Does 2011-12 Paradise Jam hurt/help MU's SOS?

[Marquette84]

you want to see masterful non-con scheduling, look at Villanova, Tennessee, or Georgetown. It's brilliant.

Only if you win.

Look at Syracuse schedule in 2007.  Seems to fit your definition of masterful.

Not a single non-conference opponent ranked worse than 173.   None better than 40th. 

6 non-conference games to teams between 40 and 100.  7 more between 100 and 175.  Couple that with a 10-6 Big East record. 

Recipe for a high seed, right?

Well, those 3 non-conference losses probably cost Syracuse a bid.

Plain and simple, our scheduling sucks, and it nearly cost us a tourney bid this year. The idea that you can offset 6 awful crapcakes with 4 games against ranked teams is simply incorrect. Play better cupcakes and lesser top-100 teams and not only will our win total and RPI go up, so will are SOS.

I agree on fewer top 100 teams--we don't have to load up on non-conference opponents. Since we're going to play Wisconsin every year, and looks like we'll be in the BE/SEC challenge for the foreseeable future and an exempt tournament, that should be it. 

I disagree on the second--too many examples that run counter (MU vs. UL last year, UC compared to MU this year) to conclude that the committee pays much attention to the five worst teams on the non-conference schedule. 

[Chicos' Buzz Scandal Countdown]

Drake, Drexel, Marquette, Mississippi, Norfolk State, Texas Christian, Virginia, Winthrop 

TCU? Another Big East team in non-conference tournament? How does that work?

[MUMac]

TCU? Another Big East team in non-conference tournament? How does that work?

TCU is not joining the BE until the 2012-2013 Acadmic Year.

[Chicos' Buzz Scandal Countdown]

TCU is not joining the BE until the 2012-2013 Acadmic Year.

got it - thanks! Was hoping there was some kind of change going on... my Perfect World consists of an annual all-Jesuit BBall early-season tourney. Maybe someday....

[Stuckin1977]

got it - thanks! Was hoping there was some kind of change going on... my Perfect World consists of an annual all-Jesuit BBall early-season tourney. Maybe someday....

YES!  I've been saying that for years.  MU, G-town, Xavier, Gonzaga, Boston College, Loyola-Chicago, Detroit, Loyola-Marymount, Seattle U, Canisius.

It's got plenty of decent teams and would be well-attended.  Have different schools in the tourney host it each year.

[Chicos' Buzz Scandal Countdown]

YES!  I've been saying that for years.  MU, G-town, Xavier, Gonzaga, Boston College, Loyola-Chicago, Detroit, Loyola-Marymount, Seattle U, Canisius.

It's got plenty of decent teams and would be well-attended.  Have different schools in the tourney host it each year.

also Saint Joe's, Holy Cross, Fordham, SLU.... Really a mini-NCAA tourney; High-Majors to lower-level programs. Follow me on this one: The concern is that, if MU played Georgetown (for example), we would have an extra conference game and corrupt any BEast rankings. Two workarounds:

1) Don't count the pre-conference game towards the conference schedule (in the GU/MU example, an MU win counts as non-conference on the BEast record)
2) In the event GU/MU play in the early-season tourney (sticking with the same example), both teams would sign up for having that count toward their conference record, and cancel the regularly-scheduled game later on.
   - A few concerns on this are sure to be revenue from home games and TV airing rights, so #1 would seem maybe a bit more realistic

It would be a great opportunity year in and year out to play quality teams and coaches, and would elevate the play of many of our Jesuit brethren.

[Chicos' Buzz Scandal Countdown]

I'd imagine an "every year" tourney with teams from all over the USA would help recruiting as well. More playing/games televised in your home town and region

[Stuckin1977]

Definitely scenario #1.  Good call on those 4 other schools.

[brewcity77]

Only if you win.

Look at Syracuse schedule in 2007.  Seems to fit your definition of masterful.

Not a single non-conference opponent ranked worse than 173.   None better than 40th. 

