Buzz Said This About Our Non-Conference Schedule And If We Dont Make The Tourney

[79Warrior]

Bottom line is this team has had plenty of opportunities to get a quality win and it has not happened. WIS, OSU,SDSU, Creighton twice, Nova, New Mex etc. Struck out every time. Every analyst I have heard discuss MU articulates that is the glaring weakness in MU's case for the NCAA bid. We can argue cupcakes all day, the reality is we are almost done with the regular season and we are scrambling to make an argument for inclusion in the tourney. IMO, hope we go 3-1 down the stretch and make it to Saturday night in NYC.

[jesmu84]

It is an interesting discussion, in the end. If your goal is to make the tourney, more wins seem to get you in regardless of the competition. A better record is a better record. You might not get the highest seed, but you will get in. If you don't think your team can win those tough non-con games (like MU this season), schedule the cupcakes and hope the team improves enough throughout the season to make noise in the tourney. Rather get in and have a chance than not make it.

[PuertoRicanNightmare]

I hardly think we can blame the committee if we miss the tournament this year.

[chapman]

It's difficult to play a worse slate of buy games than we did.  Maybe subbing one or two of the challenging games for games we win would have been an improvement, if they were against Horizon-quality so they help RPI as much or more than losing to an elite team.

Losing to Ohio State, UW, etc. still didn't hurt our RPI.  Beating Grambling will drop us seven places in the RPI rankings at the end of the year vs. scheduling a D2 team that wouldn't have "counted".  It comes down to: 1) Not pretending we're in the poorhouse and scheduling the cheapest of the cheap buy games that kill RPI, and 2) actually winning one of the challenging games...they don't hurt RPI even with a loss, they really help when you win.

And as far as next year, @OSU, vs. UW, vs. ASU, and the Old Spice are already committed.  With the Old Spice field, the elite part of the non-con is as good as this year.  The non-committed part that can help us is not bringing in the worst of the worst buy game competition.  With more television revenue and tournament shares than ever and attendance actually up from last year, there is no excuse to bring in half the SWAC again.

[frozena pizza]

It's always a challenge.  As others have said, we needed to win at least one or two of those tougher non-con games to make up for the fact that we had a softer BE this year (and haven't beaten Creighton or 'Nova either).  Part of the difficulty was also that the only true home game we had against a quality opponent was Ohio State and we got whipped.

[tower912]

For the stats guys....is the Big East really 'softer' this year?    Didn't I read somewhere that this combination is more highly ranked than if it still looked like last year?

[MUSF]

I am totally fine with this year's schedule.

OSU
UW
SDSU
NM
Creighton x2
Nova x2

If we won two of the above games this year, had the same record in the other games +2 or 3 wins out of our last four, we would be in the tourney.

Any team that can't accomplished what I just described isn't good enough to be in the tournament. The problem isn't the schedule it's the quality of our team.

[jesmu84]

I am totally fine with this year's schedule.

OSU
UW
SDSU
NM
Creighton x2
Nova x2

If we won two of the above games this year, had the same record in the other games +2 or 3 wins out of our last four, we would be in the tourney.

Any team that can't accomplished what I just described isn't good enough to be in the tournament. The problem isn't the schedule it's the quality of our team.

Maybe. But they've still gotta fill the field with 68 teams.

[rocket surgeon]

if we played up to half our ability and maybe made 40% of our shots we should have beat ohio state and az state.  i remember being at that ohio state game almost walking out with 7 minutes to go and giving the rest of my tix away.  that was how disappointed i was...but then realized we just aren't that good.  my fault for being too pumped, however, i believe next year and then the year after, we'll be much improved

[MUSF]

Maybe. But they've still gotta fill the field with 68 teams.

Sure, but my overall point is still valid. It's not the schedule, it's the quality of the team.

