I think if we would have beat VCU, we would have made it to at least the play in game, and if we made it to the final I think we would be in Davidson's spot. Honestly, I think VCU would have been play in game or maybe out if we had beat them. The committee seemed to favor how you finish vs. not more.
UR first four out!!!!!
- Thread starter SpiderK
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What happens if the OOC schedule stays roughly the same next year, Spiders have better OOC record but the opponents as a group don't play over their heads like this year? Do we become Temple or Colo St for 2016? So lucky to be close this year and unlucky next year but not dancing both years. Hopefully the OOC gets tougher and no nail biting come Selection Sunday.
As bad as we feel because we were "that close" to the dance this year, just think how our players feel. Will be telling to see how they come out in first NIT game -- will they play angry and take it to the opponent or will they come out flat because they're still disappointed? Hope the 1st . . . Go Spiders! All the way to MSG!
Really, this is sickening to think we laid an egg in about 3 - 5 winnable games, of which a couple could have made the difference. Does this go up with our top 100/75 RPI banner. Do we get a "First Four Out" banner??? Just disgusted that we didn't pick up the pace earlier in the season and close out some games that we could have won. Let's just continue to make excuses. there is always next year. Too much tradition and $ to expect one NCAA per 5 years. We are in the A10 and that is supposed to allow us to go the NCAA once in a while. Just disgusted. Yeah, NIT.
. Go Buckeyes!!!!I don't know what the committee was looking at to think we were that close to a bid. Its somewhat disappointing to think we were that close (although if you look at the #2 seeds in the NIT tourney - I would probably put all of them with maybe the exception of Stanford ahead of us - Miami, Texas A&M, and Tulsa). And then exciting on the other hand because we are #1 seed in the NIT, which is a nice consolation prize. Just depends on how you look at it.
I also am not sure if we win the VCU game if we make it. I wonder if we still would have been in the first 4 out group....But doesn't make a difference now. We are in the NIT.
I also am not sure if we win the VCU game if we make it. I wonder if we still would have been in the first 4 out group....But doesn't make a difference now. We are in the NIT.
very surprised to be 1st four out, and a #1 seed in the NIT. I don't think any here thought we were that close. I figured we needed to beat VCU and Davidson. might have been right. maybe we'd still be 1st four out just beating VCU. who knows.
I'll stay off the "successful season" thread. it's never successful unless we dance. that's the goals. but before the season pretty much everyone agreed that we want to be in the discussion in March. we were. and apparently we were given more respect than we give ourselves.
I'm not excited about the NIT, but I'll enjoy seeing Kendall play a few more games. then I'll shut it down and look forward to next season. should be a great one.
I'll stay off the "successful season" thread. it's never successful unless we dance. that's the goals. but before the season pretty much everyone agreed that we want to be in the discussion in March. we were. and apparently we were given more respect than we give ourselves.
I'm not excited about the NIT, but I'll enjoy seeing Kendall play a few more games. then I'll shut it down and look forward to next season. should be a great one.
It didn't surprise me after I looked at how our numbers stacked up this weekend with those of the other bubble teams. Indiana was the only bubble team that had more top-50 wins than we did (4) and only three of them had a stronger SOS than we did (32). Those were both huge factors in what the committee looked at. Unfortunately, we had two bad losses, while a team like Dayton only had one. The irony is that we had three times as many top-50 wins as Dayton did, but they had some that were in the 50-75 range that we did not have.
So while the committee was rewarding teams for beating good teams, it was still penalizing us for two bad losses instead of just one.
So while the committee was rewarding teams for beating good teams, it was still penalizing us for two bad losses instead of just one.
Other bubble teams previously ahead of us going into the final weekend choked their way off the bubble moving us up. In conference tournament terms we lost to the eventual champ which didn't hurt us as much as some other teams were hurt..................
Surprised by Dayton getting only a play-in game. Thought we weren't that close to them. Forget the type of wins comparison. We played NCST and WF. They played T A&M, Arkansas, BC, UConn, GTech, Ole Miss. Yes, not the top teams of majors but still are majors non-the-less. We see the type of teams that were surprisingly in and like wise out from the dance. Might be harping on it, but please CM, play more majors wherever.
This post was edited on 3/16 12:21 PM by SouthJerseySpiderFan
This post was edited on 3/16 12:21 PM by SouthJerseySpiderFan
We only needed 2 games I think:
1. Not losing to GMU
2. Win any of @UNI, @Dayton, or @GWU - all were close enough for us to come out on top.
We end up at 21-11 with an RPI in the 40s, maybe 30s.