6 non-conference games to teams between 40 and 100.  7 more between 100 and 175.  Couple that with a 10-6 Big East record. 

Recipe for a high seed, right?

Well, those 3 non-conference losses probably cost Syracuse a bid.

Beg to differ. First of all, because your facts are wrong.

None worse than 173? How about...

186 Northeastern
210 UTEP
243 Canisius
261 Colgate
277 St. Bonaventure
281 St. Francis (NY)

Now Northeastern is fine, UTEP isn't bad, but that's four teams with sub-240 RPI ratings. These all hurt your final RPI and SOS. But that's not the real reason Syracuse missed the tournament.

Syracuse was cost a bid because they didn't have enough quality wins. Their non-conference and conference schedules, taken individually, were okay. But Georgetown was their only really big win. And with three quality wins (G'Town, Villanova, Marquette) and two bad losses (St. John's, Wichita State) they simply didn't have the overall resume.

The thing is, you can offset bad losses if you have a quality non-conference schedule. Look at Tennessee. Two seed-lines higher than us despite three bad losses, including one sub-200 loss. Only if you win? Clearly their performance and seeding proves otherwise. And they had just as many losses (14) as we did with one less win. There has to be a reason they were seeded higher. Was it their work in conference? Can't be, because they had a .500 record in an inferior conference. The only thing left is the non-conference schedule, where they suffered a bad loss (Charlotte) and had a mediocre 10-5 record that included three losses (USC, Charleston, Charlotte) that were worse than our worst non-con loss (Gonzaga). The reason they were seeded ahead of us is because they played a bold non-conference schedule with only three teams having a sub-200 RPI and zero that had a sub-300 RPI.

Or Villanova, seeded higher than us despite an identical conference record and limping into the tournament. But they only played one sub-300 team and two others that were sub-200. And zero top-25 RPI non-conference opponents.

And Georgetown...all I can say is wow. One sub-200 opponent and only two top-25, but both were mid-majors. You don't have to go powerhouse in your non-conference opponents. Oh, and they finished with the #1 SOS in the country.

To get a truly elite SOS, you need to offset every sub-200 opponent with a top-50 opponent. So unless we're willing to play half our non-conference against top-50 teams, we can't schedule half our non-conference against sub-200 teams. Play against two or three sub-200s, two or three top-50s (but try to avoid top 10s, high loss probability) and bolster the rest with teams in the 100-200 range that should be beatable but aren't disastrous if you lose. Aim for potential mid and low-major conference champs that may be dangerous, but will give a nice RPI boost because of a good overall record and potentially add to the number of tourney teams you beat at the end of the year, and if you lose, they are still possibly tourney teams (Oakland, Belmont, Wichita State, Iona).

[Marquette84]

Beg to differ. First of all, because your facts are wrong.

None worse than 173? How about...

186 Northeastern
210 UTEP
243 Canisius
261 Colgate
277 St. Bonaventure
281 St. Francis (NY)

http://realtimerpi.com/2007-2008/rpi_164_Men.html

64 Siena
50 St. Joseph
172 Fordham
46 Ohio State (LOSS)
122 Washington
41 UMass (LOSS)
158 Tulane
127 Virginia
74 Rhode Island (LOSS)
170 Colgate
173 Northeastern

This seems to be the "masterful" non-conference schedule you seek.  No truly difficult teams.  None worse than 173.

It did not result in an NCAA bid for the Orange.

If they had gone undefeated with an easier schedule, would they have received an NCAA bid?  I don't know. What is certain is that DID schedule exactly as you suggested.

[brewcity77]

http://realtimerpi.com/2007-2008/rpi_164_Men.html

64 Siena
50 St. Joseph
172 Fordham
46 Ohio State (LOSS)
122 Washington
41 UMass (LOSS)
158 Tulane
127 Virginia
74 Rhode Island (LOSS)
170 Colgate
173 Northeastern

This seems to be the "masterful" non-conference schedule you seek.  No truly difficult teams.  None worse than 173.

