Tony Benford To Interview At Loyola-Chicago

[TallTitan34]

Marquette asst. coach Tony Benford will interview for the men's basketball head coaching job at Loyola-Chicago on Friday.

http://twitter.com/#!/prepbullseye

[Mr. Nielsen]

Former MU and current IU assaistant caoch Tim Buckley is up for this job.

[brewcity77]

Maybe if Benford gets it we could renew a series with Loyola. Make it a rotating 3-for-1 deal, gets us back in with a Jesuit school that should stick in the 175-250 RPI range.

[TallTitan34]

Not sure how I feel about a Loyola road game.

[🏀]

Not sure how I feel about a Loyola road game.

+1. Shouldn't happen.

Also, can DePaul veto us playing in Chicago?

[rocky_warrior]

+1. Shouldn't happen.

Also, can DePaul veto us playing in Chicago?

Perhaps, but if so then there's no way they could keep MU from playing all the way out in Rosemont.

[brewcity77]

Not sure how I feel about a Loyola road game.

We need to start playing on the road, and not just these one-and-ones with the SEC. We're better off scheduling three-for-ones that are more lucrative for us in terms of attendance, and setting up four of them so we can rotate the away game on a yearly basis. Schools like Loyola, Detroit, and St. Louis, that are relatively close so it's not a large travel cost, but not in-state so we'd lose face to schools like UW-M or UW-GB (neither of which we should ever travel to). In addition, it helps us further open recruiting in-roads in major Midwest cities.

If DePaul could prevent it, that would be a conflict, so I'd suggest trying to schedule it when they weren't in town, which might help alleviate their protests.

Either way, a non-con road game is a near must-have and is win-win. If you win, you get the RPI bonus, if you lose, it's a road game and understandable. And you're far more likely to beat a cupcake on the road than you are a Vandy or LSU. We need to fix our scheduling badly. This would be a great place to start. If you want to understand why we got an 11-seed instead of an 8-10, it all comes down to scheduling. Replace the Vandy loss with a Loyola road win, as well as home wins over Detroit, St. Louis, and Creighton instead of Longwood, Centenary, and Prairie View A&M and our RPI would skyrocket along with our seeding.

[downtown85]

Not sure how I feel about a Loyola road game.

we already have uwm and uwgb. Adding loyola would make it 3 horizon league opponents.  why not just join the horizon league?

[muguru]

Former MU and current IU assaistant caoch Tim Buckley is up for this job.

Buckley has removed his name from consideration

[Brewtown Andy]

We need to start playing on the road, and not just these one-and-ones with the SEC. We're better off scheduling three-for-ones that are more lucrative for us in terms of attendance, and setting up four of them so we can rotate the away game on a yearly basis. Schools like Loyola, Detroit, and St. Louis, that are relatively close so it's not a large travel cost, but not in-state so we'd lose face to schools like UW-M or UW-GB (neither of which we should ever travel to). In addition, it helps us further open recruiting in-roads in major Midwest cities.

If DePaul could prevent it, that would be a conflict, so I'd suggest trying to schedule it when they weren't in town, which might help alleviate their protests.

Either way, a non-con road game is a near must-have and is win-win. If you win, you get the RPI bonus, if you lose, it's a road game and understandable. And you're far more likely to beat a cupcake on the road than you are a Vandy or LSU. We need to fix our scheduling badly. This would be a great place to start. If you want to understand why we got an 11-seed instead of an 8-10, it all comes down to scheduling. Replace the Vandy loss with a Loyola road win, as well as home wins over Detroit, St. Louis, and Creighton instead of Longwood, Centenary, and Prairie View A&M and our RPI would skyrocket along with our seeding.

Detroit is a Horizon school, too.  SLU & Creighton are good ideas, though.

[🏀]

We need to start playing on the road, and not just these one-and-ones with the SEC. We're better off scheduling three-for-ones that are more lucrative for us in terms of attendance, and setting up four of them so we can rotate the away game on a yearly basis. Schools like Loyola, Detroit, and St. Louis, that are relatively close so it's not a large travel cost, but not in-state so we'd lose face to schools like UW-M or UW-GB (neither of which we should ever travel to). In addition, it helps us further open recruiting in-roads in major Midwest cities.

