In hindsight, would it have been more beneficial to schedule more teams like OU or Oklahoma State rather than easy teams such as Longwood that lower our RPI? What I mean is it better to lose to a top 25 RPI versus winning over a 200+ RPI school?
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In hindsight, would it have been more beneficial to schedule more teams like OU or Oklahoma State rather than easy teams such as Longwood that lower our RPI? What I mean is it better to lose to a top 25 RPI versus winning over a 200+ RPI school?
Tried to -Originally Posted by TruDawg
The only one we could have renewed that we should of was UALR - which would of been slightly better but we were coming off a 6 game series with them
SMU/TCU/Bama/Auburn/LSU/Miss St etal all said Thanks but no thanks
Expect more of the same this year also
''Don't be a bad dagh..."
Yes, the basketall experts here say that the two biggest mistakes in the sked were LaLaff and Longwood.
We were in a bind because of two things...
-C-USA unbalanced schedule
-Big5 teams not wanting to schedule us.
Next year should be a bit better, but renewing the series with McNeese was a bad mistake and will probably hurt us next year.
Every team in the SEC turned us down.
From Michael White's interview at Tech & Tails:
“I’ve been turned down by every team in the SEC,” said White, attending his third Tech & Tails. “I thought we would be playing Alabama, but we received an email from them today declining. The more success you have as a program, the more difficult it becomes to schedule.”
It's funny......you never hear those kind of stories at other schools, just at LA Tech. Yep, I have a hard time believing it. It's hard to imagine Kentucky, Florida and Georgia shaking in their boots at the thought of playing LA Tech. Sorry.
That SEC angle is essentially irrelevant. The SEC (specifically Bama) turning us down ended up helping our SOS in the long run. Coach was initially only looking for two road money games. He already had Oklahoma and ended up getting Oklahoma State in an NBA arena to replace Alabama. Then he added a money game at Saint Mary's late in the process. So Oklahoma State (RPI 50) replaced SEC/Alabama (RPI 119), and then we added Saint Mary's (RPI 59). I'm sure it would have been better to beat Bama than lose to OK State, but we don't know what that result would have been. Regardless, we weren't looking for a home-and-home with the SEC, and we were able to replace Bama with a stronger money game.
Problem 1
The problem wasn't exactly scheduling the ULL game. It was losing the ULL game. I think the reason we lost that game is because Coach squeezed in Jackson State between our tournament in Florida and the ULL game. Our guys needed some rest after the tournament instead of playing at Jackson State. Throw in the fact that Jackson State has an RPI of 274, and it makes scheduling the Jackson State game even worse.
Problem 2
Buying Longwood was a big mistake.
Problem 3
The McNeese State series should not have been renewed.
The SEC hired a MBB scheduling consultant last year. I assume he is the one who nixed the Bama deal. Slive thought that the SEC was just as good as all the other power conferences in MBB. He thought their problem was simply poor scheduling that hurt their RPI so he hired some guy to fix that. It turns out Slive was wrong about scheduling being the SEC's problem. In reality the SEC just isn't very good at MBB, and the SEC isn't in the same realm as the other five power conferences in MBB.
Really? If I were those coaches, I definitely wouldn't want to play Tech right now. This is a program on the rise and they are easily capable of beating any of those teams. In fact, I would take Tech over anyone in the SEC save Florida and Kentucky. Georgia would get run out of the gym by this team.
PULEEEZE....save the hyperbole for some rookie that will believe it. Yes, we've got a pretty good little basketball team that plays a nice perimeter game. But anybody that's got a couple of big, strong, nasty guys working the low post near the basket will absolutely run us out of the gym.....e.g., USM, UTEP in 2014, and NMSU in 2012.
I heard Coach White mention that we would've been better off playing NAIA teams than Longwood or Jackson State (with very low rpi's) because playing them would have no impact on our rpi and still count as W's. I think he said we can play up to 3 each season. Of course, it can be difficult to predict which teams are going to be awful before the season starts. For example, Jackson State was a tournament team last year that had a good showing against Gonzaga.
Have you considered those Dogs?
That was Southern.
That was Southern, not Jackson State.
No matter how good a SWAC team is, their best team's RPI won't be much better than 200 because the SWAC is unquestionably the worst conference in DI.
It's really not that hard to predict how good or bad teams will be. Coaches know pretty well about how teams will do. Of course there are some surprises, but for the most part teams will finish reasonably close to where they were expected to. I think it was reasonable to assume that three teams in terrible conferences McNeese State (RPI 246 in 2013), Jackson State (RPI 309 in 2013), and Longwood (RPI 332 in 2013) weren't gonna magically become decent this season.
You can schedule up to 4 non-DI teams including exhibitions so we had room for 1 more non-DI opponent.
My bad! Thanks.
Have you considered those Dogs?
This schedule made last year's look like we are playing Western division of NBA! The real problem is how do you fix it going forward? There are just not enough good programs close by that have good RPI and truth is they have tried anyone and everyone with no success. I'd try Baylor, UT, Ark, MSU, OSU, OK St again to start. Play another NAIA somewhere along the way or don't play a game at all. We desperately need to increase budget so we can buy more OOC games in the end and avoid playing some of these schools who are close but with a terrible rpi.
But you have to give your kids OOC home games -
It's a very delicate balancing act that requires a lot of luck...
Look a 2 ACC win BC team beat #1 undefeated Syracuse at home last night - basically the first time since 1955 a sub .500 team had beat a #1 team on their homecourt
Blaming our rpi woes on a loss to USL at home is kind of weak if you ask me - beat Okie St, beat St Mary's, beat UTEP on the road or beat USM on the road
And as someone who now holds 7 red seat season tickets - I'm not too terribly upset with the home OOC schedule - after 20+ years my investment is finally gaining value
You have to HAVE OOC home games to make folks like ME buy the tickets
But we are still going to have the McNeese St's, Southern's, Nicholls St's etal littering our schedule as long as folks DONT invest in the program by the purchase of season tickets
There were plenty of years during Woolridge & Richard's terms we had sub 170 SOS but finished 15-14, 17-15 or 20-11 and didn't sniff an at large or NIT (when it was much easier to get into) in most years
Our schedule was better this year than last, and will be better next year than this year - you really can't argue with the results he is producing on the floor or in the stands
''Don't be a bad dagh..."
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