MBB schedule released

**VeloClone** · 08-09-2012, 03:21 PM

Originally Posted by kucyclone

I'm not sure this is any better than last season's nothingburger of a non-conference schedule. As some will recall, our best non-conference win a year ago was a home win against the second place team in the Patriot league. I don't think the selection committee ignored that, considering that we equaled Baylor's conference resume and ended up 23 lines below them on the S-curve.

You don't think this had anything to do with it?

Baylor
25-6 reg season
(13-0 non con)
2-1 conf tourney

ISU
22-9 reg season
(10-3 non con)
0-1 conf tourney

They had 5 more wins and 3 fewer losses. It is short sighted to blame the difference in seeding entirely on the non-conf SOS.

**gocubs2118** · 08-09-2012, 03:26 PM

Originally Posted by kucyclone

Replacing a 4 seed on the road with a bubble team at home is even?

There's no point quibbling about this, though, because my bigger issue is addressed in the second paragraph of my last post, specifically the several games against the absolute worst of the cupcakes, which drag down the SOS from the back and negate the high-level games on the schedule.

Everyone has those games though. And it's tough to determine how good/bad a non conference schedule is when it first comes out. For all we know, BYU could turn into a top 25 team and a very good win for us and Cincinnati could be worse than expected and be a bad loss if we do lose to them.

**kucyclone** · 08-09-2012, 03:30 PM

Originally Posted by VeloClone

It is short sighted to blame the difference in seeding entirely on the non-conf SOS.

I didn't. As I mentioned, our best non-conference win was at home against the second-place team from the Patriot League, before half of the country even knew it was basketball season. We didn't even give ourselves a chance to help our resume in the non-conference. If we're going to play the strawman game, then it's just as shortsighted to think that our non-conference schedule didn't hurt our tournament seeding.

**kucyclone** · 08-09-2012, 03:38 PM

Originally Posted by gocubs2118

Everyone has those games though. And it's tough to determine how good/bad a non conference schedule is when it first comes out. For all we know, BYU could turn into a top 25 team and a very good win for us and Cincinnati could be worse than expected and be a bad loss if we do lose to them.

By this logic, we should just schedule Iowa Central, DMACC, Cedar Rapids South Junior High, and Ames Middle School. Because who knows how good they're going to be?

The point is, instead of playing Southern, Alabama A&M, Campbell, North Carolina A&T, Florida Gulf Coast, Nebraska-Omaha, and UMKC, we could play Lehigh, Mercer, Tulsa, Princeton, Wymoing, Missouri State, and Utah State. Perhaps to casual fans there isn't much of a difference between the two lists, but it makes a big difference to those who look at the numbers that matter in mid-March.

Perhaps that costs an extra $250,000 as a whole to bring in better cupcakes, but that's an important investment for a basketball program, both in terms of better competition and more growth throughout the early season and final seeding in the tournament.

**gocubs2118** · 08-09-2012, 03:48 PM

Originally Posted by kucyclone

By this logic, we should just schedule Iowa Central, DMACC, Cedar Rapids South Junior High, and Ames Middle School. Because who knows how good they're going to be?

The point is, instead of playing Southern, Alabama A&M, Campbell, North Carolina A&T, Florida Gulf Coast, Nebraska-Omaha, and UMKC, we could play Lehigh, Mercer, Tulsa, Princeton, Wymoing, Missouri State, and Utah State. Perhaps to casual fans there isn't much of a difference between the two lists, but it makes a big difference to those who look at the numbers that matter in mid-March.

Perhaps that costs an extra $250,000 as a whole to bring in better cupcakes, but that's an important investment for a basketball program, both in terms of better competition and more growth throughout the early season and final seeding in the tournament.

Did you notice how I only listed the bigger schools on the schedule? Obviously we know some of those smaller schools will be a RPI killer

Yes, we probably could do without all those cupcakes but there are also some games on the schedule that would give our RPI a big boost.

**CycloneErik** · 08-09-2012, 03:53 PM

KANSAS OFFICIAL ATHLETIC SITE - Men's Basketball

I will say that Kansas is playing a more impressive noncon schedule that we are. I don't think that's disputable. At the same time, they're a bigger draw right now.

The Kansas schedule seems like something I'd go for on my XBox. It's very impressive.

**VeloClone** · 08-09-2012, 04:00 PM

Originally Posted by kucyclone

I didn't. As I mentioned, our best non-conference win was at home against the second-place team from the Patriot League, before half of the country even knew it was basketball season. We didn't even give ourselves a chance to help our resume in the non-conference. If we're going to play the strawman game, then it's just as shortsighted to think that our non-conference schedule didn't hurt our tournament seeding.

Sorry, based on the first sentence that seemed to be the implication. It also seemed misleading to have the Baylor/ISU comparison leaving out the huge discrepancy in the conference tournament performance.

I am probably a little sensitive to this because I think it is ridiculous that the Selection Committee gives the non-con strength of schedule twice the weight as the conference schedule. I'm sure this is to attain the goal of getting more mid-majors in the dance.

**CycloneErik** · 08-09-2012, 04:07 PM

Oklahoma and Baylor haven't released their nonconference schedules as yet. From browsing the other teams in our conference, I'd say that ours is pretty comparable to anyone that isn't named Kansas or Texas, and those teams are pulled in for big TV matchups that we're not in the running for just yet.

I'm pleased with it. I'd always like to see some bigger names, but this is a real step forward for us.

**Cyclonic1** · 08-09-2012, 04:09 PM

[QUOTE=PabloDiabloOh ****!! Not Campbell!!!

The Camels are Kryptonite only to hox-not Cyclones

**InAWord** · 08-09-2012, 04:16 PM

Seriously, this sets us up pretty well to go undefeated...outside of maybe a trap game in Stillwater.

**VeloClone** · 08-09-2012, 04:18 PM

Originally Posted by InAWord

Seriously, this sets us up pretty well to go undefeated...outside of maybe a trap game in Stillwater.

**brokenloginagain** · 08-09-2012, 04:19 PM

KU brings up a valid point - what would it cost to schedule middle RPI teams at home vs bottom RPI teams? I noticed Iowa also has several >RPI 250 teams for its home slate as well. KU speculated its $250k, my guess is that the number could be more like $500K.

RPI teams between 150-250 know they're in demand - they're not stupid. Wouldn't surprise me if their price is double a >250 RPI team.

If the price descrepancy is small, KU has a point. If its larger, I can understand ISU's predicament.

**brokenloginagain** · 08-09-2012, 04:21 PM

oh and one more thing, UVA cancelled on us. not much we can do about that. getting BYU is a pretty decent consolation - that will be a very tough return game next season.