A-10 scheduling

[SFspidur]

Interesting article from the St. Louis paper about the A-10's challenging one-bid season, including comments from McGlade, the SLU AD, and Mooney. Highlights the poor OOC performance, both in terms of record and SOS, as one of the key issues (duh).

Scheduling will be discussed at the conference meetings next month and the article talks a bit about current expectations. McGlade says it's "possible" the A-10 may be able to set up a conference challenge like the MWC one that never got off the ground after COVID disruptions.

By posting a 1-19 record in Quadrant 1 nonconference games and 8-16 mark in Quadrant 2, the A-10 created a difficult path for any team to garner an at-large berth.

That will be a discussion at our May meetings because clearly it’s a challenge,” SLU athletics director Chris May said. “That’s a big concern. We’ll have to look at everything from scheduling to minimum requirements. We’ve been in the league with a lot of bids, but it’s not there right now.” [...]

The league has guidelines for nonconference scheduling but nothing that is mandatory. Last season, league members played 50% of nonconference games against Quadrant 4 opponents. All but four teams suffered at least one Quad 4 loss.

The league’s scheduling policy includes a goal of winning at least 70% of games before the start of A-10 play. This season the cumulative winning percentage in nonconference was .583.
So, there is a scheduling puzzle between incorporating upper echelon opponents — if you can’t get them to play — and building a good record.

“The (NCAA selection) committee looks at what you have control over in scheduling, and you have control in nonconference,” McGlade said. “If you’re going to schedule a team 250 or higher in the NET, you’d better win that game. It not only hurts your team but has a ripple effect for the rest of the league. We look at wanting to schedule teams that are 175 to 200 or better. That’s easier said than done.”

A-10 basketball battling downward trend of teams in NCAA Tournament

The conference had a streak of 16 straight years with multiple teams end after poor nonconference showing

www.stltoday.com

 

[GKiller]

Nothing in there on 20 games either. While that could be on the May agenda you'd think the writer would have raised. The comment on having control in nonconference scheduling has been brought up here before. The 1 bid this year u can say is outlier but what is not an outlier is the league's strength/rating has been trending down for a while. Maybe A10 should hire Lunardi and get the group discount.

 

[SFspidur]

Yeah, we've heard time and again about how hard scheduling is for the A-10 these days, and I get it. But when you go 1–19 in Q1 games and 8–16 in Q2 games, I'm not sure scheduling is the biggest problem. You have to be good enough to take advantage of the opportunities you do have, so that's priority 1A. Worrying about getting more of those opportunities should be priority 1B.

 

[Eight Legger]

Right, I'm sure Kansas and Duke are really trembling at the thought of scheduling a home game against literally anyone from the A10. Ridiculous. We're just moaning because we can't get the specific games we want on the terms we want. If all of our teams tried to schedule three road games against P6 teams, I bet it would happen fairly easily.

 

[fan2011]

Yeah, we've heard time and again about how hard scheduling is for the A-10 these days, and I get it. But when you go 1–19 in Q1 games and 8–16 in Q2 games, I'm not sure scheduling is the biggest problem. You have to be good enough to take advantage of the opportunities you do have, so that's priority 1A. Worrying about getting more of those opportunities should be priority 1B.

Agree, this wasn’t a scheduling issue, the A10 was just bad this year.

 

[spider fan]

Tells you something when the only A-10 NCAA tournament win in the last 4 years is Richmond over Iowa. And the way A-10 is a multi-bid conference is when the team with the best regular season record loses in the A-10 tournament and is able to secure an at large bid as Davidson did last year. This year VCU failed to cooperate.

 

[SFspidur]

This year VCU failed to cooperate.

Wouldn't have mattered...VCU wasn't getting an at-large. Bubble, yes. Bid, no.

 

[gcarter52]

Wouldn't have mattered...VCU wasn't getting an at-large. Bubble, yes. Bid, no.

That is not a given but highly probable though. We will never know now.

 

[SpiderAlways]

Right, I'm sure Kansas and Duke are really trembling at the thought of scheduling a home game against literally anyone from the A10. Ridiculous. We're just moaning because we can't get the specific games we want on the terms we want. If all of our teams tried to schedule three road games against P6 teams, I bet it would happen fairly easily.

Exactly, play people anywhere