It did not result in an NCAA bid for the Orange.

If they had gone undefeated with an easier schedule, would they have received an NCAA bid?  I don't know. What is certain is that DID schedule exactly as you suggested.

That's not 2007 Syracuse, as you said, that's 2008. The non-con occurred in 2007, but year is usually dictated not by the start, but by the year in which the tournament occurs. Regardless, semantics. That Syracuse team went 9-9 in conference play (19-13 overall) and again, they didn't have enough quality wins. Their only quality wins were Georgetown and Marquette while they had two bad losses to South Florida and Cincinnati.

The non-conference schedule in 2008 was fine (and they clearly learned from their 2007 snub). The problem was a .500 conference record and not enough quality wins to offset their bad losses, not their non-con scheduling.

[brewcity77]

YES!  I've been saying that for years.  MU, G-town, Xavier, Gonzaga, Boston College, Loyola-Chicago, Detroit, Loyola-Marymount, Seattle U, Canisius.

It's got plenty of decent teams and would be well-attended.  Have different schools in the tourney host it each year.

As was pointed out, the problem would be same-conference teams playing. NCAA rules require those games to count as part of the conference schedule, which wouldn't go over well with the Big East or any of the conferences. I think the best bet would be to invite 4-8 Jesuit schools from different conferences. So you could have a pool of teams and invite one from each conference.

Atlantic 10: Xavier, St. Louis, St. Joseph's, Fordham
ACC: Boston College
Big East: Georgetown, Marquette, Villanova
Independent: Seattle
Horizon: Detroit, Loyola-Chicago
MAAC: Fairfield, St. Peter's, Canisius, Loyola-Maryland,
Missouri Valley: Creighton
Patriot League: Holy Cross
West Coast: Gonzaga, San Francisco, Loyola Marymount, Santa Clara

The only problem is that while you have multiple teams to draw from in the A-10, Big East, Horizon, MAAC, and West Coast, that's only a rotation of 5 conferences, while needing three of BC, Seattle, Creighton, and Holy Cross. So somehow you need more teams to rotate in.

How about if they invited some NAIA or NCAA DII teams? It works for the Maui Invitational, which Chaminade plays in every year. Loyola-New Orleans and Spring Hill both play in the NAIA, while Regis and Le Moyne could represent DII. It'd make for 2-4 teams playing true cupcakes a year, but if the NCAA counted Michigan State's win over Chaminade this year, why not include a Marquette win over Le Moyne (or Georgetown loss to Spring Hill )?

[DaCoach]

Also, @ DaCoach, I disagree. If you want to figure out why those teams were seeded like that, look at how many sub-250 teams they played. How did UT get a 9 when we got an 11? Why were we seeded 2.5 lines lower than the bracketologists had us? Why were Va Tech and Colorado snubbed? Just count the number of sub-250 opponents.

Saying that winning more games will help us is about as insightful as saying your odds of winning a game improve when you outscore the other team. While true, it's not exactly a revelation.

There was a straight line correlation between the number of sub-250 opponents (regardless of W/L record) among teams in the bottom at-large seed lines. I'm not saying we should schedule more Dukes, North Carolinas, or Ohio States. On the contrary, we should schedule less of them. Our powerhouse opponents should be in the 35-80 range. Higher win probability and in terms of RPI not much different than playing top 25 teams. But our cupcakes should be in the 150-225 range, not the 245-345 range. If you want to see masterful non-con scheduling, look at Villanova, Tennessee, or Georgetown. It's brilliant. And while we complain about how much it costs to bring in a RPI 160 team instead of a RPU 320 team, let me remind everyone that we have the second-largest basketball budget in the NCAA.

Plain and simple, our scheduling sucks, and it nearly cost us a tourney bid this year. The idea that you can offset 6 awful crapcakes with 4 games against ranked teams is simply incorrect. Play better cupcakes and lesser top-100 teams and not only will our win total and RPI go up, so will are SOS.

