There hasn't been an NCAA champion with a nonleague schedule ranked...

[LastWarrior]

There hasn't been an NCAA champion with a nonleague schedule ranked better than 82nd in the past five years.

hhhmmm... to all the schedule detractors... maybe Coach Crean does know what he's doing with our non-conference schedule!

http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?t=288184

Nonconference schedules: Don't get carried away
October 10, 2007

Mike DeCourcy

OK Coach, you want to prove you're a tough guy?

You want to schedule North Carolina, Kansas, Memphis and UCLA? In a row, maybe? Terrific. You'll be on television a lot. You'll hear certain announcers saying it's great you are challenging your kids and that your schedule will make them better prepared come tournament time. Bay-bee.

For any team in a Top Six conference, there are some advantages to playing a difficult nonleague schedule. Just don't expect anyone to check for your ring size when the season is finished.

Championship teams are not forged by the toughest possible schedules, Coach. A championship team in this era tests itself a few times before entering conference play but mostly stays home against low- and mid-major opponents to build confidence.

This is not my opinion. This is fact.

Over the past three years, teams with the toughest schedules have, on average, been unsuccessful on Selection Sunday and throughout the tournament.

Of the 30 teams that had top 10 schedule strength ratings according to CollegeRPI.com, only one reached the Final Four. More wound up either missing the tournament (six) or playing in an 8-9 game (six) than earning No. 1 seeds (four).

The composite nonconference schedule rank of the dozen teams that made the Final Four the past three seasons was 79th. There hasn't been an NCAA champion with a nonleague schedule ranked better than 82nd in the past five years.

I'm here to tell you the truth, Coach. Other writers and analysts deliver odes to the importance of playing challenging schedules for one of two reasons: either they haven't looked into all this or they want to see more interesting games.

They're going to get more jazzed about Texas vs. Southern California than they will about Texas vs. Texas Southern. That's just how it is.

I talked to Michigan State's Tom Izzo about this. Because he believed in toughening his players for the challenges of March and because he hoped to elevate his program's profile and because he wanted to "take advantage of opportunities Michigan State might not have again," Izzo five years ago agreed to play Duke, Kansas, UCLA, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Syracuse. The Spartans lost every one of those games.

Izzo still is willing to take on a challenge, but he admits there is merit to my case.

"Confidence or competition? Being fully prepared or being burned out at the end? Those are things you could really make some arguments for," Izzo says. He also points out some residual benefits of playing a lighter schedule. The best players can build their scoring averages and the bench players get more minutes, so the locker room is a more pleasant place.

The media want to see all those big games, but when the team in the local coverage area loses one -- or, say, six -- that same group is going to wonder why. Loudly, in many instances. The media complain about soft schedules, too, but those arguments tend to be muted by an attractive record and high national ranking.

CollegeRPI.com math whiz Jerry Palm says, "An ideal nonconference schedule for a team like Memphis or Gonzaga isn't the same as it is for North Carolina or Louisville because big-conference schools can generally prove their mettle in conference play."

You can listen to me, Coach. You can listen to your colleague, Coach Izzo. You can listen to Palm. But I think we're all saying the same thing: You can grow stronger doing all that heavy lifting, or you just might throw out your back.