B1G non-conference scheduling looks awful

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SelectionSunday

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No surprise here.

As a whole, a sad-sack job by Big Ten coaches with their non-conference schedules this year, including our guy, as well as Tom Izzo. Purdue and Wisconsin are the only ones I really liked prior to the season.

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Paying to watch non conference patsies is really disgusting at regular prices.
 

I'm going to disagree with you somewhat on the schedule. I'm actually ok with how Pitino has scheduled the last two years and hope it continues like this until 1 of 2 things happens.

(1) we see a dramatic shift in how all college basketball teams schedule....meaning everybody plays a non-conference schedule full of the big conference schools or
(2) the Gophers become a perennial NCAA tournament qualifier

My enjoyment level of a Gophers basketball season is greatly influenced by whether or not the Gophers are in the mix for an NCAA tournament berth. I'm a big fan either way but I really enjoy watching the projections, box scores, etc. in January and February. Personally, I would rather not sacrifice that to schedule three or four more games in November/December against middle of the road power conference teams if that means we run the risk of having six or seven losses and virtually no chance to make the NCAA by the time the conference season rolls around. I realize that isn't setting the bar real high but frankly the bar hasn't been set real high from a performance standpoint the last thirty years. If we were Louisville or our program takes a sustained upward trajectory.....absolutely I would not want to schedule the way we do. But for now I'm ok with it for the most part.

For me we still have a fundamental flaw in how these non-conference schedules are evaluated. If we had scheduled a bunch of teams in the 120's (hard to say where teams fall before the season starts) we would likely have a much better non-conference SOS ranking but the same won-loss record. My point is these games are all pretty much loser-proof for a good team. They should be all given the same weight, in my opinion. Instead, we have a few really badly ranked teams and that skews our strength of schedule number dramatically (Florida Atlantic/Western Carolina/Alabama A&M). Michigan State plays Duke, North Carolina, and Notre Dame and they have the 287th ranked schedule? That's absurd.

Back to the Gophers....I do feel like they had a tougher non-conference schedule this year than last, despite what the numbers would tell us. That is really primarily looking at the top end games obviously but they weren't going to lose many/any of the other games in either season. Miami/at Arkansas/neutral Alabama/at Providence this year is better than at Florida State/vs. St. John's/vs. Arkansas/neutral Vanderbilt was last year.
 

Starting in 2018-19 my expectation would be 4 decent non-conference opponents

golfing18now said:
I'm going to disagree with you somewhat on the schedule. I'm actually ok with how Pitino has scheduled the last two years and hope it continues like this until 1 of 2 things happens.

(1) we see a dramatic shift in how all college basketball teams schedule....meaning everybody plays a non-conference schedule full of the big conference schools or
(2) the Gophers become a perennial NCAA tournament qualifier

My enjoyment level of a Gophers basketball season is greatly influenced by whether or not the Gophers are in the mix for an NCAA tournament berth. I'm a big fan either way but I really enjoy watching the projections, box scores, etc. in January and February. Personally, I would rather not sacrifice that to schedule three or four more games in November/December against middle of the road power conference teams if that means we run the risk of having six or seven losses and virtually no chance to make the NCAA by the time the conference season rolls around. I realize that isn't setting the bar real high but frankly the bar hasn't been set real high from a performance standpoint the last thirty years. If we were Louisville or our program takes a sustained upward trajectory.....absolutely I would not want to schedule the way we do. But for now I'm ok with it for the most part.

For me we still have a fundamental flaw in how these non-conference schedules are evaluated. If we had scheduled a bunch of teams in the 120's (hard to say where teams fall before the season starts) we would likely have a much better non-conference SOS ranking but the same won-loss record. My point is these games are all pretty much loser-proof for a good team. They should be all given the same weight, in my opinion. Instead, we have a few really badly ranked teams and that skews our strength of schedule number dramatically (Florida Atlantic/Western Carolina/Alabama A&M). Michigan State plays Duke, North Carolina, and Notre Dame and they have the 287th ranked schedule? That's absurd.

Back to the Gophers....I do feel like they had a tougher non-conference schedule this year than last, despite what the numbers would tell us. That is really primarily looking at the top end games obviously but they weren't going to lose many/any of the other games in either season. Miami/at Arkansas/neutral Alabama/at Providence this year is better than at Florida State/vs. St. John's/vs. Arkansas/neutral Vanderbilt was last year.
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Good read. Thanks.

Personally, I've never requested a non-conference schedule full of big-conference opponents. My threshold has always been roughly half (6) of the 12 or 13 non-conference opponents should be teams in your own "area code/ballpark" (figuratively speaking). Then do whatever you want with those other 6 or 7 games. This season and last season we had 4 such games (as you noted), but Pitino whether intentionally or not did a better job scheduling last season (some call it "gaming the RPI") with the solid mid-major types (UT Arlington, Georgia Southern).

The 20-game B1G schedule obviously changes the dynamics next season. That leaves room for only (a max of) 11 non-conference games. I suspect going forward about the only "area code" non-conference games the Gophers will schedule will be the mandated ACC (every year) and Big East (2 more in next 5 years) games + whatever neutral-site games/events they play in. Next year that will be the Vancouver Showcase + the game at U.S. Bank Stadium, so that means an absolute minimum of 3 or 4 next season. ... (1) ACC opponent, (2) U.S. Bank opponent, and (3) either/or both of Texas A&M and (Santa Clara sucks).

With those 2 additional B1G games, I think 4 of the "area code" games per season would be a realistic expectation.
 

SelectionSunday said:
No surprise here.

As a whole, a sad-sack job by Big Ten coaches with their non-conference schedules this year, including our guy, as well as Tom Izzo. Purdue and Wisconsin are the only ones I really liked prior to the season.

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I think Big 10 coaches opted for more cup cakes to offset the 2 early Big 10 games. Those early conference games will likely be the norm with a 20 game schedule, so I expect more of the same.
 


I blame the B1G commissioner for selling the conference's soul to be "relevant" in New York, causing a stupid conference schedule which likely lead coaches to wanting some easy wins before conference play started.
 

Ope3 said:
I think Big 10 coaches opted for more cup cakes to offset the 2 early Big 10 games. Those early conference games will likely be the norm with a 20 game schedule, so I expect more of the same.
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There is more parity then ever before so what looked like pretty good schedules turned out average. Providence was suppose to be much better. Alabama also but they went down to a poor Vandy squad tonight. Where it hurts is in conferences like the Big 10 and the Pac where there are so many bad teams. Conferences like the ACC and the Big 12 and the Big East are going to be offering as many as 14 games against the top 50 ! You will see teams that have 4-5 losses seeded lower than some teams that have 7-8 losses. Nothing can be done about it besides scheduling true blue bloods or drawing Maui. I am in favor of a home and home with ISU as well as Marquette.
 

We simply had to do better than what we did this year. We chose to play Niagara(finished 9th in MAAC), USC Upstate(t4 in A-Sun), Drake(finished LAST in MVC), Oral Roberts(finished LAST in Summit), Florida Atlantic(finished 11th in C-USA). And being part of the Barclays was simply a waste(not even sure Bama makes the tournament). Thank god we were fortunate enough to get a team like Miami in the ACC/B1G Challenge instead of a couple other options who appear headed to the NIT(L'Ville and ND).
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
I blame the B1G commissioner for selling the conference's soul to be "relevant" in New York, causing a stupid conference schedule which likely lead coaches to wanting some easy wins before conference play started.
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I've thought this too.
 



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