MUScoop
MUScoop => Hangin' at the Al => Topic started by: MattVelazquez on March 13, 2016, 11:00:03 PM
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Steve Wojciechowski discusses method behind Marquette's 2015-'16 schedule
Marquette had a lot of positive going for it heading into the NIT Selection Show. The Golden Eagles' résumé featured 7 RPI top-100 wins, which was among the best for at-large teams under consideration for the NIT. They also had a pair of road wins against RPI top-50 teams, the most among possible at-large selections.
Source: Steve Wojciechowski discusses method behind Marquette's 2015-'16 schedule (http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/371940711.html)
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That can't be. Our local Scoop experts said Wojo, Nelson, Diener, Carawell, and Johnson just sat with their feet up on Wojo's desk and threw darts on a wall plastered with the names of teams with a projected RPI of 300+ to determine our non-conference schedule.
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Losing Taylor was a big loss, he would have given them experience and another body upfront. NN was a problem child, no fault of Wojo, he had issues, and hope he
recovers from them. Not sure really why Taylor left, he would have gotten time at the 3 and 4 and probably would have played 20-25 minutes a game this year, maybe
more since Luke was always in trouble with fouls? Why did he leave?
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That can't be. Our local Scoop experts said Wojo, Nelson, Diener, Carawell, and Johnson just sat with their feet up on Wojo's desk and threw darts on a wall plastered with the names of teams with a projected RPI of 300+ to determine our non-conference schedule.
When did anyone ever said that? This schedule was always calculated. Stupid, but calculated.
However, for them to say they built the schedule like this for a reason and then lament why they missed the postseason is just ridiculous. Because they chose to play a schedule that allowed them no leeway and required them to win 22 games just to make the NIT.
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When did anyone ever said that? This schedule was always calculated. Stupid, but calculated.
However, for them to say they built the schedule like this for a reason and then lament why they missed the postseason is just ridiculous. Because they chose to play a schedule that allowed them no leeway and required them to win 22 games just to make the NIT.
Have yet to see them lament why the missed the postseason.
Not sure how it was stupid. I guess going 13-19 again but having a better SOS would've been better...
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Northwestern OOC SOS: 345
Marquette OOC SOS: 344
This is the Duke formula of getting fat on cupcakes, but K can demand bigger cupcakes to visit their home court, and they can play all their away OOC games on a neutral court.
MU misplayed this hoping to fill out with better games that didn't materialize. Instead we got Stetson.
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Have yet to see them lament why the missed the postseason.
Not sure how it was stupid. I guess going 13-19 again but having a better SOS would've been better...
I mean maybe is does. The 20 wins certainly didn't help with attendance or getting into the post season. Even if they beat Depaul, they're still not in the NIT with that non conference. It did end up hurting Marquette.
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Northwestern OOC SOS: 345
Marquette OOC SOS: 344
This is the Duke formula of getting fat on cupcakes, but K can demand bigger cupcakes to visit their home court, and they can play all their away OOC games on a neutral court.
MU misplayed this hoping to fill out with better games that didn't materialize. Instead we got Stetson.
Last year we were at 173 OOC SOS.
Northwestern was at 217 OOC SOS.
Did the Duke formula only start this year?
Just for giggles, Bert's last year....209 OOC SOS
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That can't be. Our local Scoop experts said Wojo, Nelson, Diener, Carawell, and Johnson just sat with their feet up on Wojo's desk and threw darts on a wall plastered with the names of teams with a projected RPI of 300+ to determine our non-conference schedule.
Lol yeah no one said that, almost the opposite. They knew exactly what they were doing with this schedule and it was a bad idea then and still a bad idea. Hindsight is 20/20 but there was no margin for error for this young team because of the way the schedule was designed. I can guarantee you it will not happen again, on to next year.
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Last year we were at 173 OOC SOS.
Northwestern was at 217 OOC SOS.
Did the Duke formula only start this year?
Just for giggles, Bert's last year....209 OOC SOS
Well, according to the Broeker article, these schedules are put together a year plus in advance, and more. Meaning last year's schedule was put mainly together under Bert. So, the 344 is directly under Wojo. This schedule is the one over the last 15 that Broeker has assembled that is so different in SOS. Odd, but that 209 which turned into a 20 overall, gets MU into the NIT if not the Big Dance.
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Hindsight is always 20-20. For a very young team to go to Italy and to have a cupcake schedule seemed to make sense last fall. The team would get maximum time under the lights, and would then be ready for the Big East season.
The trade off was cup cakes as appetiser in the belief that the Warriors would having a winning record when the main course of conference play began. Oops!
The Warriors were not ready for conference play and it was not until the last two-thirds of the season that they somewhat righted the ship by going 6-6 in the Big East.
OK, the approach didn't work. Next year it would sad, and not very smart, if the Athletic Department took the same approach. However, I am sure the 2016-17 schedule will reflect the lesson learned.
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One factor here will be the faith folks have (or don't) when it comes to season ticket renewals. Roster transition should be complete by the time folks have to decide. Scheduling won't have been announced as of that date. MU better hope the news on the first part is neutral to positive.
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Have yet to see them lament why the missed the postseason.
Not sure how it was stupid. I guess going 13-19 again but having a better SOS would've been better...
I guess you didn't read the article this thread is about then:
Head coach Steve Wojciechowski said as of Sunday night he hadn't spoken with any members of the NIT selection committee about their decision to leave Marquette out of the field.
"Certainly we'll try to figure that out because it's hard to figure out right now," he told the Journal Sentinel on Sunday night.
Further, Broeker was trying to get ahead of this by pointing out all our positives for NIT inclusion on Twitter Saturday night. They seem to think they legitimately had a shot and now are upset they didn't get in. Give me a break. This was always the reality of things.
The schedule meant we needed to go 11-7 or better in conference play to get in to the NCAAs and at least needed a winning conference record to get into the NIT. Considering we actually went 8-10, I'm not sure why they are surprised and feel they needed to plead their case. They never had a case to plead.
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I guess you didn't read the article this thread is about then:
Further, Broeker was trying to get ahead of this by pointing out all our positives for NIT inclusion on Twitter Saturday night. They seem to think they legitimately had a shot and now are upset they didn't get in. Give me a break. This was always the reality of things.
The schedule meant we needed to go 11-7 or better in conference play to get in to the NCAAs and at least needed a winning conference record to get into the NIT. Considering we actually went 8-10, I'm not sure why they are surprised and feel they needed to plead their case. They never had a case to plead.
What's worse is this was obvious in September when they announced it....hell we did a whole pod on how the schedule required us to win at least 21 games to make any kind of post season. If they are legitimately in the dark A) they are the only ones B) an argument could be made they should be fired for being that clueless.
I'm going to run the math today now that all regular season games are done, but if the 7 games that were 300+ become 200+ instead we're in at least the NIT. And the argument that this team needed to play the fattest of the cupcakes to get better is ridiculous.
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What's worse is this was obvious in September when they announced it....hell we did a whole pod on how the schedule required us to win at least 21 games to make any kind of post season. If they are legitimately in the dark A) they are the only ones B) an argument could be made they should be fired for being that clueless.
I'm going to run the math today now that all regular season games are done, but if the 7 games that were 300+ become 200+ instead we're in at least the NIT. And the argument that this team needed to play the fattest of the cupcakes to get better is ridiculous.
You don't even need to change that much. I did the math changing just 4 opponents and it would make us a NIT lock even if we had gone 3-1 against tougher competition.
I'm guessing we improved about as much playing Grambling and Presbyterian as we did playing Valley City State.
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And the argument that this team needed to play the fattest of the cupcakes to get better is ridiculous.
+1,000,000
I have refrained from commenting on the schedule up until now, because, what's the point?
