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

[Litehouse]

While they did impact our schedule, I feel it's worth mentioning that we didn't actually play NC State, we played Arizona State.

You're right, I just took mu03eng's list.  Here's the comparison between ASU for NCSU.

                      2014    2015     2016
Arizona State     51        90       100
NC State           55        32        123

[MU82]

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.

This is my viewpoint, too.

I agree that it would have been good to have had at least a somewhat more challenging OOC schedule. But you still gotta take care of business.

And that starts by just beating effen DePaul at home, ya know?

[mu_hilltopper]

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.

That works two ways:  The only reason they were in striking distance is due to unexpected victories versus ASU, LSU, UW, Prov 2x.

You need to plan your schedule around the rock solid reality:  You're going to win and lose a few you're not supposed to.

[mu03eng]

This is my viewpoint, too.

I agree that it would have been good to have had at least a somewhat more challenging OOC schedule. But you still gotta take care of business.

And that starts by just beating effen DePaul at home, ya know?

Disagree, if you look at the actual RPI, a win over Creighton and DePaul(both home games so only 1pt each) gets us an RPI of 74, would get us into the NIT but definitely not the NCAA. Would have required us to win one of the following: Iowa, road Butler, Seton Hall home, Xavier home, road Georgetown.

By the way that requires the 8th most youthful team in the country to win 22 games.

[MerrittsMustache]

Disagree, if you look at the actual RPI, a win over Creighton and DePaul(both home games so only 1pt each) gets us an RPI of 74, would get us into the NIT but definitely not the NCAA. Would have required us to win one of the following: Iowa, road Butler, Seton Hall home, Xavier home, road Georgetown.

By the way that requires the 8th most youthful team in the country to win 22 games.

Those two blown games cost MU a shot at the NIT. If MU wanted to be a NCAAT team, they needed to win those two, plus 1-2 others. That's what NCAA Tournament-caliber teams do. MU didn't and the season is done.

[mu03eng]

Those two blown games cost MU a shot at the NIT. If MU wanted to be a NCAAT team, they needed to win those two, plus 1-2 others. That's what NCAA Tournament-caliber teams do. MU didn't and the season is done.

Right, except they should have been in the NIT with the record they have now. If you replace 4 or 5 of the crap games with less crappy games, we'd be in the NIT.

[mu_hilltopper]

As I posted in the other thread .. yeah, we "needed" to win those easy wins.  But when they are scheduling, you predict your season with the concept you're going to win and lose some you aren't supposed to. 

Sure, losing to DePaul killed us .. but beating Prov 2x, LSU, ASU put us in the position that beating DePaul was important.  Just like scheduling RPI 200s instead of 300s.

[MerrittsMustache]

Right, except they should have been in the NIT with the record they have now. If you replace 4 or 5 of the crap games with less crappy games, we'd be in the NIT.

Not if MU had lost one of those 4-5 "crap games."

[JamilJaeJamailJrJuan]

I will say this. If you take Grambling, Maine, San Jose State, and and Chicago State and replace them with Loyola-Chicago, Colgate, South Alabama, and Rider, we have a top 90 RPI. We'd be in the NIT for sure.

But to get into the NCAA, even with that schedule, we would have had to have beaten Creighton, DePaul, and Butler(only thing that gets us a top 60 RPI).

Looks like more and more, LSU, NC State, St Johns and DePaul killed us.

Cuse just got in with 72 RPI.

[mu03eng]

Not if MU had lost one of those 4-5 "crap games."

Back to this? So we can beat Stetson and IUPUI but we can't beat Loyola-Chicago or Missouri State? If we lose one of the buy games so be it. A team that can't win a buy game in December isn't winning a tournament game in March anyway.

[JamilJaeJamailJrJuan]

These 7 are the most relevant because they're the only ones we had control over and scheduled ourselves.  All the other games were pre-arranged (Gavitt Games, Legends Classic, and UW).