If DePaul could prevent it, that would be a conflict, so I'd suggest trying to schedule it when they weren't in town, which might help alleviate their protests.

Either way, a non-con road game is a near must-have and is win-win. If you win, you get the RPI bonus, if you lose, it's a road game and understandable. And you're far more likely to beat a cupcake on the road than you are a Vandy or LSU. We need to fix our scheduling badly. This would be a great place to start. If you want to understand why we got an 11-seed instead of an 8-10, it all comes down to scheduling. Replace the Vandy loss with a Loyola road win, as well as home wins over Detroit, St. Louis, and Creighton instead of Longwood, Centenary, and Prairie View A&M and our RPI would skyrocket along with our seeding.

Very well put. Would SLU, Detroit sign up for that though?

[MUBurrow]

We need to start playing on the road, and not just these one-and-ones with the SEC. We're better off scheduling three-for-ones that are more lucrative for us in terms of attendance, and setting up four of them so we can rotate the away game on a yearly basis. Schools like Loyola, Detroit, and St. Louis, that are relatively close so it's not a large travel cost, but not in-state so we'd lose face to schools like UW-M or UW-GB (neither of which we should ever travel to). In addition, it helps us further open recruiting in-roads in major Midwest cities.

+1

The schools we are looking to play, that our schedule from the last couple years was clearly lacking, won't be down for a one year commitment where we pay them to come here. If we keep trying to fill our schedule one game at a time, one year at a time without ever traveling anywhere, our early noncon bottom feeder games will continue to have godawful RPIs and drag us down.  When you think of a 3-for-1, traveling for the 1 is just another cost to consider with the amount you have to pay Centenary, tc to come here.  You get what you pay for, as this year showed. Its time for us to schedule some 3-for-1s with stronger lower conference teams or midlevel mid-majors so that our noncon numbers don't look so pitiful come tournament time.

[shoothoops]

Not a chance for SLU.  They'd do a home and home.  They did one with BC recently and beat them so BC won't do it again.  If SLU goes on the road, it'll be at places like Duke, again.  Rick has repeatedly asked Marquette for home and homes and Marquette hasn't been interested.

[shoothoops]

Oh and add SLU's associate HC Porter Moser to those interviewing at Loyola-Chi.

[Dish]

+1. Shouldn't happen.

Also, can DePaul veto us playing in Chicago?

I thought they could only veto it if it was a neutral site game. For example, if MU/Loyola wanted to play at United Center or Allstate.

[StillWarriors]

Oh and add SLU's associate HC Porter Moser to those interviewing at Loyola-Chi.

Porter would be a good fit. He has been a head coach before and attended high school in Naperville. Good guy.

[shoothoops]

Porter also interviewed at GB.  Imo he is using this for salary bump at SLU same way he did at GB.  Moser does a lot for SLU.

[brewcity77]

Detroit is a Horizon school, too.  SLU & Creighton are good ideas, though.

Regardless of conference, I have to think we can start establishing some deals with teams that won't kill our RPI come tourney time. The Horizon and C-USA, where teams rarely drop below 250, are a great place to start. There are also teams there that are close geographically which cuts down on travel costs. I also think we should look at teams in the Colonial, A-10, and Missouri Valley. If we keep hitting up the SWAC for our non-con opponents, well, we deserve the RPI we get.

[Pakuni]

Regardless of conference, I have to think we can start establishing some deals with teams that won't kill our RPI come tourney time. The Horizon and C-USA, where teams rarely drop below 250, are a great place to start. There are also teams there that are close geographically which cuts down on travel costs. I also think we should look at teams in the Colonial, A-10, and Missouri Valley. If we keep hitting up the SWAC for our non-con opponents, well, we deserve the RPI we get.

The problem is not only getting those programs to commit to "buy" games, but doing so at a price MU can afford.  I'm sure Houston or St. Bonavenutre would consider coming to MU without a return game, but it's going to cost a heck of a lot more than Centenary.
But if it's going to require a return game (of which MU can only do about three per year), I'd rather MU stick with the major conference teams, like UW, Vandy and LSU on next year's schedule.