But there is NO value in terms of team development in playing against teams that are not competitive. Forget the impact on RPI and the effect it has on our postseason chances, but beating bottom of the barrel teams causes you to develop bad habits because you can get away with lazy lob passes, etc. The only benefits are that you can give minutes to the end of your bench and Wojo's career record is now above .500.
But I can see MU's point with this schedule. Any time you can retard your team's development, alienate your fan base, and hurt your team's chances at a postseason bid, you gotta do it.
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brewcity, do you have the link to your post on the schedule substitution? It was a perfect summary.
Reading that article doesn't give me much faith that the Athletic Dept. understood the consequences of the schedule when they put it together.
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An argument can also be made that LSU, NC State, St Johns and DePaul really hosed Marquette by being so awful compared to what they were the previous year. Here is the "projected" RPI(assuming similar performance to the previous year) and what the RPI actually turned out being.
RPI Projection Actual RPI
Belmont 100 92
IUPUI 258 239
Iowa 40 67
LSU 65 128
North Carolina St 32 180
Jackson State 317 158
Grambling 351 343
Maine 338 298
San Jose State 336 333
Wisconsin 51 95
Chicago State 333 351
Presbyterian 314 289
Stetson 335 298
Butler 30 67
Georgetown 24 202
DePaul 197 286
Saint John's 52 324
Villanova 6 3
Xavier 28 5
Creighton 156 136
Seton Hall 103 34
Providence 25 57
Basically it reinforces how stupid the scheduling was.....scheduling a projected 7 300+ RPI teams puts you on such a razors edge that you have to either win almost everything or hope that all the "good teams" perform at at least the same as previous year level or both. The average RPI rank of our opponents was 164, projected had it at 132....and that's with at least 3 teams (Stetson, Jackson State, and Maine significantly outperforming their forecast.
Really really question Broeker here, especially if they are now putting out a "we didn't know" narrative.
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Gasaway mentioned on Twitter last night that the PAC 12 gamed the RPI. Just took a quick look at their schedules, lots of 200+, and I think they tried to limit the 300+.
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What's worse is this was obvious in September when they announced it....hell we did a whole pod on how the schedule required us to win at least 21 games to make any kind of post season. If they are legitimately in the dark A) they are the only ones B) an argument could be made they should be fired for being that clueless.
I'm going to run the math today now that all regular season games are done, but if the 7 games that were 300+ become 200+ instead we're in at least the NIT. And the argument that this team needed to play the fattest of the cupcakes to get better is ridiculous.
Every team schedules a few 300+ teams. Don't change all seven. Change four for a realistic schedule. As brew points out, upgrading four gets us into the nit. Upgrading four and beating two of depaul, Creighton, and Belmont and were dancing
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Marquette gambled and lost. The margin for error was very thin and the losses to DePaul and Creighton killed them. Win those 2 and MU finishes 4th in BE and heads into a BET match-up with Providence. IOW, they'd be in the NIT.
Cry all you want about the non-conf schedule but if MU doesn't blow two winnable, conference home games, it's a moot point.
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Every team schedules a few 300+ teams. Don't change all seven. Change four for a realistic schedule. As brew points out, upgrading four gets us into the nit. Upgrading four and beating two of depaul, Creighton, and Belmont and were dancing
To be fair we only ended up with 3 teams that were 300+ in our control(St John's was also 300+ so we had 5 total). Two were just barely clear, but clear nonetheless. I think you have to have no more than 1 300+ OOC game, just in case you have a St Johns in your conference schedule.
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brewcity, do you have the link to your post on the schedule substitution? It was a perfect summary.
Reading that article doesn't give me much faith that the Athletic Dept. understood the consequences of the schedule when they put it together.
http://www.muscoop.com/index.php?topic=50537.msg803881#msg803881
Gasaway mentioned on Twitter last night that the PAC 12 gamed the RPI. Just took a quick look at their schedules, lots of 200+, and I think they tried to limit the 300+.
Andy Glockner shared a fantastic piece about this on Twitter last night that he wrote 10 years ago:
http://gwhoops.com/default.aspx?mid=15710
The RPI is all about gaming the system. It doesn't evaluate the quality of a team, it evaluates scheduling savvy. The MVC has played the formula for years by being careful with whom they schedule and requiring home games back from high-majors. Other leagues like the Horizon and now Pac-12 are trying to do the same.
The Big East would be wise to require the same. Teams that can go 9-9 in our league should be in the tournament. Teams that go 8-10 should be in the NIT. Creighton and Marquette had their share of slip-ups that cost them bids, but better scheduling would have given both a better chance. Creighton played like a NCAA team the past 3 months and is in the NIT. Marquette played like a NIT team and is out in the cold.
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http://www.muscoop.com/index.php?topic=50537.msg803881#msg803881
Andy Glockner shared a fantastic piece about this on Twitter last night that he wrote 10 years ago:
http://gwhoops.com/default.aspx?mid=15710
The RPI is all about gaming the system. It doesn't evaluate the quality of a team, it evaluates scheduling savvy. The MVC has played the formula for years by being careful with whom they schedule and requiring home games back from high-majors. Other leagues like the Horizon and now Pac-12 are trying to do the same.
The Big East would be wise to require the same. Teams that can go 9-9 in our league should be in the tournament. Teams that go 8-10 should be in the NIT. Creighton and Marquette had their share of slip-ups that cost them bids, but better scheduling would have given both a better chance. Creighton played like a NCAA team the past 3 months and is in the NIT. Marquette played like a NIT team and is out in the cold.
The other issue that scheduling really can't help is that there were 15 auto-bids to the NIT. Stupid rule by the NCAA as this makes the NIT less desirable as there are much fewer names in it. Had it been a "normal year" Marquette gets into the NIT on its merits this year.
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The other issue that scheduling really can't help is that there were 15 auto-bids to the NIT. Stupid rule by the NCAA as this makes the NIT less desirable as there are much fewer names in it. Had it been a "normal year" Marquette gets into the NIT on its merits this year.
Maybe, maybe not. Were the last two years "normal years"? We missed the NIT in 2014 with a 92 RPI and last year the lowest RPI was 90 for Arizona State. Perhaps most shocking this year is that Creighton not only made the field, but will get a home game. With their 100 RPI, they are the lowest in the field by 12 spots. Hmm...maybe the NIT knows they will pack 19,000 in for that game?
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Marquette gambled and lost. The margin for error was very thin and the losses to DePaul and Creighton killed them. Win those 2 and MU finishes 4th in BE and heads into a BET match-up with Providence. IOW, they'd be in the NIT.
Cry all you want about the non-conf schedule but if MU doesn't blow two winnable, conference home games, it's a moot point.
That argument doesn't really work because we were great in close games. We could easily have lost both Providence games, the home Georgetown game, the LSU and ASU games, the IUPUI game, etc. Heck, a play here or there and we could have lost all three St. John's games. We basically would have had to win every single close game we played to get in.
There's an old saying that great teams win the close games. That is not true. Great teams win lop-sided games.
Our 12 wins against high majors were by 13,8,6,6,5,5,5,5,2,1,1,1 (4.8 avg)
Our 12 losses against high majors were by 28,21,20,18,17,15,10,10,8,8,3,1 (13.3 avg)
Only double digit win was at DePaul without their best player and the 8 point win was the SJU BET game, where we actually trailed with under 2 minutes. That's part of why I am a little less optimistic about next season. I think we were a little lucky to have the record we ended up having.
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Maybe, maybe not. Were the last two years "normal years"? We missed the NIT in 2014 with a 92 RPI and last year the lowest RPI was 90 for Arizona State. Perhaps most shocking this year is that Creighton not only made the field, but will get a home game. With their 100 RPI, they are the lowest in the field by 12 spots. Hmm...maybe the NIT knows they will pack 19,000 in for that game?
