[Matt Velazquez] Steve Wojciechowski discusses method behind Marquette's 2015-'16 schedule

[MattVelazquez]

Steve Wojciechowski discusses method behind Marquette's 2015-'16 schedule

Marquette had a lot of positive going for it heading into the NIT Selection Show. The Golden Eagles' résumé featured 7 RPI top-100 wins, which was among the best for at-large teams under consideration for the NIT. They also had a pair of road wins against RPI top-50 teams, the most among possible at-large selections.

Source: Steve Wojciechowski discusses method behind Marquette's 2015-'16 schedule

[wadesworld]

That can't be. Our local Scoop experts said Wojo, Nelson, Diener, Carawell, and Johnson just sat with their feet up on Wojo's desk and threw darts on a wall plastered with the names of teams with a projected RPI of 300+ to determine our non-conference schedule.

[HoopsterBC]

Losing Taylor was a big loss, he would have given them experience and another body upfront.  NN was a problem child, no fault of Wojo, he had issues, and hope he
recovers from them.  Not sure really why Taylor left, he would have gotten time at the 3 and 4 and probably would have played 20-25 minutes a game this year, maybe
more since Luke was always in trouble with fouls?  Why did he leave?

[brewcity77]

That can't be. Our local Scoop experts said Wojo, Nelson, Diener, Carawell, and Johnson just sat with their feet up on Wojo's desk and threw darts on a wall plastered with the names of teams with a projected RPI of 300+ to determine our non-conference schedule.

When did anyone ever said that? This schedule was always calculated. Stupid, but calculated.

However, for them to say they built the schedule like this for a reason and then lament why they missed the postseason is just ridiculous. Because they chose to play a schedule that allowed them no leeway and required them to win 22 games just to make the NIT.

[wadesworld]

When did anyone ever said that? This schedule was always calculated. Stupid, but calculated.

However, for them to say they built the schedule like this for a reason and then lament why they missed the postseason is just ridiculous. Because they chose to play a schedule that allowed them no leeway and required them to win 22 games just to make the NIT.

Have yet to see them lament why the missed the postseason.

Not sure how it was stupid. I guess going 13-19 again but having a better SOS would've been better...

[Dr. Blackheart]

Northwestern OOC SOS: 345
Marquette OOC SOS:  344

This is the Duke formula of getting fat on cupcakes, but K can demand bigger cupcakes to visit their home court, and they can play all their away OOC games on a neutral court. 

MU misplayed this hoping to fill out with better games that didn't materialize. Instead we got Stetson.

[ChitownSpaceForRent]

Have yet to see them lament why the missed the postseason.

Not sure how it was stupid. I guess going 13-19 again but having a better SOS would've been better...

I mean maybe is does. The 20 wins certainly didn't help with attendance or getting into the post season. Even if they beat Depaul, they're still not in the NIT with that non conference. It did end up hurting Marquette.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Northwestern OOC SOS: 345
Marquette OOC SOS:  344

This is the Duke formula of getting fat on cupcakes, but K can demand bigger cupcakes to visit their home court, and they can play all their away OOC games on a neutral court. 

MU misplayed this hoping to fill out with better games that didn't materialize. Instead we got Stetson.

Last year we were at 173 OOC SOS.
Northwestern was at 217 OOC SOS.

Did the Duke formula only start this year?

Just for giggles, Bert's last year....209 OOC SOS

[Smokin' Jae]

That can't be. Our local Scoop experts said Wojo, Nelson, Diener, Carawell, and Johnson just sat with their feet up on Wojo's desk and threw darts on a wall plastered with the names of teams with a projected RPI of 300+ to determine our non-conference schedule.

Lol yeah no one said that, almost the opposite. They knew exactly what they were doing with this schedule and it was a bad idea then and still a bad idea. Hindsight is 20/20 but there was no margin for error for this young team because of the way the schedule was designed. I can guarantee you it will not happen again, on to next year.

[Dr. Blackheart]

Last year we were at 173 OOC SOS.
Northwestern was at 217 OOC SOS.

Did the Duke formula only start this year?

Just for giggles, Bert's last year....209 OOC SOS

Well, according to the Broeker article, these schedules are put together a year plus in advance, and more.  Meaning last year's schedule was put mainly together under Bert.  So, the 344 is directly under Wojo. This schedule is the one over the last 15 that Broeker has assembled that is so different in SOS.  Odd, but that 209 which turned into a 20 overall, gets MU into the NIT if not the Big Dance.

[UticaBusBarn]

Hindsight is always 20-20. For a very young team to go to Italy and to have a cupcake schedule seemed to make sense last fall. The team would get maximum time under the lights, and would then be ready for the Big East season.

The trade off was cup cakes as appetiser in the belief that the Warriors would having a winning record when the main course of conference play began. Oops!

The Warriors were not ready for conference play and it was not until the last two-thirds of the season that they somewhat righted the ship by going 6-6 in the Big East.

