MVCfans.com

SWOMO is ingrained in my mind. It's like if I told you to change the word "the" to "teh" every time you typed it. It would be pretty dang hard unless you're one of those two-finger poker people. That really wasn't the point of my post though, I promise.

At this point I think Missouri State needs a deep dive into the abyss before they can succeed. Same thing with SIU. It's weird because Missouri State wouldn't accept mediocrity with Barry but are fine with it from Lusk. Bradley's a good example of a school who didn't accept mediocrity (Les) and unfortunately took a dive (Ford) but it will all be worth it if Wardle can succeed. It's better to have tried and failed than failed to try.

My thoughts on the MSU schedule is that Lusk & the coaching staff are trying to save their jobs. If they don't make it to the big dance they'll try and spin it that they won 25 games & hope no one mentions the weak non-conference schedule.

This MSU schedule screams job preservation to me... also maybe they'll try and spin it to recruits that they won a lot of games...

Scheduling is extremely tough in this modern era of college basketball but I have to imagine Lusk could have done better if he wanted to. This is seems strategical to me. I really hate to see the projected top teams schedule like this.

I'd love for the MVC presidents to step up and introduce non-conference scheduling standards to improve the odds for the Top Teams in the Conference to get an outright bid every year.

AndShock wrote:SWOMO is ingrained in my mind. It's like if I told you to change the word "the" to "teh" every time you typed it. It would be pretty dang hard unless you're one of those two-finger poker people. That really wasn't the point of my post though, I promise.

At this point I think Missouri State needs a deep dive into the abyss before they can succeed. Same thing with SIU. It's weird because Missouri State wouldn't accept mediocrity with Barry but are fine with it from Lusk. Bradley's a good example of a school who didn't accept mediocrity (Les) and unfortunately took a dive (Ford) but it will all be worth it if Wardle can succeed. It's better to have tried and failed than failed to try.

I'll disagree about MSU and Barry. We had him or 9 years. 9 years without a valley title or an ncaa bid. That's a pretty long time. The same thing will eventually happen with Lusk if he doesn't turn it around.

I would argue that we/MSU were far too accepting of mediocrity in both cases. In the past with Barry and now with Lusk.

VU2014 wrote:My thoughts on the MSU schedule is that Lusk & the coaching staff are trying to save their jobs. If they don't make it to the big dance they'll try and spin it that they won 25 games & hope no one mentions the weak non-conference schedule.

This MSU schedule scream job preservation to me... also maybe they'll try and spin it to recruits that they won a lot of games...

Scheduling is extremely tough in this modern era of college basketball but I have to imagine Lusk could have done better if he wanted to. This is seems strategical to me. I really hate to see the projected top teams schedule like this.

I'd love for the MVC presidents to step up and introduce non-conference scheduling standards to improve the odds for the Top Teams in the Conference to get an outright bid every year.

And Kyle Moats. Moats saves his job by Lusk saving his. This schedule is a golden parachute for Lusk's boss too.

glm38 wrote:

AndShock wrote:SWOMO is ingrained in my mind. It's like if I told you to change the word "the" to "teh" every time you typed it. It would be pretty dang hard unless you're one of those two-finger poker people. That really wasn't the point of my post though, I promise.

At this point I think Missouri State needs a deep dive into the abyss before they can succeed. Same thing with SIU. It's weird because Missouri State wouldn't accept mediocrity with Barry but are fine with it from Lusk. Bradley's a good example of a school who didn't accept mediocrity (Les) and unfortunately took a dive (Ford) but it will all be worth it if Wardle can succeed. It's better to have tried and failed than failed to try.

I'll disagree about MSU and Barry. We had him or 9 years. 9 years without a valley title or an ncaa bid. That's a pretty long time. The same thing will eventually happen with Lusk if he doesn't turn it around.

I would argue that we/MSU were far too accepting of mediocrity in both cases. In the past with Barry and now with Lusk.

I guess Barry could've been fired after Year 5 but he really was good enough to not deserve a firing after that. Postseason appearance in Year 6 and then the epic snub in Year 7 and took 3rd in the MVC's last solid year in Year 8. Then they canned him when he came back down. Barry's record by year looks a heck of a lot better than Lusk's at this point and I'm guessing the difficulty of their schedules is quite different, even if you only look at MVC play.