Tin foil hat alert.....Marquette told the NIT to not admit us in 2014...I'm not kidding there is some inside knowledge that indicates this
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That argument doesn't really work because we were great in close games. We could easily have lost both Providence games, the home Georgetown game, the LSU and ASU games, the IUPUI game, etc. Heck, a play here or there and we could have lost all three St. John's games. We basically would have had to win every single close game we played to get in.
There's an old saying that great teams win the close games. That is not true. Great teams win lop-sided games.
Our 12 wins against high majors were by 13,8,6,6,5,5,5,5,2,1,1,1 (4.8 avg)
Our 12 losses against high majors were by 28,21,20,18,17,15,10,10,8,8,3,1 (13.3 avg)
Only double digit win was at DePaul without their best player and the 8 point win was the SJU BET game, where we actually trailed with under 2 minutes. That's part of why I am a little less optimistic about next season. I think we were a little lucky to have the record we ended up having.
If something happens enough, at some point it's no longer luck driving it. Also think it's a glass half full/half empty view point, because there are a couple of loses that could have easily gone our way (Creighton, DePaul, Xavier and/or Georgetown away)
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I will say this. If you take Grambling, Maine, San Jose State, and and Chicago State and replace them with Loyola-Chicago, Colgate, South Alabama, and Rider, we have a top 90 RPI. We'd be in the NIT for sure.
But to get into the NCAA, even with that schedule, we would have had to have beaten Creighton, DePaul, and Butler(only thing that gets us a top 60 RPI).
Looks like more and more, LSU, NC State, St Johns and DePaul killed us.
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If something happens enough, at some point it's no longer luck driving it. Also think it's a glass half full/half empty view point, because there are a couple of loses that could have easily gone our way (Creighton, DePaul, Xavier and/or Georgetown away)
A couple that didn't could have gone our way but 8 or 10 that could've gone against did go our way. That was my point. You can call it skill, but one possession games are essentially luck because the difference can be so many things unrelated to your team (a crucial bad call, other team misses a FT, etc) And we never got closer than 6 at Georgetown, were down double digits almost the whole game and we never had the ball in the second half with the score closer than 8 (meaning every time we cut it to 6 Georgetown scored on the next possession.) That was a more comfortable win for Georgetown than perhaps any of our wins against high majors were for us.
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I just want to know when we can schedule a home series with at least one of Cincy, Louisville, Notre Dame. Maybe a Pac-12 of Big XII team who could use it too (we seem play AZ St every year anyway).
Would also be smart to lock in a multi-year series (2 for 1 or 3 for 1) with a mid-major we can expect to be decent to solid in the coming years (SLU, Duquesne, Western Kentucky, etc).
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So the question to me is, did I see anything in this team that interest me to see next year's team without Henry? >:( ;D
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Tin foil hat alert.....Marquette told the NIT to not admit us in 2014...I'm not kidding there is some inside knowledge that indicates this
I've heard another rumor they turned the NIT down because they wouldn't get a home game. Regardless, left out with a much better (18 spots) RPI than this year.
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There were about 21 teams with RPIs higher than ours that also didn't make the cut for the NIT. Tough to tell if we would have made it with fewer auto-bids.
75 UC Irvine
81 Ohio
85 Texas A&M Corpus Christi
86 East Tennessee St.
87 Stanford
90 Kansas St.
92 Grand Canyon
93 Evansville
94 LSU
96 ULM
97 Ole Miss
98 UC Santa Barbara
99 Sienna
100 Arizona State
102 Boise St.
103 UCLA
104 James Madison
105 UT-Arlington
106 Georgetown
107 Albany
108 Northeastern
111 Marquette
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That argument doesn't really work because we were great in close games. We could easily have lost both Providence games, the home Georgetown game, the LSU and ASU games, the IUPUI game, etc. Heck, a play here or there and we could have lost all three St. John's games. We basically would have had to win every single close game we played to get in.
There's an old saying that great teams win the close games. That is not true. Great teams win lop-sided games.
Our 12 wins against high majors were by 13,8,6,6,5,5,5,5,2,1,1,1 (4.8 avg)
Our 12 losses against high majors were by 28,21,20,18,17,15,10,10,8,8,3,1 (13.3 avg)
Only double digit win was at DePaul without their best player and the 8 point win was the SJU BET game, where we actually trailed with under 2 minutes. That's part of why I am a little less optimistic about next season. I think we were a little lucky to have the record we ended up having.
MU had very little margin for error and they didn't get it done. It's not a matter of winning close games. It's a matter of winning games that they should win. MU is better than DePaul and should have never lost to them at home. MU is on par with Creighton, had them on the ropes at home and let it slip away. When the margin for error is as thin as it was, a team can't afford to drop games like that and expect to be playing in the postseason.
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There were about 21 teams with RPIs higher than ours that also didn't make the cut for the NIT. Tough to tell if we would have made it with fewer auto-bids.
75 UC Irvine
81 Ohio
85 Texas A&M Corpus Christi
86 East Tennessee St.
87 Stanford
90 Kansas St.
92 Grand Canyon
93 Evansville
94 LSU
96 ULM
97 Ole Miss
98 UC Santa Barbara
99 Sienna
100 Arizona State
102 Boise St.
103 UCLA
104 James Madison
105 UT-Arlington
106 Georgetown
107 Albany
108 Northeastern
111 Marquette
Remember, the NIT is much more about eyeballs as a determining factor. They are going to take names over pure rankings(see Creighton). if there were 5 auto bids this year, you would see at least LSU and Georgetown show up in the NIT.....no way to prove it I suppose so you'll just have to trust me. ;D
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I've heard another rumor they turned the NIT down because they wouldn't get a home game. Regardless, left out with a much better (18 spots) RPI than this year.
If I had a gun to my head, I'd wager it was Marquette out of NIT that year, not the NIT selection process (no home game + bad Buzz divorce). But it's a cow's point now(MOOt)
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MU had very little margin for error and they didn't get it done. It's not a matter of winning close games. It's a matter of winning games that they should win. MU is better than DePaul and should have never lost to them at home. MU is on par with Creighton, had them on the ropes at home and let it slip away. When the margin for error is as thin as it was, a team can't afford to drop games like that and expect to be playing in the postseason.
I agree. You can argue the cupcake diet all day. We win the two you mentioned and there would be no discussion, the complaining would be about getting a home game or not.
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mu03eng -
Just an FYI .. I was very curious about your chart with teams / Projected RPI / Actual.
But the first two I looked up for Actual were wrong .. SJU wasn't 324, it's 246. GTown's actual isn't 202 .. it's 106.
I like the concept of the data, but I think your actuals are wacky.
Where did you get "projected" for the beginning of the season?
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The exhausted claim is stupid. Wojo and the administration has to be smarter than that.
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mu03eng -
Just an FYI .. I was very curious about your chart with teams / Projected RPI / Actual.
But the first two I looked up for Actual were wrong .. SJU wasn't 324, it's 246. GTown's actual isn't 202 .. it's 106.
I like the concept of the data, but I think your actuals are wacky.
Where did you get "projected" for the beginning of the season?
Grabbed the data from here: http://warrennolan.com/basketball/2016/rpi (http://warrennolan.com/basketball/2016/rpi)
"Projected" was what their RPI was in 13-14 season, which is what we'd have to look at when building the schedule for this past season and making decisions.
If the data I have is wrong, if you've got a better link, I'll re-run the analysis.
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To be fair we only ended up with 3 teams that were 300+ in our control(St John's was also 300+ so we had 5 total). Two were just barely clear, but clear nonetheless. I think you have to have no more than 1 300+ OOC game, just in case you have a St Johns in your conference schedule.
St. John's wasn't in the 300's...they are at 246
http://www.rpiforecast.com/confs/BE.html
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St. John's wasn't in the 300's...they are at 246
http://www.rpiforecast.com/confs/BE.html
Could be their OOC RPI, no?