OK, the approach didn't work. Next year it would sad, and not very smart, if the Athletic Department took the same approach. However, I am sure the 2016-17 schedule will reflect the lesson learned.

[jsglow]

One factor here will be the faith folks have (or don't) when it comes to season ticket renewals.  Roster transition should be complete by the time folks have to decide.  Scheduling won't have been announced as of that date.  MU better hope the news on the first part is neutral to positive.

[brewcity77]

Have yet to see them lament why the missed the postseason.

Not sure how it was stupid. I guess going 13-19 again but having a better SOS would've been better...

I guess you didn't read the article this thread is about then:

Head coach Steve Wojciechowski said as of Sunday night he hadn't spoken with any members of the NIT selection committee about their decision to leave Marquette out of the field.

"Certainly we'll try to figure that out because it's hard to figure out right now," he told the Journal Sentinel on Sunday night.

Further, Broeker was trying to get ahead of this by pointing out all our positives for NIT inclusion on Twitter Saturday night. They seem to think they legitimately had a shot and now are upset they didn't get in. Give me a break. This was always the reality of things.

The schedule meant we needed to go 11-7 or better in conference play to get in to the NCAAs and at least needed a winning conference record to get into the NIT. Considering we actually went 8-10, I'm not sure why they are surprised and feel they needed to plead their case. They never had a case to plead.

[mu03eng]

I guess you didn't read the article this thread is about then:

Further, Broeker was trying to get ahead of this by pointing out all our positives for NIT inclusion on Twitter Saturday night. They seem to think they legitimately had a shot and now are upset they didn't get in. Give me a break. This was always the reality of things.

The schedule meant we needed to go 11-7 or better in conference play to get in to the NCAAs and at least needed a winning conference record to get into the NIT. Considering we actually went 8-10, I'm not sure why they are surprised and feel they needed to plead their case. They never had a case to plead.

What's worse is this was obvious in September when they announced it....hell we did a whole pod on how the schedule required us to win at least 21 games to make any kind of post season. If they are legitimately in the dark A) they are the only ones B) an argument could be made they should be fired for being that clueless.

I'm going to run the math today now that all regular season games are done, but if the 7 games that were 300+ become 200+ instead we're in at least the NIT. And the argument that this team needed to play the fattest of the cupcakes to get better is ridiculous.

[brewcity77]

What's worse is this was obvious in September when they announced it....hell we did a whole pod on how the schedule required us to win at least 21 games to make any kind of post season. If they are legitimately in the dark A) they are the only ones B) an argument could be made they should be fired for being that clueless.

I'm going to run the math today now that all regular season games are done, but if the 7 games that were 300+ become 200+ instead we're in at least the NIT. And the argument that this team needed to play the fattest of the cupcakes to get better is ridiculous.

You don't even need to change that much. I did the math changing just 4 opponents and it would make us a NIT lock even if we had gone 3-1 against tougher competition.

I'm guessing we improved about as much playing Grambling and Presbyterian as we did playing Valley City State.

[CTWarrior]

And the argument that this team needed to play the fattest of the cupcakes to get better is ridiculous.

+1,000,000

I have refrained from commenting on the schedule up until now, because, what's the point?

But there is NO value in terms of team development in playing against teams that are not competitive.  Forget the impact on RPI and the effect it has on our postseason chances, but beating bottom of the barrel teams causes you to develop bad habits because you can get away with lazy lob passes, etc.  The only benefits are that you can give minutes to the end of your bench and Wojo's career record is now above .500.

But I can see MU's point with this schedule.  Any time you can retard your team's development, alienate your fan base, and hurt your team's chances at a postseason bid, you gotta do it.

[Litehouse]

brewcity, do you have the link to your post on the schedule substitution?  It was a perfect summary.

Reading that article doesn't give me much faith that the Athletic Dept. understood the consequences of the schedule when they put it together.

[mu03eng]

An argument can also be made that LSU, NC State, St Johns and DePaul really hosed Marquette by being so awful compared to what they were the previous year. Here is the "projected" RPI(assuming similar performance to the previous year) and what the RPI actually turned out being.

                         RPI Projection   Actual RPI
Belmont                 100                    92
IUPUI                 258                    239
Iowa                 40                    67
LSU                         65                   128
North Carolina St   32                   180
Jackson State         317                   158
Grambling                 351                   343
Maine                 338                   298
San Jose State         336                   333
Wisconsin         51                   95
Chicago State         333                   351
Presbyterian          314                   289
Stetson                 335                   298
Butler                 30                   67
Georgetown         24                   202
DePaul                 197                   286
Saint John's         52                   324
Villanova                 6                   3
Xavier                 28                   5
Creighton                 156                   136
Seton Hall         103                   34
Providence         25                   57


Basically it reinforces how stupid the scheduling was.....scheduling a projected 7 300+ RPI teams puts you on such a razors edge that you have to either win almost everything or hope that all the "good teams" perform at at least the same as previous year level or both. The average RPI rank of our opponents was 164, projected had it at 132....and that's with at least 3 teams (Stetson, Jackson State, and Maine significantly outperforming their forecast.