VU2014 wrote:My thoughts on the MSU schedule is that Lusk & the coaching staff are trying to save their jobs. If they don't make it to the big dance they'll try and spin it that they won 25 games & hope no one mentions the weak non-conference schedule.

This MSU schedule screams job preservation to me... also maybe they'll try and spin it to recruits that they won a lot of games...

Scheduling is extremely tough in this modern era of college basketball but I have to imagine Lusk could have done better if he wanted to. This is seems strategical to me. I really hate to see the projected top teams schedule like this.

The Marty Simmons approach to scheduling. Beat a bunch of plebs in the OOC to rack up wins and go "SEE, I'M WINNING 20 GAMES PER YEAR!!!!!"

It's worked for Marty. He's a decade, plus, into being at Evansville using that model. UE fans have mediocrity so ingrained in them at this point, many defend Marty for it.

Is scheduling hard? I mean, it's not that it's easy. However, when WSU and CU were in the MVC they didn't have issues scheduling. UNI doesn't have issues scheduling.

My guess is that it's schools not willing to actually really schedule up. More of a "See, we are trying but we can't get a top 30 school to come to us so we are just going to give up".

MissouriValleyUnite wrote:And Kyle Moats. Moats saves his job by Lusk saving his. This schedule is a golden parachute for Lusk's boss too.

Except a schedule like this won't solve the more impactful issue which is attendance which has declined dramatically under Lusk. Moats should have taken control of the scheduling and made something happen, but maybe this was a way he could distance himself from Lusk and put it all on him[LUSK] so a firing could be pushed through w/o any resistance. It was close last spring and many were surprised it didn't happen. Who knows, but it is what it is.

uniftw wrote:The Marty Simmons approach to scheduling. Beat a bunch of plebs in the OOC to rack up wins and go "SEE, I'M WINNING 20 GAMES PER YEAR!!!!!"

It's worked for Marty. He's a decade, plus, into being at Evansville using that model. UE fans have mediocrity so ingrained in them at this point, many defend Marty for it.

Is scheduling hard? I mean, it's not that it's easy. However, when WSU and CU were in the MVC they didn't have issues scheduling. UNI doesn't have issues scheduling.

My guess is that it's schools not willing to actually really schedule up. More of a "See, we are trying but we can't get a top 30 school to come to us so we are just going to give up".

Illinois State has also been able to make significant upgrades to it's non-conference schedule in recent years. Finding teams willing to play on the road can be tough, but this nonconf schedule shows that Mo State isn't even trying to put together a decent schedule.

uniftw wrote:Is scheduling hard? I mean, it's not that it's easy. However, when WSU and CU were in the MVC they didn't have issues scheduling. UNI doesn't have issues scheduling.

My guess is that it's schools not willing to actually really schedule up. More of a "See, we are trying but we can't get a top 30 school to come to us so we are just going to give up".

I'd say scheduling is pretty difficult at least imo.

What's difficult is getting return games against Power Conference/Big East & good A10 schools (even AAC schools). Many of the P5/BE schools would rather just buy home games and lower their risk of having to play TRUE away games in another schools arena, especially when the mid-major school is projected to be pretty good. Look at what NC State just did to Loyola. They took the 1st home game and the Keats took the cowards way out by not playing on the road.

I know at least with Valpo we've struggle to get Power 5/Big East & even good A10 schools to play us at our arena. We got Rhode Island to do a Home-&-Home and we beat them last year. We've been able to get plenty of good road games Kentucky, Oregon, Oregon St, Purdue, Northwestern, etc over the years, but the series are are much more difficult to land especially when your team is projected to be pretty good.

I even know certain MVC schools that refused H-&-H series with Valpo the 6-7 years... not going to name names but its tough and there is a bit of a Conference pecking order. The Big East has more leverage then the A10 and good A10 teams have more leverage then MVC teams and the MVC has more leverage then the Horizon.

I am very impressed specifically with how UNI has been able to schedule. Jacobson has definitely establish some nice relationships among coaching circles which have helped them.

The thing that bothers me is that we have coaches going public defending it saying "it's too hard to get games"

80%, if not not all, of MVC teams have a P5 game. ORU has 5 of them. But we can't get one.

I get you need home games but when it's a year you're suppose to be challenging for a bid, you can't schedule like this.