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Grabbed the data from here: http://warrennolan.com/basketball/2016/rpi (http://warrennolan.com/basketball/2016/rpi)
"Projected" was what their RPI was in 13-14 season, which is what we'd have to look at when building the schedule for this past season and making decisions.
If the data I have is wrong, if you've got a better link, I'll re-run the analysis.
The middle column in that link is RPI. It looks like you may have used the first column, which is the winning percentage component that goes into RPI. I'm still not sure where you got the predicted numbers though, since the 2014 numbers are very different from what you used.
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The middle column in that link is RPI. It looks like you may have used the first column, which is the winning percentage component that goes into RPI. I'm still not sure where you got the predicted numbers though, since the 2014 numbers are very different from what you used.
I'll re run my numbers again tonight with the new source and update everything and see where it gets us.
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I'll re run my numbers again tonight with the new source and update everything and see where it gets us.
Tonight? Poncho, I want those numbers on my desk before 2pm or you can find a new job.
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2014 2015 2016
Belmont 48 100 95
IUPUI 322 258 188
Iowa 60 40 29
LSU 68 65 94
NC St 55 32 123
Jackson St 297 302 221
Grambling 348 351 350
Maine 333 338 317
San Jose St 278 336 301
Wisconsin 3 2 43
Chicago St 260 333 348
Presbyterian 349 314 319
Stetson 334 335 303
Butler 154 30 56
Georgetown 75 24 106
DePaul 157 197 200
St John's 82 52 245
Villanova 8 6 4
Xavier 56 28 7
Creighton 17 156 101
Seton Hall 136 103 19
Providence 46 25 40
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While they did impact our schedule, I feel it's worth mentioning that we didn't actually play NC State, we played Arizona State.
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I thought we played AZ St, not NC St.
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These 7 are the most relevant because they're the only ones we had control over and scheduled ourselves. All the other games were pre-arranged (Gavitt Games, Legends Classic, and UW).
2014 2015 2016
Jackson St 297 302 221
Grambling 348 351 350
Maine 333 338 317
San Jose St 278 336 301
Chicago St 260 333 348
Presbyterian 349 314 319
Stetson 334 335 303
Average 314 330 308
If you use the 2014 or 2015 RPIs as a predictor, then the schedule actually turned out slightly better than expected (primarily due to Jacksonville St), and it still really sucked.
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While they did impact our schedule, I feel it's worth mentioning that we didn't actually play NC State, we played Arizona State.
You're right, I just took mu03eng's list. Here's the comparison between ASU for NCSU.
2014 2015 2016
Arizona State 51 90 100
NC State 55 32 123
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Marquette gambled and lost. The margin for error was very thin and the losses to DePaul and Creighton killed them. Win those 2 and MU finishes 4th in BE and heads into a BET match-up with Providence. IOW, they'd be in the NIT.
Cry all you want about the non-conf schedule but if MU doesn't blow two winnable, conference home games, it's a moot point.
This is my viewpoint, too.
I agree that it would have been good to have had at least a somewhat more challenging OOC schedule. But you still gotta take care of business.
And that starts by just beating effen DePaul at home, ya know?
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Cry all you want about the non-conf schedule but if MU doesn't blow two winnable, conference home games, it's a moot point.
That works two ways: The only reason they were in striking distance is due to unexpected victories versus ASU, LSU, UW, Prov 2x.
You need to plan your schedule around the rock solid reality: You're going to win and lose a few you're not supposed to.
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This is my viewpoint, too.
I agree that it would have been good to have had at least a somewhat more challenging OOC schedule. But you still gotta take care of business.
And that starts by just beating effen DePaul at home, ya know?
Disagree, if you look at the actual RPI, a win over Creighton and DePaul(both home games so only 1pt each) gets us an RPI of 74, would get us into the NIT but definitely not the NCAA. Would have required us to win one of the following: Iowa, road Butler, Seton Hall home, Xavier home, road Georgetown.
By the way that requires the 8th most youthful team in the country to win 22 games.
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Disagree, if you look at the actual RPI, a win over Creighton and DePaul(both home games so only 1pt each) gets us an RPI of 74, would get us into the NIT but definitely not the NCAA. Would have required us to win one of the following: Iowa, road Butler, Seton Hall home, Xavier home, road Georgetown.
By the way that requires the 8th most youthful team in the country to win 22 games.
Those two blown games cost MU a shot at the NIT. If MU wanted to be a NCAAT team, they needed to win those two, plus 1-2 others. That's what NCAA Tournament-caliber teams do. MU didn't and the season is done.
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Those two blown games cost MU a shot at the NIT. If MU wanted to be a NCAAT team, they needed to win those two, plus 1-2 others. That's what NCAA Tournament-caliber teams do. MU didn't and the season is done.
Right, except they should have been in the NIT with the record they have now. If you replace 4 or 5 of the crap games with less crappy games, we'd be in the NIT.
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As I posted in the other thread .. yeah, we "needed" to win those easy wins. But when they are scheduling, you predict your season with the concept you're going to win and lose some you aren't supposed to.
Sure, losing to DePaul killed us .. but beating Prov 2x, LSU, ASU put us in the position that beating DePaul was important. Just like scheduling RPI 200s instead of 300s.
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Right, except they should have been in the NIT with the record they have now. If you replace 4 or 5 of the crap games with less crappy games, we'd be in the NIT.
Not if MU had lost one of those 4-5 "crap games."
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I will say this. If you take Grambling, Maine, San Jose State, and and Chicago State and replace them with Loyola-Chicago, Colgate, South Alabama, and Rider, we have a top 90 RPI. We'd be in the NIT for sure.
But to get into the NCAA, even with that schedule, we would have had to have beaten Creighton, DePaul, and Butler(only thing that gets us a top 60 RPI).
Looks like more and more, LSU, NC State, St Johns and DePaul killed us.
Cuse just got in with 72 RPI.
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Not if MU had lost one of those 4-5 "crap games."
Back to this? So we can beat Stetson and IUPUI but we can't beat Loyola-Chicago or Missouri State? If we lose one of the buy games so be it. A team that can't win a buy game in December isn't winning a tournament game in March anyway.
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These 7 are the most relevant because they're the only ones we had control over and scheduled ourselves. All the other games were pre-arranged (Gavitt Games, Legends Classic, and UW).
2014 2015 2016
Jackson St 297 302 221
Grambling 348 351 350
Maine 333 338 317
San Jose St 278 336 301
Chicago St 260 333 348
Presbyterian 349 314 319
Stetson 334 335 303
Average 314 330 308
If you use the 2014 or 2015 RPIs as a predictor, then the schedule actually turned out slightly better than expected (primarily due to Jacksonville St), and it still really sucked.
YUP.
What I've been saying all year. Thankfully, I am confident it will be fixed next year.
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Cuse just got in with 72 RPI.
So we should rely on the committee losing their collective minds, got it ;D
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Not if MU had lost one of those 4-5 "crap games."
SMH. ::)
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So we should rely on the committee losing their collective minds, got it ;D
Just sayin'. I agree with everything you're saying, just top 60 RPI isn't this arbitrary cut off some make it to be.
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Just sayin'. I agree with everything you're saying, just top 60 RPI isn't this arbitrary cut off some make it to be.
Oh I know it's not, but it gives you a 99% certainty you are in.
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Marquette gambled and lost. The margin for error was very thin and the losses to DePaul and Creighton killed them. Win those 2 and MU finishes 4th in BE and heads into a BET match-up with Providence. IOW, they'd be in the NIT.
Cry all you want about the non-conf schedule but if MU doesn't blow two winnable, conference home games, it's a moot point.
Yeah...but there are good gambles and stupid gambles. This season's schedule was clearly the latter.
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Back to this? So we can beat Stetson and IUPUI but we can't beat Loyola-Chicago or Missouri State? If we lose one of the buy games so be it. A team that can't win a buy game in December isn't winning a tournament game in March anyway.