Unfortunately, close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and 5th grade sex...
1. Not losing to GMU
2. Win any of @UNI, @Dayton, or @GWU - all were close enough for us to come out on top.
We end up at 21-11 with an RPI in the 40s, maybe 30s.
Unfortunately, close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and 5th grade sex...
The only reason the schedule didn't hurt us is because we got really lucky with teams drastically overperforming preseason expectations. UNI at a Top 10 team, High Point a top 100 RPI team, Northeastern and W&M finishing tied for number 1 in the CAA. It was an inside straight draw.
The Gotham Classic was a colossal screw up, the schedule would have been fine without that. They screwed us over but we were dumb enough to sign the contract without reading the fine print, so to me that is on us.
The Gotham Classic was a colossal screw up, the schedule would have been fine without that. They screwed us over but we were dumb enough to sign the contract without reading the fine print, so to me that is on us.
Agreed, Spiderman. Our problem wasn't the schedule, it was losing games to weak teams.
I'd like more majors, but you can't force them to play you. I don't want to see us play a bunch of them on their home courts. One or two a season is fine. I'd prefer to play them on neutral courts, but it's not, our sole prerogative. Home and away with a major would be preferred, like we have with Wake Forest, and had with Minnesota for two years.
I'm hoping for something better than the Gotham Classic next year.
I'd like more majors, but you can't force them to play you. I don't want to see us play a bunch of them on their home courts. One or two a season is fine. I'd prefer to play them on neutral courts, but it's not, our sole prerogative. Home and away with a major would be preferred, like we have with Wake Forest, and had with Minnesota for two years.
I'm hoping for something better than the Gotham Classic next year.
I think we are in with one more win anywhere on our schedule. If it's the Mason game, great. Then we don't have a bad loss. If it's the JMU game, then we only have one sub-200 loss (same as Dayton). If it's the UNI game, we are probably playing the 8-9 game Thursday.
97 is right. Had we not played that god-forsaken tournament and just scheduled four normal home games, even, we are probably in. We ended up having to play RPI #254, 260 and 276 just in order to play Pepperdine, RPI #134. Pepperdine was only 18 spots ahead of JMU in the RPI!
I suspect those games cost us at least 4-5 spots in the RPI, and had we played four RPI 125 teams at home and won them all instead, we'd probably be in the 40s RPI-wise.
This post was edited on 3/16 1:15 PM by Eight Legger
97 is right. Had we not played that god-forsaken tournament and just scheduled four normal home games, even, we are probably in. We ended up having to play RPI #254, 260 and 276 just in order to play Pepperdine, RPI #134. Pepperdine was only 18 spots ahead of JMU in the RPI!
I suspect those games cost us at least 4-5 spots in the RPI, and had we played four RPI 125 teams at home and won them all instead, we'd probably be in the 40s RPI-wise.
This post was edited on 3/16 1:15 PM by Eight Legger
the tournament was a mess for sure. I don't think we "got lucky" on the rest, though. might appear that way to us since we don't have a clue about those teams other than their records the prior year. but Brunt and whoever else schedules, they're not just looking in a rear view mirror. they're projecting. they said it was a good schedule and they were right. other than the tournament.
we were close. there are very few true "should win" games. every team we've upset can say they should have beaten us, too. we don't feel that way. two teams battle and sometimes we're not going to beat a team that we think we're better than. happened a couple times too many this year.
we were close. there are very few true "should win" games. every team we've upset can say they should have beaten us, too. we don't feel that way. two teams battle and sometimes we're not going to beat a team that we think we're better than. happened a couple times too many this year.
Mooney said before the season that the OOC was sub par. So, we did get lucky. I know I said earlier if you had Northern Iowa as a Top 10 team, ODU as a first four out, High Point, William & Mary & Northeastern as Top 100 RPI teams all at the beginning of the year than you need to be picking spreads in Vegas.
Also we benefitted greatly from our A-10 draw. We got VCU, Davidson, and GW twice in our pod draw. Had we gotten St. Joes, and St. Louis instead of Davidson and GW our conference schedule would not have been such a net positive (this is why Dayton is in the play-in game right now).
Also we benefitted greatly from our A-10 draw. We got VCU, Davidson, and GW twice in our pod draw. Had we gotten St. Joes, and St. Louis instead of Davidson and GW our conference schedule would not have been such a net positive (this is why Dayton is in the play-in game right now).
We definitely got lucky with our schedule. Something like 11 of the 13 teams we played exceeded preseason expectations, many of them drastically so. The average difference between pre-season expectations and final RPI for our OOC opponents was something like 50 spots.