[brewcity77]

The problem is not only getting those programs to commit to "buy" games, but doing so at a price MU can afford.  I'm sure Houston or St. Bonavenutre would consider coming to MU without a return game, but it's going to cost a heck of a lot more than Centenary.
But if it's going to require a return game (of which MU can only do about three per year), I'd rather MU stick with the major conference teams, like UW, Vandy and LSU on next year's schedule.

Keep UW, that is fine. It's a long-standing rivalry and makes sense. I'm not saying a one-and-one, I'm saying a three-for-one. Reduces the costs and still gets us playing on the road. Set up four of these series, alternate the home game so you play one each year and three home games. It's idiotic to think that playing Vandy is going to offset playing Centenary, Longwood, TAMU-CC, Mississippi Valley State, and South Dakota. Instead of playing 5 sub-250 teams and one top-25 team, play 6 teams in the 125-250 range. The average RPI of those six teams, including Vandy, was 311. That is an RPI killer, especially with the only quality opponent being a loss.

Now imagine if we had played Detroit, Creighton, and St. Louis at home, went on the road to play Loyola-Chicago, and done buy games with the worst teams in the A-10, Fordham, and C-USA, Houston. There are much better odds of getting a road win against a top-200 team, which provides a nice RPI boost, and gives an average opponent RPI of 189. Now I can't personally figure out exactly what that improvement would do to our RPI, but I'm guessing it would push us at least into the low 40s. Scheduling is killing us, and if we aren't afraid to play away against mid-major competition we can find equitable ways to balance out our schedule.

Quite simply, teams like Longwood, Centenary, TAMU-CC, and South Dakota turn your RPI into a huge steaming turd. You can polish it up with a Vandy or an LSU, but at the end of the day, that RPI is still a turd. You're better off having all your opponents in the 125-250 range, which can yield a nice 189 average like we see above, than mistakenly thinking that a decent opponent or two can offset pure fetid crap like what we play in the non-conference.

[shoothoops]

SLU is not going to play Marquette in anything except home and home.  SLU will have NCAA caliber teams for the next few seasons, beginning next year.

[brewcity77]

SLU is not going to play Marquette in anything except home and home.  SLU will have NCAA caliber teams for the next few seasons, beginning next year.

Then ignore SLU. SLU isn't the point. I used them as an example because they are a Jesuit school. Look into 3-for-1s with teams like Austin Peay, Evansville, Ohio, Western Michigan, Rice...it really doesn't matter as long as they fit into the mold of either being a low-conference powerhouse or a mid-major mid-to-lower tier team.

All I'm saying is that Benford being at Loyola could help open the door to us having a series with them, and a 3-for-1 would be excellent for the program, and if we had four of those on a cyclical away game basis, it would be better for our end-of-season hopes than home-and-homes with teams like LSU and Vandy.

[Goose]

If you want to improve the schedule, let's improve it. Seriously, SLU and Detroit is what we want? I won't argue wheter we are elite or not, but I doubt if other top 30 programs are hoping to land SLU and Detroit on their upcoming schedule. I am all for upping the ante on the schedule. Let's get some more bang for our buck though.

I can say with confidence that unless MU lands a special, special can't miss to see him play guy, SLU and Detroit would become Longwood games in excitement level. Eight degrees outside and Coach Rickie brings his 48 point a game O to BC I am staying on the couch.

[Mr. Nielsen]

There are some ok RPI's in the Summit League. Oakland is the big one! IUFW or Oral Roberts.

[shoothoops]

I responded to what was said.  Take it however you want to take it.  SLU will only be the buy game of a "Duke" type of school, and only reluctantly.  SLU would rather do home and home with mid-majors as fal backs to not getting home home and homes with high major teams.  I'm not guessing, I know this to be true.  If SLU is willing to play Marquette, and they are, it will be home and home or nothing.  And, it's been nothing to this point.  I'm just providing info.  I would have to make a call to double check but Creighton would likely be the same.