A team that goes 0-7 against the RPI Top 25 and 8-12 against the top 150 isn't getting into the tournament.
Again, people can cry call they want about the weak non-conf schedule (and no one's claiming that it wasn't weak) but the reason that MU isn't playing in the postseason is because they weren't good enough and didn't earn a spot.
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A team that goes 0-7 against the RPI Top 25 and 8-12 against the top 150 isn't getting into the tournament.
Again, people can cry call they want about the weak non-conf schedule (and no one's claiming that it wasn't weak) but the reason that MU isn't playing in the postseason is because they weren't good enough and didn't earn a spot.
Again, this is a false narrative. If Marquette swapped out 4 games in the 300+ for 4 teams right around 250....with the exact same record we would be around 80 for RPI which would put us squarely in the NIT. You are correct, we weren't good enough to get into the NCAA, but scheduling alone kept us out of the NIT.
Side note, this is how much RPI sucks. If we had flipped both our Creighton and DePaul wins/losses so that we won both at home and lost both on the road our RPI would be under 100.
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Again, this is a false narrative. If Marquette swapped out 4 games in the 300+ for 4 teams right around 250....with the exact same record we would be around 80 for RPI which would put us squarely in the NIT. You are correct, we weren't good enough to get into the NCAA, but scheduling alone kept us out of the NIT.
Side note, this is how much RPI sucks. If we had flipped both our Creighton and DePaul wins/losses so that we won both at home and lost both on the road our RPI would be under 100.
It actually puts MU's RPI anywhere between 80-100, depending on the opponents. Scheduling didn't keep MU out of the postseason. Their play on the court did. Period.
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There is a message in all of this that's being lost on all of us.
Good teams with NCAA expectations should be playing good teams with NCAA expectations.
Bubble teams play bubble teams. Teams that don't expect an invitation, play cupcakes.
I know the economic arguments about more home games (which draw comparatively few fans and are treated the way NFL fans treat exhibition games), but I would sure like to see us play the likes of Notre Dame, Iowa, Vanderbilt, Stanford, Texas, and, yes, North Carolina, Indiana, Michigan etc., as a regular part of our non-con slate. Yes, we'd have to go to pits like the DeanDome, the ACC, Crisler Arena or Memorial Gym but I suspect this would garner considerable interest when these teams played in Milwaukee. And, you'd get a heck of a lot of our fans doing road trips.
If the goal of non-con is to get your team ready for the Big East and to prepare for a possible NCAA run, playing Grambling, McNeese State, Tennessee Martin and the like aint getting us there. That's the message in this year and I hope our Coach and leadership got it.
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That works two ways: The only reason they were in striking distance is due to unexpected victories versus ASU, LSU, UW, Prov 2x.
You need to plan your schedule around the rock solid reality: You're going to win and lose a few you're not supposed to.
I don't know that any of those victories were truly unexpected, with the possible exception of @Providence.
We beat ASU the prior year and by almost any conceivable measure improved ourselves more than they did during the off season. Ditto with Wisconsin, which lost a significant portion of their Final Four team. I think expectations was that Wisconsin was in for a deep rebuilding year.
At best, LSU was a question mark because of Simmons, but nobody assumed we would lose, or that winning was unexpected. Maybe it was a 50/50 game. But not an expected loss.
As I said, maybe you could put the loss at Providence as unexpected--but we split with them last year and again, I think we improved ourselves by more than they did, so is beating them twice really unexpected?
But if you're going to put the road win at Providence as unexpected, the home loss to Seton Hall is unexpected as well. We split with them last year as well. So the win at Providence and home loss to Seton Hall balance themselves out.
Which leaves the losses to Creighton and DePaul as keeping us out of 4th place in conference.
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There is a message in all of this that's being lost on all of us.
Good teams with NCAA expectations should be playing good teams with NCAA expectations.
Bubble teams play bubble teams. Teams that don't expect an invitation, play cupcakes.
I know the economic arguments about more home games (which draw comparatively few fans and are treated the way NFL fans treat exhibition games), but I would sure like to see us play the likes of Notre Dame, Iowa, Vanderbilt, Stanford, Texas, and, yes, North Carolina, Indiana, Michigan etc., as a regular part of our non-con slate. Yes, we'd have to go to pits like the DeanDome, the ACC, Crisler Arena or Memorial Gym but I suspect this would garner considerable interest when these teams played in Milwaukee. And, you'd get a heck of a lot of our fans doing road trips.
If the goal of non-con is to get your team ready for the Big East and to prepare for a possible NCAA run, playing Grambling, McNeese State, Tennessee Martin and the like aint getting us there. That's the message in this year and I hope our Coach and leadership got it.
I don't think you can discount a strategy this year of not going all in on competition because the team was so young. I think playing a softer non-con schedule with a team like what we had was perfectly valid.....but we went for the worst of the worst instead of just bad teams. That's the difference.
I would expect us to have a better non-con slate in 16-17 given that the team shouldn't be as fragile.
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It actually puts MU's RPI anywhere between 80-100, depending on the opponents. Scheduling didn't keep MU out of the postseason. Their play on the court did. Period.
It's both.
Beat DePaul and Creighton, we're in the NIT.
Same record with a better schedule, we're in the NIT.
Better schedule and we beat DePaul, Creighton and Belmont, we're in the NCAAs.
The point is that scheduling is a variable that's completely within your control, while play on the court is more unpredictable. So why not use every variable within your control to maximize your chances at the post-season.
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It's both.
Beat DePaul and Creighton, we're in the NIT.
Same record with a better schedule, we're in the NIT.
Better schedule and we beat DePaul, Creighton and Belmont, we're in the NCAAs.
The point is that scheduling is a variable that's completely within your control, while play on the court is more unpredictable. So why not use every variable within your control to maximize your chances at the post-season.
(http://gifsec.com/wp-content/uploads/GIF/2014/08/GIF-Agree-I-agree-Have-to-agree-GIF.gif?gs=a)
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I know the economic arguments about more home games (which draw comparatively few fans and are treated the way NFL fans treat exhibition games), but I would sure like to see us play the likes of Notre Dame, Iowa, Vanderbilt, Stanford, Texas, and, yes, North Carolina, Indiana, Michigan etc., as a regular part of our non-con slate. Yes, we'd have to go to pits like the DeanDome, the ACC, Crisler Arena or Memorial Gym but I suspect this would garner considerable interest when these teams played in Milwaukee. And, you'd get a heck of a lot of our fans doing road trips.
This is the part I don't quite understand. They charge the same flat-fee for season tickets no matter how many home games we play. In the past few years we've had anywhere between 16-19 home games, and the season-ticket amount has basically been the same. It seems like they would actually make more money by having slightly fewer home games since they would save the costs of renting the BC and the ticket sales beyond STH for these cupcake games has to be virtually nothing.
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Okay, let's look at some actual NIT resumes in comparison with Marquette. Not perfect, but using RPIForecast because it's the quickest to do comparisons with.