                    2014         2015         2016
Jackson St       297          302           221
Grambling       348          351           350
Maine             333          338           317
San Jose St     278          336           301
Chicago St       260          333          348
Presbyterian    349          314           319
Stetson           334          335           303

Average          314          330           308

If you use the 2014 or 2015 RPIs as a predictor, then the schedule actually turned out slightly better than expected (primarily due to Jacksonville St), and it still really sucked.

YUP.

What I've been saying all year.  Thankfully, I am confident it will be fixed next year.

[mu03eng]

Cuse just got in with 72 RPI.

So we should rely on the committee losing their collective minds, got it 

[JamilJaeJamailJrJuan]

Not if MU had lost one of those 4-5 "crap games."

SMH. 

[JamilJaeJamailJrJuan]

So we should rely on the committee losing their collective minds, got it 

Just sayin'.  I agree with everything you're saying, just top 60 RPI isn't this arbitrary cut off some make it to be.

[mu03eng]

Just sayin'.  I agree with everything you're saying, just top 60 RPI isn't this arbitrary cut off some make it to be.

Oh I know it's not, but it gives you a 99% certainty you are in.

[humanlung]

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.

Yeah...but there are good gambles and stupid gambles.  This season's schedule was clearly the latter.

[MerrittsMustache]

Back to this? So we can beat Stetson and IUPUI but we can't beat Loyola-Chicago or Missouri State? If we lose one of the buy games so be it. A team that can't win a buy game in December isn't winning a tournament game in March anyway.

A team that goes 0-7 against the RPI Top 25 and 8-12 against the top 150 isn't getting into the tournament.

Again, people can cry call they want about the weak non-conf schedule (and no one's claiming that it wasn't weak) but the reason that MU isn't playing in the postseason is because they weren't good enough and didn't earn a spot.

[mu03eng]

A team that goes 0-7 against the RPI Top 25 and 8-12 against the top 150 isn't getting into the tournament.

Again, people can cry call they want about the weak non-conf schedule (and no one's claiming that it wasn't weak) but the reason that MU isn't playing in the postseason is because they weren't good enough and didn't earn a spot.

Again, this is a false narrative. If Marquette swapped out 4 games in the 300+ for 4 teams right around 250....with the exact same record we would be around 80 for RPI which would put us squarely in the NIT. You are correct, we weren't good enough to get into the NCAA, but scheduling alone kept us out of the NIT.



Side note, this is how much RPI sucks. If we had flipped both our Creighton and DePaul wins/losses so that we won both at home and lost both on the road our RPI would be under 100.

[MerrittsMustache]

Again, this is a false narrative. If Marquette swapped out 4 games in the 300+ for 4 teams right around 250....with the exact same record we would be around 80 for RPI which would put us squarely in the NIT. You are correct, we weren't good enough to get into the NCAA, but scheduling alone kept us out of the NIT.



Side note, this is how much RPI sucks. If we had flipped both our Creighton and DePaul wins/losses so that we won both at home and lost both on the road our RPI would be under 100.

It actually puts MU's RPI anywhere between 80-100, depending on the opponents. Scheduling didn't keep MU out of the postseason. Their play on the court did. Period.

[dgies9156]

There is a message in all of this that's being lost on all of us.

Good teams with NCAA expectations should be playing good teams with NCAA expectations.

Bubble teams play bubble teams. Teams that don't expect an invitation, play cupcakes.

I know the economic arguments about more home games (which draw comparatively few fans and are treated the way NFL fans treat exhibition games), but I would sure like to see us play the likes of Notre Dame, Iowa, Vanderbilt, Stanford, Texas, and, yes, North Carolina, Indiana, Michigan etc., as a regular part of our non-con slate. Yes, we'd have to go to pits like the DeanDome, the ACC, Crisler Arena or  Memorial Gym but I suspect this would garner considerable interest when these teams played in Milwaukee. And, you'd get a heck of a lot of our fans doing road trips.

If the goal of non-con is to get your team ready for the Big East and to prepare for a possible NCAA run, playing Grambling, McNeese State, Tennessee Martin and the like aint getting us there. That's the message in this year and I hope our Coach and leadership got it.

[The Equalizer]

That works two ways:  The only reason they were in striking distance is due to unexpected victories versus ASU, LSU, UW, Prov 2x.