Are our H&H opponents in A10 play set in stone moving forward? I would certainly think that Davidson, RPI, Goo Moo, GW and UR would all want to continue having H&H against one another.
Whether he said it or not, it's objectively true. The quality of our OOC has dropped significantly during the Mooney years. In the last few seasons before CM controlled schedule, we played at Pitt, Tulane & Kansas; we also had H-H with UVA, Seton Hall, Providence and Colorado. We also played teams like Butler, Louisville, Stanford, Pepperdine and San Francisco in tournaments. Maybe to the loss of Jim Miller cost us some of these, who knows.
A big part of the allure of the A-10 in the first place was Temple, who seemed to be able to schedule anyone & always had a great RPI. Then it was Xavier (and later Butler) who could be counted on for solid RPI. With all of these now gone, we need to be willing to go anywhere to play any power conference team.
A big part of the allure of the A-10 in the first place was Temple, who seemed to be able to schedule anyone & always had a great RPI. Then it was Xavier (and later Butler) who could be counted on for solid RPI. With all of these now gone, we need to be willing to go anywhere to play any power conference team.
Objectively, this isn't really accurate. Here's a look at the number of BCS games (I included butler) and our record against them since 2001 (mooney started 05-06):
01-02 4, 0-4
02-03 3, 1-2
03-04 5, 2-3 bracket buster KU
04-05 - 8, 3-5 butler
-----------------------------------
05-06 - 4, 1-3
06-07 - 3, 1-2
07-08 - 4, 2-2
08-09 - 4, 1-3
09-10 - 5, 3-2
10-11 - 5, 4-1
11-12 - 4, 2-2
12-13 - 4, 1-3 butler
13-14 - 4, 0-4
14-15 - 2, 0-2
So undeniably this year was weak. That said, we have consistently had 4-5 BCS games annually under CM except for 06-07. We were similar before except the one year where we had 8 games (including butler who wasn't quite a household name yet).
If if we only get 2-3 games next year then there's an issue but I think the history is pretty clear that we try to schedule 4-5 games each year.
also interesting, our win pct pre-mooney was 30% (6-14). Under mooney, it's 38.4% (15-24).
01-02 4, 0-4
02-03 3, 1-2
03-04 5, 2-3 bracket buster KU
04-05 - 8, 3-5 butler
-----------------------------------
05-06 - 4, 1-3
06-07 - 3, 1-2
07-08 - 4, 2-2
08-09 - 4, 1-3
09-10 - 5, 3-2
10-11 - 5, 4-1
11-12 - 4, 2-2
12-13 - 4, 1-3 butler
13-14 - 4, 0-4
14-15 - 2, 0-2
So undeniably this year was weak. That said, we have consistently had 4-5 BCS games annually under CM except for 06-07. We were similar before except the one year where we had 8 games (including butler who wasn't quite a household name yet).
If if we only get 2-3 games next year then there's an issue but I think the history is pretty clear that we try to schedule 4-5 games each year.
also interesting, our win pct pre-mooney was 30% (6-14). Under mooney, it's 38.4% (15-24).
I have a question about the out of conference scheduling. I know that many, me included, are not a fan of those tournaments that require us to play 3 patsies to get one marquee opponent. Does the NCAA still classify those as exempt tournaments? And if so, is playing on those the way to get to a 31 game schedule as opposed to a 27 game schedule (or whatever the specific numbers may be)? i.e. are we almost required to get into an exempt tournament of some kind? Or if we had not played in that tournament would we have been allowed to schedule 4 individual games as an alternative?
I believe when you play in an exempt tourney - it only counts as one game towards your limit in how many schedule, so not sure if we could have gone out and just scheduled 4 other games, but I thought that is how they usually work.
The main draw with most of these exempt tourney's is the competition. Most of them (not all as seen by the tourney we participated in last year) usually give you at least 2 good games or bring together a good group of teams with the possibility of good matchups for your schedule.
The main draw with most of these exempt tourney's is the competition. Most of them (not all as seen by the tourney we participated in last year) usually give you at least 2 good games or bring together a good group of teams with the possibility of good matchups for your schedule.
We didn't get a quality game out of Gotham...they couldn't find anybody to fill the slot, perhaps due in part to us not being a big enough name.
Our NC State game was completely separate from Gotham. Gotham just brought in NC State and WVU as ringers to prop up the MSG event since Richmond vs. an unknown wasn't going to draw anybody.
Our NC State game was completely separate from Gotham. Gotham just brought in NC State and WVU as ringers to prop up the MSG event since Richmond vs. an unknown wasn't going to draw anybody.