Marquette 20-13 (8-10)
Record v 1-100: 7-11
Record v 101-200: 3-2
Record v 200+: 10-0
Worst Losses: @106 Georgetown, 198 DePaul
Best Wins: @40 Providence, 40 Providence, @43 Wisconsin
Sub-300 Opponents: 6
Florida 19-14 (9-9)
Record v 1-100: 7-13
Record v 101-200: 7-1
Record v 200+: 5-0
Worst Losses: @143 Tennessee
Best Wins: (N) 22 St. Joseph's, 10 West Virginia
Sub-300 Opponents: 1
Alabama 18-14 (8-10)
Record v 1-100: 7-11
Record v 101-200: 6-3
Record v 200+: 5-0
Worst Losses: @175 Auburn, 154 Mississippi State, 133 Arkansas
Best Wins: 18 Texas A&M, (N) 31 Notre Dame, (N) 47 Wichita State
Sub-300 Opponents: 2
Georgia Tech 19-14 (8-10)
Record v 1-100: 5-13
Record v 101-200: 9-1
Record v 200+: 5-0
Worst Losses: @131 Clemson
Best Wins: 3 Virginia, 31 Notre Dame, 37 VCU
Sub-300 Opponents: 1
Florida State 19-13 (8-10)
Record v 1-100: 6-12
Record v 101-200: 6-1
Record v 200+: 7-0
Worst Losses: @131 Clemson
Best Wins: 3 Virginia, 31 Notre Dame, (N) 37 VCU
Sub-300 Opponents: 3
Washington 18-14 (9-9)
Record v 1-100: 7-13
Record v 101-200: 4-1
Record v 200+: 7-0
Worst Losses: 116 Oakland
Best Wins: (N) 27 Texas, 35 Colorado
Sub-300 Opponents: 0
Creighton 18-14 (9-9)
Record v 1-100: 3-11
Record v 101-200: 8-2
Record v 200+: 7-1
Worst Losses: @106 Georgetown, 110 Marquette, @239 Loyola-Chicago
Best Wins: 7 Xavier, @19 Seton Hall
Sub-300 Opponents: 2
So what in our resume stands out? We have more total wins than any team here. We are equal or within 1 game in terms of league record of everyone here. We have as many or more top-100 wins than any team here. We have the highest top-100 winning percentage of any team on this list. We have as many or more top-50 wins than any team here. We have more top-50 road wins than any team here.
The killer? We played 6 sub-300 opponents, and these 6 teams played an AVERAGE of 1.5 sub-300 teams. At minimum we played double the number of sub-300 opponents and on average 4 times as many sub-300 opponents as any of these NIT bubble teams that got in. You can't tell me our resume on the whole is worse than any of these teams. Hell, we have as many top-50 wins as Creighton does top-100 wins.
I know...RPI doesn't look at the number of the opponent, it looks at the W/L number primarily, but the reality is playing the worst of the worst, teams that are and traditionally have been terrible and were projected this year to be terrible again killed us in the selection. We could compete with any team on this list. Our resume in terms of the top-200 is as good or better than any team on this list.
Our team quality is the reason we aren't in the NCAA, but our schedule is the reason we aren't in the NIT. When you look objectively at the numbers, there's really no two ways about that.
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This is the part I don't quite understand. They charge the same flat-fee for season tickets no matter how many home games we play. In the past few years we've had anywhere between 16-19 home games, and the season-ticket amount has basically been the same. It seems like they would actually make more money by having slightly fewer home games since they would save the costs of renting the BC and the ticket sales beyond STH for these cupcake games has to be virtually nothing.
I was generally referring to the fact that Marquette announces games with attendance of 12,000 to 14,000 and my sense is that there's less than 10,000 actually in the house. People buy the tickets and avoid going to McNeese State, for example.
While I don't know the economics of a smaller home schedule with massively greater attendance, I have to think that if we limit ourselves to two or three cupcakes a year and schedule a combination of "name" Power Conference teams and a few "name" mid-majors, like say UNCC, Wichita State, Northern Iowa, Murray State, Dayton, Southern Illinois etc., we'd be better off.
Please, no UWM!
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Okay, let's look at some actual NIT resumes in comparison with Marquette. Not perfect, but using RPIForecast because it's the quickest to do comparisons with.
Marquette 20-13 (8-10)
Record v 1-100: 7-11
Record v 101-200: 3-2
Record v 200+: 10-0
Worst Losses: @106 Georgetown, 198 DePaul
Best Wins: @40 Providence, 40 Providence, @43 Wisconsin
Sub-300 Opponents: 6
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We can't ignore that all of those teams have multiple wins that are better than MU's best win. Also, only Creighton has a loss as bad as MU's loss to DePaul but they have 2 top 20 wins to balance it out. MU had no signature wins and one inexcusable loss. Even if you swap the wins vs 300+ teams with wins vs 200+ teams, all of the other numbers you posted would remain the same.
Bottom line: Marquette didn't get it done on the court. Why can't people accept that?
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Because Marquette didn't get it done off the court.
If Marquette makes the 4 changes I previously recommended and goes 3-1 in those games we would be a stone cold lock for the NIT.
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Well done Brew. Sobering to look at. I agree with Merritt's that our play would of kept us out of the NCAAs regardless of schedule. But we did plenty to make the NIT. Seriously, if I had told you at the beginning of the season that we would get 20 wins this season but not be invited to the NIT would anyone have believed me?
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Last year we were at 173 OOC SOS.
Northwestern was at 217 OOC SOS.
Did the Duke formula only start this year?
Just for giggles, Bert's last year....209 OOC SOS
I mentioned this early in the year that the school doesn't know how to schedule in the new Big East and many scoopers stated MU knows how to schedule. This season represents that lack of understanding. In the first years of the Big East, you could play a mediocre OOC as your overall RPI would skyrocket when we got in conference playing Pitt, Ville, ND, Cuse, WV, et al and non-power conferences started to play their conference brethren. With a .500 record in that Big East we are a lock.
Going forward MU needs to elevate their OOC schedule as we won't get the uplift we did in the past. If we are OOC isn't in the <200 and minimize the 300+ RPI teams, we won't have the horsepower to get into the bubble range.
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Bottom line: Marquette didn't get it done on the court. Why can't people accept that?
Every team loses games they shouldn't lose and wins games they shouldn't win. Every team on that list had losses they shouldn't. Had we played a schedule on par with those teams, however, we would be in the NIT. Yes, had we beat DePaul and Creighton we would also be in the NIT, but it shouldn't take 22 wins in this league just to get into the NIT.
Quite simply, for us to get in, we needed to win 22 games. Every team I listed only needed 18-19 games. Our weak schedule put us in a position where we needed to win three more games than any other team on the list to make that tournament.
Further, if you consider top-200 games to be competitive, we needed to win 52.2% of our top-200 games to get in. The next highest percentage required to get in (because of the lower win total bar and fewer weak opponents) was Creighton needing 45.8% of their top-200 games. So we had to win more games against the top-200 with fewer opportunities.
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Every team loses games they shouldn't lose and wins games they shouldn't win. Every team on that list had losses they shouldn't. Had we played a schedule on par with those teams, however, we would be in the NIT. Yes, had we beat DePaul and Creighton we would also be in the NIT, but it shouldn't take 22 wins in this league just to get into the NIT.
Quite simply, for us to get in, we needed to win 22 games. Every team I listed only needed 18-19 games. Our weak schedule put us in a position where we needed to win three more games than any other team on the list to make that tournament.
Further, if you consider top-200 games to be competitive, we needed to win 52.2% of our top-200 games to get in. The next highest percentage required to get in (because of the lower win total bar and fewer weak opponents) was Creighton needing 45.8% of their top-200 games. So we had to win more games against the top-200 with fewer opportunities.
I appreciate you pulling all this data and I understand what you're saying but, at the end of the day, all that matters is that Marquette didn't make the NIT because they weren't good enough.
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I appreciate you pulling all this data and I understand what you're saying but, at the end of the day, all that matters is that Marquette didn't make the NIT because they weren't good enough.
(https://justaddtea.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/inconceivable.gif)
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I appreciate you pulling all this data and I understand what you're saying but, at the end of the day, all that matters is that Marquette didn't make the NIT because they weren't good enough.
You are correct, but that applies to both on and off the court. The team didn't do enough on the court to merit inclusion and the athletic department didn't do enough in terms of scheduling to merit inclusion. Had one or the other done a better job, we'd be in the NIT. Had both done a better job, we'd be in the NCAAs.
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Rock star analysis, Brew.
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Okay, let's look at some actual NIT resumes in comparison with Marquette. Not perfect, but using RPIForecast because it's the quickest to do comparisons with.