Really really question Broeker here, especially if they are now putting out a "we didn't know" narrative.

[MUDPT]

Gasaway mentioned on Twitter last night that the PAC 12 gamed the RPI.  Just took a quick look at their schedules, lots of 200+, and I think they tried to limit the 300+.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

What's worse is this was obvious in September when they announced it....hell we did a whole pod on how the schedule required us to win at least 21 games to make any kind of post season. If they are legitimately in the dark A) they are the only ones B) an argument could be made they should be fired for being that clueless.

I'm going to run the math today now that all regular season games are done, but if the 7 games that were 300+ become 200+ instead we're in at least the NIT. And the argument that this team needed to play the fattest of the cupcakes to get better is ridiculous.

Every team schedules a few 300+ teams. Don't change all seven. Change four for a realistic schedule. As brew points out, upgrading four gets us into the nit. Upgrading four and beating two of depaul, Creighton, and Belmont and were dancing

[MerrittsMustache]

Marquette gambled and lost. The margin for error was very thin and the losses to DePaul and Creighton killed them. Win those 2 and MU finishes 4th in BE and heads into a BET match-up with Providence. IOW, they'd be in the NIT.

Cry all you want about the non-conf schedule but if MU doesn't blow two winnable, conference home games, it's a moot point.

[mu03eng]

Every team schedules a few 300+ teams. Don't change all seven. Change four for a realistic schedule. As brew points out, upgrading four gets us into the nit. Upgrading four and beating two of depaul, Creighton, and Belmont and were dancing

To be fair we only ended up with 3 teams that were 300+ in our control(St John's was also 300+ so we had 5 total). Two were just barely clear, but clear nonetheless. I think you have to have no more than 1 300+ OOC game, just in case you have a St Johns in your conference schedule.

[brewcity77]

brewcity, do you have the link to your post on the schedule substitution?  It was a perfect summary.

Reading that article doesn't give me much faith that the Athletic Dept. understood the consequences of the schedule when they put it together.

http://www.muscoop.com/index.php?topic=50537.msg803881#msg803881

Gasaway mentioned on Twitter last night that the PAC 12 gamed the RPI.  Just took a quick look at their schedules, lots of 200+, and I think they tried to limit the 300+.

Andy Glockner shared a fantastic piece about this on Twitter last night that he wrote 10 years ago:

http://gwhoops.com/default.aspx?mid=15710

The RPI is all about gaming the system. It doesn't evaluate the quality of a team, it evaluates scheduling savvy. The MVC has played the formula for years by being careful with whom they schedule and requiring home games back from high-majors. Other leagues like the Horizon and now Pac-12 are trying to do the same.

The Big East would be wise to require the same. Teams that can go 9-9 in our league should be in the tournament. Teams that go 8-10 should be in the NIT. Creighton and Marquette had their share of slip-ups that cost them bids, but better scheduling would have given both a better chance. Creighton played like a NCAA team the past 3 months and is in the NIT. Marquette played like a NIT team and is out in the cold.

[mu03eng]

http://www.muscoop.com/index.php?topic=50537.msg803881#msg803881

Andy Glockner shared a fantastic piece about this on Twitter last night that he wrote 10 years ago:

http://gwhoops.com/default.aspx?mid=15710

The RPI is all about gaming the system. It doesn't evaluate the quality of a team, it evaluates scheduling savvy. The MVC has played the formula for years by being careful with whom they schedule and requiring home games back from high-majors. Other leagues like the Horizon and now Pac-12 are trying to do the same.

The Big East would be wise to require the same. Teams that can go 9-9 in our league should be in the tournament. Teams that go 8-10 should be in the NIT. Creighton and Marquette had their share of slip-ups that cost them bids, but better scheduling would have given both a better chance. Creighton played like a NCAA team the past 3 months and is in the NIT. Marquette played like a NIT team and is out in the cold.

The other issue that scheduling really can't help is that there were 15 auto-bids to the NIT. Stupid rule by the NCAA as this makes the NIT less desirable as there are much fewer names in it. Had it been a "normal year" Marquette gets into the NIT on its merits this year.

[brewcity77]

The other issue that scheduling really can't help is that there were 15 auto-bids to the NIT. Stupid rule by the NCAA as this makes the NIT less desirable as there are much fewer names in it. Had it been a "normal year" Marquette gets into the NIT on its merits this year.

Maybe, maybe not. Were the last two years "normal years"? We missed the NIT in 2014 with a 92 RPI and last year the lowest RPI was 90 for Arizona State. Perhaps most shocking this year is that Creighton not only made the field, but will get a home game. With their 100 RPI, they are the lowest in the field by 12 spots. Hmm...maybe the NIT knows they will pack 19,000 in for that game?