Do you really think we can schedule 4-6 prior to season and have a good take on everyone else's RPI? With 14 losses, the best we could have hoped for was a #10. That's reality, not fantasy. Clearly, as the numbers prove, SOS has verry little to do when you have double digit losses. You may believe that other teams are just waiting to schedule us, but it's a free market. Scheduling #200s as opposed to #300s is a crap shot depending on how other teams season plays out. We win games and we get ranked high. We lose 14 games and we're lucky to be in the tourney. And it has nothing to do with our non-conf schedule.

[Chicos' Buzz Scandal Countdown]

As was pointed out, the problem would be same-conference teams playing. NCAA rules require those games to count as part of the conference schedule, which wouldn't go over well with the Big East or any of the conferences. I think the best bet would be to invite 4-8 Jesuit schools from different conferences. So you could have a pool of teams and invite one from each conference.

Atlantic 10: Xavier, St. Louis, St. Joseph's, Fordham
ACC: Boston College
Big East: Georgetown, Marquette, Villanova
Independent: Seattle
Horizon: Detroit, Loyola-Chicago
MAAC: Fairfield, St. Peter's, Canisius, Loyola-Maryland,
Missouri Valley: Creighton
Patriot League: Holy Cross
West Coast: Gonzaga, San Francisco, Loyola Marymount, Santa Clara

The only problem is that while you have multiple teams to draw from in the A-10, Big East, Horizon, MAAC, and West Coast, that's only a rotation of 5 conferences, while needing three of BC, Seattle, Creighton, and Holy Cross. So somehow you need more teams to rotate in.

How about if they invited some NAIA or NCAA DII teams? It works for the Maui Invitational, which Chaminade plays in every year. Loyola-New Orleans and Spring Hill both play in the NAIA, while Regis and Le Moyne could represent DII. It'd make for 2-4 teams playing true cupcakes a year, but if the NCAA counted Michigan State's win over Chaminade this year, why not include a Marquette win over Le Moyne (or Georgetown loss to Spring Hill )?

It's a good idea. Didn't realize it was an NCAA-level rule that those games would have to count toward conference records... doesn't the Big East determine it's own system for ordering teams (in the event of tie breakers at least)?

I'll take your word for it - Seems a reasonable request (should the schools think it a priority) to have this amended. What is the worst-cast scenario?

[brewcity77]

Do you really think we can schedule 4-6 prior to season and have a good take on everyone else's RPI? With 14 losses, the best we could have hoped for was a #10. That's reality, not fantasy. Clearly, as the numbers prove, SOS has verry little to do when you have double digit losses. You may believe that other teams are just waiting to schedule us, but it's a free market. Scheduling #200s as opposed to #300s is a crap shot depending on how other teams season plays out. We win games and we get ranked high. We lose 14 games and we're lucky to be in the tourney. And it has nothing to do with our non-conf schedule.

If it's best case, why did Tennessee get a 9-seed?

And that's why you have to craft your non-con schedule better, so you don't have 4 losses. All of those were to ranked teams that we simply weren't ready for at the time. And sandwiching those around sub-300 teams didn't prepare us any better. You think you can't predict it? Please. That's simple ignorance. No, you can't predict a team's RPI to the number, but you can predict it within about 40-50 spots. Look at a team historically, track them over the past five years. If they are consistently in the 180-220 range, it's a good bet that the worst you'll end up with is a 230 or so. Teams like Centenary and Longwood peak in the 290s. You simply know that they are going to suck, and that they are going to be an RPI drain. In addition, you look at teams by league. Pretty much any SWAC team is going to be 250 or worse, unless they win the title, which won't get them much higher than that anyway. Either target perennial low-major contenders or mid-major bottom feeders. It isn't by accident that Georgetown has a top-10 in the nation schedule pretty much every year despite playing the same conference schedule we do.