Marquette 20-13 (8-10)
Record v 1-100: 7-11
Record v 101-200: 3-2
Record v 200+: 10-0
Worst Losses: @106 Georgetown, 198 DePaul
Best Wins: @40 Providence, 40 Providence, @43 Wisconsin
Sub-300 Opponents: 6
Florida 19-14 (9-9)
Record v 1-100: 7-13
Record v 101-200: 7-1
Record v 200+: 5-0
Worst Losses: @143 Tennessee
Best Wins: (N) 22 St. Joseph's, 10 West Virginia
Sub-300 Opponents: 1
Alabama 18-14 (8-10)
Record v 1-100: 7-11
Record v 101-200: 6-3
Record v 200+: 5-0
Worst Losses: @175 Auburn, 154 Mississippi State, 133 Arkansas
Best Wins: 18 Texas A&M, (N) 31 Notre Dame, (N) 47 Wichita State
Sub-300 Opponents: 2
Georgia Tech 19-14 (8-10)
Record v 1-100: 5-13
Record v 101-200: 9-1
Record v 200+: 5-0
Worst Losses: @131 Clemson
Best Wins: 3 Virginia, 31 Notre Dame, 37 VCU
Sub-300 Opponents: 1
Florida State 19-13 (8-10)
Record v 1-100: 6-12
Record v 101-200: 6-1
Record v 200+: 7-0
Worst Losses: @131 Clemson
Best Wins: 3 Virginia, 31 Notre Dame, (N) 37 VCU
Sub-300 Opponents: 3
Washington 18-14 (9-9)
Record v 1-100: 7-13
Record v 101-200: 4-1
Record v 200+: 7-0
Worst Losses: 116 Oakland
Best Wins: (N) 27 Texas, 35 Colorado
Sub-300 Opponents: 0
Creighton 18-14 (9-9)
Record v 1-100: 3-11
Record v 101-200: 8-2
Record v 200+: 7-1
Worst Losses: @106 Georgetown, 110 Marquette, @239 Loyola-Chicago
Best Wins: 7 Xavier, @19 Seton Hall
Sub-300 Opponents: 2
So what in our resume stands out? We have more total wins than any team here. We are equal or within 1 game in terms of league record of everyone here. We have as many or more top-100 wins than any team here. We have the highest top-100 winning percentage of any team on this list. We have as many or more top-50 wins than any team here. We have more top-50 road wins than any team here.
The killer? We played 6 sub-300 opponents, and these 6 teams played an AVERAGE of 1.5 sub-300 teams. At minimum we played double the number of sub-300 opponents and on average 4 times as many sub-300 opponents as any of these NIT bubble teams that got in. You can't tell me our resume on the whole is worse than any of these teams. Hell, we have as many top-50 wins as Creighton does top-100 wins.
I know...RPI doesn't look at the number of the opponent, it looks at the W/L number primarily, but the reality is playing the worst of the worst, teams that are and traditionally have been terrible and were projected this year to be terrible again killed us in the selection. We could compete with any team on this list. Our resume in terms of the top-200 is as good or better than any team on this list.
Our team quality is the reason we aren't in the NCAA, but our schedule is the reason we aren't in the NIT. When you look objectively at the numbers, there's really no two ways about that.
There's two more significant differences that you overlook:
First: Our best win was against #40 Providence.
Other teams' best wins:
Florida: #10 West Virgina
Alabama: #18 Texas A&M
Georgia Tech: #3 Virginia
Florida State: #3 Virginia
Washington: #27 Texas
Creighton: #7 Xavier
You're suggesting that beating a top 10 team is less relevant than the RPI rank of cupcakes. At some point, real people when trying to determine which team actually has the better body of work are going to look at this.
Would a rational person skip past the highlights of a team's schedule to immedeately zero in on which cupcakes they played? I don't think so--and when you peel back the actual body of work, every single team you list has had a more significant accomplishment than we had, cupcakes be damned.
And not only was our best win not as impressive as this group, our worst loss was worse than every team but one:
Marquette: #198 DePaul
Florida: #143 Tennesse
Alabama: #175 Auburn
Georgia Tech: #131 Clemson
Florida State: #131 Clemson
Washington: #116 Oakland
Creighton: #239 Loyola
How about worst non-conference loss
Marquette: #95 Belmont
Florida: #15 Purdue
Alabama: #22 Dayton
Georgia Tech: #86 E. Tennessee State
Florida State: #54 Hofstra
Washington: #116 Oakland
Creighton: #239 Loyola
So among your list, every team had at least one better win than we did. Our worst non-conference loss was worse than 4 of the 6 teams on your list.
And overall, only Creighton had a worse loss, but ameliorated that by finishing a game ahead of us in the Big East standings, with wins against #7 Xavier and #19 Seton Hall.
You're making a false assumption that we would have been chosen ahead of any of these teams if not for our schedule--we were not chosen ahead of these teams because we didn't win enough of the games that mattered.
And I don't believe anyone came close to a 28 point non-conference loss, as we did to #29 Iowa.
The fact of the matter is that our body of work in the games that matter simply didn't measure up.
You can't make up for a poor body of work with better cupcakes--at the end of the day, they're still cupcakes. If our best win isn't as good, and our worst loss is more embarrassing, and we're behind in the standings (euphemistically characterized here as "within one game"), we're not getting a bid--NCAA or NIT.
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There's two more significant differences that you overlook:
First: Our best win was against #40 Providence.
Other teams' best wins:
Florida: #10 West Virgina
Alabama: #18 Texas A&M
Georgia Tech: #3 Virginia
Florida State: #3 Virginia
Washington: #27 Texas
Creighton: #7 Xavier
You're suggesting that beating a top 10 team is less relevant than the RPI rank of cupcakes. At some point, real people when trying to determine which team actually has the better body of work are going to look at this.
Would a rational person skip past the highlights of a team's schedule to immedeately zero in on which cupcakes they played? I don't think so--and when you peel back the actual body of work, every single team you list has had a more significant accomplishment than we had, cupcakes be damned.
And not only was our best win not as impressive as this group, our worst loss was worse than every team but one:
Marquette: #198 DePaul
Florida: #143 Tennesse
Alabama: #175 Auburn
Georgia Tech: #131 Clemson
Florida State: #131 Clemson
Washington: #116 Oakland
Creighton: #239 Loyola
How about worst non-conference loss
Marquette: #95 Belmont
Florida: #15 Purdue
Alabama: #22 Dayton
Georgia Tech: #86 E. Tennessee State
Florida State: #54 Hofstra
Washington: #116 Oakland
Creighton: #239 Loyola
So among your list, every team had at least one better win than we did. Our worst non-conference loss was worse than 4 of the 6 teams on your list.
And overall, only Creighton had a worse loss, but ameliorated that by finishing a game ahead of us in the Big East standings, with wins against #7 Xavier and #19 Seton Hall.
You're making a false assumption that we would have been chosen ahead of any of these teams if not for our schedule--we were not chosen ahead of these teams because we didn't win enough of the games that mattered.
And I don't believe anyone came close to a 28 point non-conference loss, as we did to #29 Iowa.
The fact of the matter is that our body of work in the games that matter simply didn't measure up.
You can't make up for a poor body of work with better cupcakes--at the end of the day, they're still cupcakes. If our best win isn't as good, and our worst loss is more embarrassing, and we're behind in the standings (euphemistically characterized here as "within one game"), we're not getting a bid--NCAA or NIT.
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Maybe, maybe not. Were the last two years "normal years"? We missed the NIT in 2014 with a 92 RPI and last year the lowest RPI was 90 for Arizona State. Perhaps most shocking this year is that Creighton not only made the field, but will get a home game. With their 100 RPI, they are the lowest in the field by 12 spots. Hmm...maybe the NIT knows they will pack 19,000 in for that game?