MU's current schedule, and next year's schedule, provide ample opportunities to prove that the team is good enough to be in the NCAAs. We shouldn't build a schedule to give us the best chance to be one of the lucky few to sneak into the field of 68. We should build a schedule that gives us the most opportunities to prove that we are a tourney worthy team with just enough buy games to allow for confidence building and player/coach development early in the season. We have that balance now, IMO. We just haven't been good enough get quality wins.

[willie warrior]

Don't agree with Buzz on this. Schedule the toughest NC schedule you can. Forget about the 300 RPI cupcakes. If the team is good enough, the record will take care of itself. It also toughens the team quicker than playing cupcakes.

[jesmu84]

Sure, but my overall point is still valid. It's not the schedule, it's the quality of the team.

MU's current schedule, and next year's schedule, provide ample opportunities to prove that the team is good enough to be in the NCAAs. We shouldn't build a schedule to give us the best chance to be one of the lucky few to sneak into the field of 68. We should build a schedule that gives us the most opportunities to prove that we are a tourney worthy team with just enough buy games to allow for confidence building and player/coach development early in the season. We have that balance now, IMO. We just haven't been good enough get quality wins.

Can I ask why you shouldn't build a schedule to get us into the tourney, in your opinion? The conference season is set, no way to change that. Why would you not want to build the non-con around our team expectations and give us the best chance to get in?

[MUSF]

Can I ask why you shouldn't build a schedule to get us into the tourney, in your opinion? The conference season is set, no way to change that. Why would you not want to build the non-con around our team expectations and give us the best chance to get in?

I'm not saying that you shouldn't build schedules to get us in the tourney. I'm saying you shouldn't build schedules expecting to be one of the last teams in the tourney. Like I said, the schedule should provide max opportunities for quality wins while still providing enough buy/expected win games to develop the team for success in conference. The balance of quality opponents to buy/expected win games might change slightly based on expectations, but that shouldn't be the sole focus.

Schedules start getting built a few years out. It's pretty hard to predict how good a team will be with all of the potential variables. Case in point, the expectations were pretty high for MU this season.

[jesmu84]

I'm not saying that you shouldn't build schedules to get us in the tourney. I'm saying you shouldn't build schedules expecting to be one of the last teams in the tourney. Like I said, the schedule should provide max opportunities for quality wins while still providing enough buy/expected win games to develop the team for success in conference. The balance of quality opponents to buy/expected win games might change slightly based on expectations, but that shouldn't be the sole focus.

Schedules start getting built a few years out. It's pretty hard to predict how good a team will be with all of the potential variables. Case in point, the expectations were pretty high for MU this season.

That's fair. I misinterpreted your last post, which is why I asked for clarification

[chapman]

If you listen to IWB's recent podcast, Broecker talks about scheduling, which provides better context for the buy games.  They aren't trying to schedule 300+ teams, but they are very limited in terms of dates available, so if they have someone willing to play a buy game, they almost have to take it no matter the RPI.

Also made the point that it shouldn't matter to the committee -- a buy game against a 150 RPI or a 300 RPI is an expected win either way, but that's a separate issue.

Lame excuses from Broecker.  We have six wins with lower RPIs than Villanova's worst, six wins with lower RPIs than Georgetown's worst, and Xavier, Creighton, and Bucky all have only one win in the 300+ category to our five.  That isn't bad luck, it's a terrible job scheduling.  On him, unless someone decided that despite taking in more revenue than ever it was necessary to be cheap with our buy games and gave him limited budget.

[ChicosBailBonds]

For the stats guys....is the Big East really 'softer' this year?    Didn't I read somewhere that this combination is more highly ranked than if it still looked like last year?

Vs the other conferences in each given year?  Yes, weaker this year.  Ultimately you have to grade the conference in a given year vs other conferences in that same year.  In that regard, the Big East is softer this year vs other conferences this year as opposed to how the Big East has done in other years vs other conferences in those other years.

[Marqevans]

If Jake or anybody on the team had been able to shoot the ball early in the season we would have beat Ohio State and a few others and we wouldn't be having this discussion.