Scheduling can be fixed, and to act as though it is simply luck is foolish. What, do you think TAMU-CC or Prairie View were ever going to compete for their conference title and a possible NCAA automatic berth? Of course not. They knew that and so did we when we scheduled them. Scheduling is the most important factor a team can control in creating their tournament resume. We need wins, which come with not scheduling so many top-25 caliber teams, and we need a high RPI, which comes with scheduling higher-level cupcakes. Both of which can be achieved with better scheduling, and believe me, the NCAA knows teams schedule whom they choose, and that goes a long way in determining where they are seeded come March and if a team even gets into the tourney in the first place.

[HouWarrior]

If it's best case, why did Tennessee get a 9-seed?

And that's why you have to craft your non-con schedule better, so you don't have 4 losses. All of those were to ranked teams that we simply weren't ready for at the time. And sandwiching those around sub-300 teams didn't prepare us any better. You think you can't predict it? Please. That's simple ignorance. No, you can't predict a team's RPI to the number, but you can predict it within about 40-50 spots. Look at a team historically, track them over the past five years. If they are consistently in the 180-220 range, it's a good bet that the worst you'll end up with is a 230 or so. Teams like Centenary and Longwood peak in the 290s. You simply know that they are going to suck, and that they are going to be an RPI drain. In addition, you look at teams by league. Pretty much any SWAC team is going to be 250 or worse, unless they win the title, which won't get them much higher than that anyway. Either target perennial low-major contenders or mid-major bottom feeders. It isn't by accident that Georgetown has a top-10 in the nation schedule pretty much every year despite playing the same conference schedule we do.

Scheduling can be fixed, and to act as though it is simply luck is foolish. What, do you think TAMU-CC or Prairie View were ever going to compete for their conference title and a possible NCAA automatic berth? Of course not. They knew that and so did we when we scheduled them. Scheduling is the most important factor a team can control in creating their tournament resume. We need wins, which come with not scheduling so many top-25 caliber teams, and we need a high RPI, which comes with scheduling higher-level cupcakes. Both of which can be achieved with better scheduling, and believe me, the NCAA knows teams schedule whom they choose, and that goes a long way in determining where they are seeded come March and if a team even gets into the tourney in the first place.

I agree.

[Stuckin1977]

As was pointed out, the problem would be same-conference teams playing. NCAA rules require those games to count as part of the conference schedule, which wouldn't go over well with the Big East or any of the conferences. I think the best bet would be to invite 4-8 Jesuit schools from different conferences. So you could have a pool of teams and invite one from each conference.

Atlantic 10: Xavier, St. Louis, St. Joseph's, Fordham
ACC: Boston College
Big East: Georgetown, Marquette, Villanova
Independent: Seattle
Horizon: Detroit, Loyola-Chicago
MAAC: Fairfield, St. Peter's, Canisius, Loyola-Maryland,
Missouri Valley: Creighton
Patriot League: Holy Cross
West Coast: Gonzaga, San Francisco, Loyola Marymount, Santa Clara

The only problem is that while you have multiple teams to draw from in the A-10, Big East, Horizon, MAAC, and West Coast, that's only a rotation of 5 conferences, while needing three of BC, Seattle, Creighton, and Holy Cross. So somehow you need more teams to rotate in.

How about if they invited some NAIA or NCAA DII teams? It works for the Maui Invitational, which Chaminade plays in every year. Loyola-New Orleans and Spring Hill both play in the NAIA, while Regis and Le Moyne could represent DII. It'd make for 2-4 teams playing true cupcakes a year, but if the NCAA counted Michigan State's win over Chaminade this year, why not include a Marquette win over Le Moyne (or Georgetown loss to Spring Hill )?

'Nova isn't Jesuit.  But if they were, that would create a lot more problems for this type of tourney.  I guess they'd just have to rotate which schools can enter from each conference.

Or how about if MU and G-town are in the finals, G-town forfeits automatically 

[Marquette84]

That's not 2007 Syracuse, as you said, that's 2008. The non-con occurred in 2007, but year is usually dictated not by the start, but by the year in which the tournament occurs. Regardless, semantics. That Syracuse team went 9-9 in conference play (19-13 overall) and again, they didn't have enough quality wins. Their only quality wins were Georgetown and Marquette while they had two bad losses to South Florida and Cincinnati.

