Big dance possibilities

[LanceShock]

The Redbirds are definitely trying to put together a good nonconference schedule, unlike other Valley teams. When rest of the Valley is a bad as it has been this year, it is difficult to put together a good enough nonconference schedule to balance out the Valley schedule unless you are near perfect in the nonconference.

[Old School MVC]

And if your team is pretty good, not many of the P5 school will want to play you. They would rather schedule the lower half of the MVC instead of the upper half. The P5 do not need to worry about RPI, it takes care of itself during their Conference season, they just want a Win.

[BCPanther]

There are exactly 3 schools in this league that give a damn about what their non-conference schedules look like and, shockingly, those are the 3 most disillusioned that would probably take the first reasonable train out of the league. It's like there's a hidden meaning here or something....

[TheAsianSensation]

ISU played Diamond Head and went on the road to TCU. In a year they needed their non-con SoS to be great...it was good. Needed a bit more high-end stuff. Got burned by UNM and Tulsa being down, missing Utah in Diamond Head. They need to figure out how to get more access to power conference teams, but gone are the days of Jankovic.

TheAsianSensation, I checked out your "bracketball" site. I noticed it's dated Monday, February 13, 2017...do you know something we don't?

It'ts the only way I can pin the S-Curve post to the top of the blog.

[WSpringsBird]

Maybe if the Redbirds would actually challenge themselves out of conference for a change, their NCAA fortunes would improve.

Not to defend ISUr here, because I certainly hate doing that. But last season, they did play @ #1 Kentucky and #2 Maryland, as well as @ San Diego St. So i'll cut them a little bit of slack with regard to scheduling. That being said, In a year where they have a legit shot at an at-large bid, it would be nice to see them with more than one game against the RPI top 50 (3, potentially 4 if Wichita creeps in there but still).

Yeah, that was an odd criticism. IlSU's nonconference strength of schedule was 7th in the country last year. It's 70th this year, but as is the case with WSU's non-conference schedule, it probably looked better than that when it was put together. Next year we're playing in a tourney in Puerto Rico that includes, among others, Florida State and South Carolina. You may fairly criticize Dan Muller for many things, but he has really elevated the level of the nonconference schedule.

[Cdizzle]

There are exactly 3 schools in this league that give a damn about what their non-conference schedules look like and, shockingly, those are the 3 most disillusioned that would probably take the first reasonable train out of the league. It's like there's a hidden meaning here or something....

Says the fan whose team played 2 fewer games than allowed this season.

[anderjao]

There are exactly 3 schools in this league that give a damn about what their non-conference schedules look like and, shockingly, those are the 3 most disillusioned that would probably take the first reasonable train out of the league. It's like there's a hidden meaning here or something....

Says the fan whose team played 2 fewer games than allowed this season.

Do you really think UNI would have been able to schedule two more teams that would have actually improved our RPI? In a season where we played UNC, Xavier twice, Iowa, and Oklahoma, I don't think you can make a good argument that UNI doesn't care about scheduling tough in the non-con. You can argue we didn't play well enough to really take advantage of it, but UNI has been scheduling quality games consistently.

[Cdizzle]

There are exactly 3 schools in this league that give a damn about what their non-conference schedules look like and, shockingly, those are the 3 most disillusioned that would probably take the first reasonable train out of the league. It's like there's a hidden meaning here or something....

Says the fan whose team played 2 fewer games than allowed this season.

Do you really think UNI would have been able to schedule two more teams that would have actually improved our RPI? In a season where we played UNC, Xavier twice, Iowa, and Oklahoma, I don't think you can make a good argument that UNI doesn't care about scheduling tough in the non-con. You can argue we didn't play well enough to really take advantage of it, but UNI has been scheduling quality games consistently.

Probably not. But then that's more of a small-time budget issue that speaks to the problem with the league that the original poster was claiming UNI was not a part of.

[Red]

I have beat the drum all season that we were doomed to be a one bid league but if you look at the landscape of college basketball, I think things might be breaking our way. The bubble is weak and if WSU and ISU can maintain at 1 or even 2 league losses, I think the MVC gets 2 teams in.

[hot nuts]

Just ridiculous that a 27 or 29 win team from the MVC is likely to be excluded.