My conclusion is that the NIT took the next team in the major conferences. They took Creighton and no one else. They took Ohio St and I as far as I remember took no one else. Had we beat DePaul we would of tied Creighton in Big East and they probably would of taken us and left Creighton out, because 21-12 is better than 18-14.
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Can we expect a better schedule next season?
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My conclusion is that the NIT took the next team in the major conferences. They took Creighton and no one else. They took Ohio St and I as far as I remember took no one else. Had we beat DePaul we would of tied Creighton in Big East and they probably would of taken us and left Creighton out, because 21-12 is better than 18-14.
I think it was as simple as that.
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I have to laugh that people were touting Broeker as AD material during the last search. I have met the guy and while he is sincere and amiable he is hardly senior executive caliber talent.
The scheduling fiasco only underscores how utterly awful he would have been as AD.
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I have to laugh that people were touting Broeker as AD material during the last search. I have met the guy and while he is sincere and amiable he is hardly senior executive caliber talent.
The scheduling fiasco only underscores how utterly awful he would have been as AD.
Mike Broeker is a Fn joke. Nice guy... that's where I'll leave it.
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What is the wiki link for our schedule next season? Having a brain fart and cant find it. Thanks!
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I have to laugh that people were touting Broeker as AD material during the last search. I have met the guy and while he is sincere and amiable he is hardly senior executive caliber talent.
The scheduling fiasco only underscores how utterly awful he would have been as AD.
Only a few were....because "he's a cool guy" and someone they can talk to.
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What is the wiki link for our schedule next season? Having a brain fart and cant find it. Thanks!
Wiki link:
http://wiki.muscoop.com/doku.php/men_s_basketball/2016
Still needs some work. Do we have a pre-season tourney scheduled?
Not sure if incoming guys are inserted. Maybe someone can add.
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Wiki link:
http://wiki.muscoop.com/doku.php/men_s_basketball/2016
Still needs some work. Do we have a pre-season tourney scheduled?
Not sure if incoming guys are inserted. Maybe someone can add.
2K Classic: http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/371268071.html
Part of the field is set and will help. I don't think the other teams are assigned yet.
I hope that they are looking to add some home and homes with legitimate teams. I think they will do Gavitt tipoff games. I would really like to see them try to collaborate with old big east foes UCONN and Cinci.
I would also hope that they would try to get some upper tier "mid majors." I would rather lose in November than March. They should definitely start something with Green Bay.
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2K Classic: http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/371268071.html
Part of the field is set and will help. I don't think the other teams are assigned yet.
I hope that they are looking to add some home and homes with legitimate teams. I think they will do Gavitt tipoff games. I would really like to see them try to collaborate with old big east foes UCONN and Cinci.
I would also hope that they would try to get some upper tier "mid majors." I would rather lose in November than March. They should definitely start something with Green Bay.
The 2K is fully set. We will get two home games against IUPUI, Gardner-Webb, Eastern Michigan, or Howard. We will play two of Michigan, Pitt, and SMU in NYC.
The expectation was that we would be playing a road game in the Gavitt this year. I know Marquette's hope is to play Gavitt games alternating home and road opposite of the Badger game.
My guess is we will see some home-and-homes start this year, or neutral court games. The athletic department has to understand the impact the weak scheduling had on both postseason hopes and BC attendance.
As far as higher profile mid-majors...we'll see. Clearly playing the worst of the worst didn't work. However I can virtually guarantee that unless the Horizon changes its scheduling practices, you won't see Green Bay or Milwaukee on the schedule. Marquette has zero interest in giving up home games against teams that aren't high major, and both of those schools desire 2-for-1 or 3-for-1 deals.
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The 2K is fully set. We will get two home games against IUPUI, Gardner-Webb, Eastern Michigan, or Howard. We will play two of Michigan, Pitt, and SMU in NYC.
The expectation was that we would be playing a road game in the Gavitt this year. I know Marquette's hope is to play Gavitt games alternating home and road opposite of the Badger game.
My guess is we will see some home-and-homes start this year, or neutral court games. The athletic department has to understand the impact the weak scheduling had on both postseason hopes and BC attendance.
As far as higher profile mid-majors...we'll see. Clearly playing the worst of the worst didn't work. However I can virtually guarantee that unless the Horizon changes its scheduling practices, you won't see Green Bay or Milwaukee on the schedule. Marquette has zero interest in giving up home games against teams that aren't high major, and both of those schools desire 2-for-1 or 3-for-1 deals.
I am ok with doing 3 for 1 deals with Green Bay or Milwaukee. Creates a little more fan interest when we play at home and gives us an opportunity for a road win under favorable circumstances. Attendance at these games has always been higher, both reported and actual bodies at the BC. Through in some bottom tier MAC and MVC and we will be fine.
We just have to play the scheduling game as it is defined. Even if it costs a few bucks in guarantees etc.
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I have to laugh that people were touting Broeker as AD material during the last search. I have met the guy and while he is sincere and amiable he is hardly senior executive caliber talent.
The scheduling fiasco only underscores how utterly awful he would have been as AD.
People like him and therefore want to promote him for two reasons A) he's a likable guy which is rare for MU's AD department {cough} SID {cough} B) he has a social media presence and is therefore the "face" of the department so the uninitiated conflate visibility to competence.
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I am ok with doing 3 for 1 deals with Green Bay or Milwaukee. Creates a little more fan interest when we play at home and gives us an opportunity for a road win under favorable circumstances. Attendance at these games has always been higher, both reported and actual bodies at the BC. Through in some bottom tier MAC and MVC and we will be fine.
We just have to play the scheduling game as it is defined. Even if it costs a few bucks in guarantees etc.
bulls#!t, don't give UWM crap. We gave them a helluva a deal with a 4 for 1 and they crapped on it like we were doing them a favor. Zero scheduling benefit and zero upside for Marquette. If you want to do something like that, do it for Bradley.....UWM got rot for all I care.
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I am ok with doing 3 for 1 deals with Green Bay or Milwaukee. Creates a little more fan interest when we play at home and gives us an opportunity for a road win under favorable circumstances. Attendance at these games has always been higher, both reported and actual bodies at the BC. Through in some bottom tier MAC and MVC and we will be fine.
We just have to play the scheduling game as it is defined. Even if it costs a few bucks in guarantees etc.
Whatever any of us like is irrelevant. At the current time, Marquette has zero interest in giving home games to mid and low major schools. They will not schedule series with Milwaukee, Green Bay, Bradley, Loyola-Chicago, Detroit, Valparaiso, or any other mid-major school or below that requires a home game in return.
Personally, I think Marquette would benefit massively from setting up four different teams on 3-for-1 deals. It locks four teams in for four years, so you don't have to solicit as many opponents annually, it guarantees you three decent mid-major home games, and also gives you one RPI-boosting away game. I think it would help our scheduling in many regards. But Marquette isn't interested in those, and no amount of interest on any of our parts matters.
3-for-1, 2-for-1, 4-for-1, 8-for-1, Marquette simply isn't interested in doing those deals.
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Whatever any of us like is irrelevant. At the current time, Marquette has zero interest in giving home games to mid and low major schools. They will not schedule series with Milwaukee, Green Bay, Bradley, Loyola-Chicago, Detroit, Valparaiso, or any other mid-major school or below that requires a home game in return.
Personally, I think Marquette would benefit massively from setting up four different teams on 3-for-1 deals. It locks four teams in for four years, so you don't have to solicit as many opponents annually, it guarantees you three decent mid-major home games, and also gives you one RPI-boosting away game. I think it would help our scheduling in many regards. But Marquette isn't interested in those, and no amount of interest on any of our parts matters.
3-for-1, 2-for-1, 4-for-1, 8-for-1, Marquette simply isn't interested in doing those deals.
I think you're right on and if I'm Broeker I go to the Horizon office and get this deal with:
UWGB (119)
UWM (175)
Detroit or Oakland (200 / 119)
UIC or Valpo (346!!! / 49!!!)