES80]

Just offering suggestions that apparently hit a nerve again.

[mule]

Just offering suggestions that apparently hit a nerve again.

Nice try. Apparently no humor to be found from the upper echelons. How about this. Let's all play the game with the same size balls.

[uniftw]

Just offering suggestions that apparently hit a nerve again.

Our teams, and conference, RPI being nuked by programs playing dog s*** OOC schedules isn't funny to teams at the top.

If Evansville can ever manage to finish in the top 3 or 4 with any consistency eventually you won't find it funny either.

[Cdizzle]

Just offering suggestions that apparently hit a nerve again.

Our teams, and conference, RPI being nuked by programs playing dog s*** OOC schedules isn't funny to teams at the top.

If Evansville can ever manage to finish in the top 3 or 4 with any consistency eventually you won't find it funny either.

When Evansville manages to win the conference tournament some year, gets a 15 seed, and gets pounded by 30, don't come crying to me.

The league needs to start instituting tougher scheduling requirements and penalties. Think it's funny that WSU was a play-in team last year? That's great. No NCAA shares. Spread it to the people that will try.

[uniftw]

Just offering suggestions that apparently hit a nerve again.

Our teams, and conference, RPI being nuked by programs playing dog s*** OOC schedules isn't funny to teams at the top.

If Evansville can ever manage to finish in the top 3 or 4 with any consistency eventually you won't find it funny either.

When Evansville manages to win the conference tournament some year, gets a 15 seed, and gets pounded by 30, don't come crying to me.

The league needs to start instituting tougher scheduling requirements and penalties. Think it's funny that WSU was a play-in team last year? That's great. No NCAA shares. Spread it to the people that will try.

Maybe a rule that says if your SOS isn't top 130 you don't get NCAA shares.

Or if you don't have an NCAA appearance in the last decade you don't get any

[UEACES80]

I like the SOS thought - but until such a rule is implemented none of us have any say on what teams any school schedules.

[Cdizzle]

I like the SOS thought - but until such a rule is implemented none of us have any say on what teams any school schedules.

We still:
(a) Won't have a say if that becomes rule. Unless your fans are making the schedule up there. Which might explain a lot.
(b) Have the right to complain about the crap schedules UE (and others) put together.

[Cdizzle]

Our teams, and conference, RPI being nuked by programs playing dog s*** OOC schedules isn't funny to teams at the top.

If Evansville can ever manage to finish in the top 3 or 4 with any consistency eventually you won't find it funny either.

When Evansville manages to win the conference tournament some year, gets a 15 seed, and gets pounded by 30, don't come crying to me.

The league needs to start instituting tougher scheduling requirements and penalties. Think it's funny that WSU was a play-in team last year? That's great. No NCAA shares. Spread it to the people that will try.

Maybe a rule that says if your SOS isn't top 130 you don't get NCAA shares.

Or if you don't have an NCAA appearance in the last decade you don't get any

I think 130 is too high. Scheduling really is hard. I get that. Not everyone needs to put together an at-large worthy schedule every year. But we have to get rid of the 300+. That's just a killer. Somewhere closer to 200-225, I would think. Or some semblance of a tiered system.

I also think the system would need to be a rolling 3 or 4 year window. If you're Bradley and you suck but you're spending money to blow it up and try to rebuild, I don't mind a couple years of crap schedules as you rebuild a team and try to build a winning culture. But by year 3 or 4, you should be putting together better schedules. Teams at the bottom that are trying need the money so they can keep trying. I don't even care that much about if you haven't been to the NCAA in the past however many years, as I think that just creates a 'rich get richer' system that really doesn't help anyone.

Looking at it a different way. Taking away a share from some team and re-splitting across the league might net WSU $100k. My guess is that that $100k spent on schedule improvement (2 or 3 way better buy games) at a school like Indiana State is probably actually going to result in more net benefit in WSU's numbers (not to mention the benefit to other league members) than if WSU had spent that $100k. But right now, the league is handing it out and some folks are just flushing it down the toilet. Lets give it to the schools who give a damn.

[SubGod22]

Wasn't the old standard a noncon SOS of 150? Or noncon RPI of 150? I'm pretty sure something was set at 150 and I think that's fair. Even if you wanted to say 150 in at least 1 of 2 years would be fine to allow a little buffer.

I don't have noncon numbers, but five schools ended with a SOS better than 150 last season. UNI (91), ISUr (99), Wichita (107), Bradley (120) and ISUb (121). The other five.... MSU (176), Evansville (181), Drake (197), Loyola (237), SIU (251). This is according to RealTime anyway.

So going with 200-225 or so really wouldn't be changing anything. Unless some of these were drastically upgraded by the conference schedule.

If Evansville had a schedule in the top 150, they may have at least put themselves in the NIT or at least gotten on the bubble. They should have been aiming higher than that, but at least it would have been something.

Regardless, scheduling needs to improve at a number of schools. You don't have to play a bunch of top 25 types to improve the schedule. You just have to make an effort and do some research on the schools from mid to lower tier conferences and get the best of those. Finding some mid level teams, or even lower level teams, in top conferences can help. This is where MTE's can help. Playing a bunch of bad teams in bad conferences doesn't help anyone unless all you care about are wins regardless of who you're playing.

[LanceShock]

Actually, it was worse than that. According to rpiforecast, these were the nonconference SOS for last year:
WSU 13
UNI 38
Evansville 223
IlSU 10
SIU 327
InSU 92
MSU 261
Loyola 319
Bradley 306
Drake 289

Only 4 schools had a nonconference SOS below 200, let alone 150. Going to 250 only gets you to 5 schools.