It's early, but these next two games are huge for MU

[DegenerateDish]

Mufanatic, what are you trying to argue here? I won't speak for PRN, but I think he and I are concerned about seeding come March, and believe what you want, but it absolutely, positively makes a tremendous difference in who you schedule in your OOC. Read Bilas, Katz, Davis, anyone you want, and their comments are all the same, who YOU schedule matters.

All games are not as important as each other, that is completely wrong. Beating or losing to Providence will have a far less effect than a win over Duke or a loss to Florida Gulf Coast. College basketball relies heavily on a handful of games that effect your seeding come March. If you want to talk about just making the tournament, then the course of action over the season is more important.

If you just get happy from making the NCAA's, that's fine and dandy. If you want to bump up the RPI, get wins vs Top 25 RPI Non-Conference opponents (which really does matter), and boost MU's standing on the S-Curve, then these games are HUGE. If you don't think a BE team that finishes with the same conference record as us (ND for example since we play them twice), and has better OOC wins, doesn't get a better seed than us come March, then you're logic is quite flawed.

Also, the opposite is true. Let's say MU does average at best in conference play, 9-9 and gets bounced early in the BET. The only thing you can rely on then is your OOC games and quality of opponents.

[Big Papi]

Mufanatic, what are you trying to argue here? I won't speak for PRN, but I think he and I are concerned about seeding come March, and believe what you want, but it absolutely, positively makes a tremendous difference in who you schedule in your OOC. Read Bilas, Katz, Davis, anyone you want, and their comments are all the same, who YOU schedule matters.

All games are not as important as each other, that is completely wrong. Beating or losing to Providence will have a far less effect than a win over Duke or a loss to Florida Gulf Coast. College basketball relies heavily on a handful of games that effect your seeding come March. If you want to talk about just making the tournament, then the course of action over the season is more important.

If you just get happy from making the NCAA's, that's fine and dandy. If you want to bump up the RPI, get wins vs Top 25 RPI Non-Conference opponents (which really does matter), and boost MU's standing on the S-Curve, then these games are HUGE. If you don't think a BE team that finishes with the same conference record as us (ND for example since we play them twice), and has better OOC wins, doesn't get a better seed than us come March, then you're logic is quite flawed.

Also, the opposite is true. Let's say MU does average at best in conference play, 9-9 and gets bounced early in the BET. The only thing you can rely on then is your OOC games and quality of opponents.

What am I trying to argue here?  First of all PRN is not talking about seeding but possibly not making the tourny but what I am trying to say is that we can still have a very good season, get seeded very high and have a good run in the tourny even if we lose to both Duke and WIsky.  Why?  because we return the same team as last year and my expectations are just as high as yours but frankly there is no way I can agree with you that 2 games out of 30 plus mean more than the rest of the games.  Up until tonight we played 3 games.  You disagree and that is fine.  We lose to Duke and Wisky but win our other 28 games and my guess is we are a 1 or 2 seed at worst.  Furthermore, the selection commitee has made it very clear that they place a greater emphasis on how you finish the year instead of how you start the year.  PRN brings up Syracuse of last year as a possibility of us not making the tourny if we lose these games but a better example is Syracuse of 2 years ago when they won 4 tourny games and go from not even being on the bubble to getting a high seed.  And what about MU last year.  We beat Duke and Texas Tech in a tourny yet our seed is not good because our last 10 games sucked.  So all I am saying is that if we lose both games, we can still have a great year, get a high seed and go far in the tourny.  Now I know my last point goes against what I was saying in that every game is just as important but that comment was not meant to be deeply analyzed.  All I meant by that was every game is huge as a win is always better than a loss so if we lose to Duke and WIsky but win 28 plus other games do you think we are going to be punished by the NCAA because we lost those 2 games?  Plus those are 2 games where we very well could be the underdog?