The non-conference schedule in 2008 was fine (and they clearly learned from their 2007 snub). The problem was a .500 conference record and not enough quality wins to offset their bad losses, not their non-con scheduling.

Fair enough on the year indication.

However, I question what lesson they learned from their 2007 snub.  Seems to me that the lesson is that beefing up the bottom end of the non-conference schedule is irrelevant.  It simply won't overcome a basic loss of wins.

That non-conference schedule i highlighted for Syracuse was exactly the type of masterful scheduling you advocate, and it simply wasn't enough to get Syracuse into the tournament that year despite a .500 Big East record. 

We played a worse schedule (per the RPI/SOS rank) this year, and still got into the tourney (as did UConn and Villanova) with the same .500 record.

Therefore, I'm of the opinion that improving the strength of the bottom five teams on the schedule does not result in a tournament bid.  Syracuse played all decent teams, zero terrible teams and didn't get a bid.  We played a bunch of terrible teams, a handful of good teams (but lost them all) and barely snuck in with a .500 record.  Cincinnati played a terrible non-conference schedule, won them all, played the Big East only slightly better than we did, and received a relatively high seed.

I simply don't see that efforts to engineer the bottom end of the non-conference schedule to optimize for SOS has any  predictable result.

Stated differently, I don't think the committee puts a whole lot of weight into the decision to schedule and relative performance against #181 Canisius versus #342 Centenary--a tournament-worthy team should beat them both, period.

The determination of which teams get off the bubble, and where teams are seeded, will be based on performance against the better team--and it doesn't seem to matter if you play 17 ranked opponents or only 2 or three--perform well in those games and you get a high seed--perform poorly, and you don't get a bid.

[brewcity77]

My contention is that it's all about stacking the deck as much in your favor as possible. Yes, that Syracuse team missed the Dance, but this is a different year. The Big East got 11 teams in a field of 68. Would 'Cuse in 08 have earned a bid in a 68-team field? We can't say for certain, but it's probably likely.

Before this year, SC members stated they'd be looking more closely at non-con schedules and how teams were scheduling. I did a piece for CS that showed a direct correlation between the number of sub-200 teams on a team's schedule (win or lose) and their seed, while comparing all the 14-loss teams, Big East and Big Ten "bubbleish" teams, others with similar profiles and seeds to MU, and the first few teams out. The seeding numbers made a straight line in regards to the number of sub-200 non-con opponents, from teams like Tennessee and Michigan down to Colorado and Virginia Tech.

It's all about stacking the deck as much as possible in your favor. Play and succeed in a tough conference? As long as we stay over .500 in the Big East, that will give us enough quality wins to get in. Get enough non-con wins? Play 10 opponents that are in the 100-225 range, no more than 2 away from home (assuming 1 neutral) and we should get at least 9 wins. Then play 3 top 100 teams, preferably in the 26-50 range with no more than 1 true road game. That should get at least 1 more win most years, taking us to 20 wins minimum going into the Big East tourney. And finally, it will result in a tough non-con and a likely top-30 RPI and SOS. It's the recipe for at worst a 6-seed pretty much every year.

You can junk up on crap like Cincy, but if they lost 2-3 non-con games and had our conference record they'd have been on the verge of missing the tournament. A strong non-con only requires a majority of middling foes and a high end of middle-of-the-pack tourney teams. My plan also likely results in more wins thanks to fewer Dukes,  and Vanderbilts on our schedule and more Gonzagas and NC States (let's face it, we should have beat Gonzaga). And a few more UW-GBs and Bucknells, too.

The RPI and SOS would both get a big boost from this method of scheduling. And clearly, the SC uses these numbers for selection and seeding. So if there's not much difference between 181 and 343 at home, why not play 181? We will still get the win, and our resume will be improved because if it.