You need to plan your schedule around the rock solid reality:  You're going to win and lose a few you're not supposed to.

I don't know that any of those victories were truly unexpected, with the possible exception of @Providence. 

We beat ASU the prior year and by almost any conceivable measure improved ourselves more than they did during the off season. Ditto with Wisconsin, which lost a significant portion of their Final Four team.  I think expectations was that Wisconsin was in for a deep rebuilding year.

At best, LSU was a question mark because of Simmons, but nobody assumed we would lose, or that winning was unexpected. Maybe it was a 50/50 game.  But not an expected loss.

As I said, maybe you could put the loss at Providence as unexpected--but we split with them last year and again, I think we improved ourselves by more than they did, so is beating them twice really unexpected? 

But if you're going to put the road win at Providence as unexpected, the home loss to Seton Hall is unexpected as well.  We split with them last year as well.  So the win at Providence and home loss to Seton Hall balance themselves out.

Which leaves the losses to Creighton and DePaul as keeping us out of 4th place in conference.

[mu03eng]

There is a message in all of this that's being lost on all of us.

Good teams with NCAA expectations should be playing good teams with NCAA expectations.

Bubble teams play bubble teams. Teams that don't expect an invitation, play cupcakes.

I know the economic arguments about more home games (which draw comparatively few fans and are treated the way NFL fans treat exhibition games), but I would sure like to see us play the likes of Notre Dame, Iowa, Vanderbilt, Stanford, Texas, and, yes, North Carolina, Indiana, Michigan etc., as a regular part of our non-con slate. Yes, we'd have to go to pits like the DeanDome, the ACC, Crisler Arena or  Memorial Gym but I suspect this would garner considerable interest when these teams played in Milwaukee. And, you'd get a heck of a lot of our fans doing road trips.

If the goal of non-con is to get your team ready for the Big East and to prepare for a possible NCAA run, playing Grambling, McNeese State, Tennessee Martin and the like aint getting us there. That's the message in this year and I hope our Coach and leadership got it.

I don't think you can discount a strategy this year of not going all in on competition because the team was so young. I think playing a softer non-con schedule with a team like what we had was perfectly valid.....but we went for the worst of the worst instead of just bad teams. That's the difference.

I would expect us to have a better non-con slate in 16-17 given that the team shouldn't be as fragile.

[Litehouse]

It actually puts MU's RPI anywhere between 80-100, depending on the opponents. Scheduling didn't keep MU out of the postseason. Their play on the court did. Period.

It's both.
Beat DePaul and Creighton, we're in the NIT.
Same record with a better schedule, we're in the NIT.
Better schedule and we beat DePaul, Creighton and Belmont, we're in the NCAAs.

The point is that scheduling is a variable that's completely within your control, while play on the court is more unpredictable.  So why not use every variable within your control to maximize your chances at the post-season.

[mu03eng]

It's both.
Beat DePaul and Creighton, we're in the NIT.
Same record with a better schedule, we're in the NIT.
Better schedule and we beat DePaul, Creighton and Belmont, we're in the NCAAs.

The point is that scheduling is a variable that's completely within your control, while play on the court is more unpredictable.  So why not use every variable within your control to maximize your chances at the post-season.

[Litehouse]

I know the economic arguments about more home games (which draw comparatively few fans and are treated the way NFL fans treat exhibition games), but I would sure like to see us play the likes of Notre Dame, Iowa, Vanderbilt, Stanford, Texas, and, yes, North Carolina, Indiana, Michigan etc., as a regular part of our non-con slate. Yes, we'd have to go to pits like the DeanDome, the ACC, Crisler Arena or  Memorial Gym but I suspect this would garner considerable interest when these teams played in Milwaukee. And, you'd get a heck of a lot of our fans doing road trips.

This is the part I don't quite understand.  They charge the same flat-fee for season tickets no matter how many home games we play.  In the past few years we've had anywhere between 16-19 home games, and the season-ticket amount has basically been the same.  It seems like they would actually make more money by having slightly fewer home games since they would save the costs of renting the BC and the ticket sales beyond STH for these cupcake games has to be virtually nothing.