https://twitter.com/goodmanhoops/status/2023258871004094715?s=46
TTU grabbing the 3rd spot off bags alone is kinda crazy. Seems like an indication the coaches donāt think the cap holds much weight.
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https://x.com/smur_cbb/status/2023198460888203775?s=46
Kinda crazy. Just 36 teams have an adjusted defensive efficiency below the old conventional average of 1 point per possession on KenPom
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Saint Louis #18 and Miami (OH) #22 in this weekās poll. They are a combined 49-1. Together, they have played one (1) P5 school, which was St Louisā loss to Stanford. Iām not saying these are bad teams at all, but Iād think you have to work at it to play 50 games and avoid the P5 49 times.
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High majors donāt schedule good mid majors. 53 non-con games this season that were high major vs a Q1 or Q2 mid-major opponent, and 9 of those were Gonzaga: Game Stats - Customizable College Basketball Tempo Free Stats - T-Rank
10 years ago that number was 121: Game Stats - Customizable College Basketball Tempo Free Stats - T-Rank
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Miami is in fact bad. Saint Louis is good.
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Yes this. There have been multiple examples of good mid major coaches listing all the schools that refused to play them
Dayton, VCU, Memphis, Saint Maryās, Gonzaga often get a couple per year because they have a reputation now
But the tier two mid majors like Yale, Akron, Murray State, why would a high major risk scheduling a no name team that they could lose to? SLU scheduled San Francisco, Santa Clara, and Grand Canyon who are usually top 100ish. I will say it seems like Miami U didnāt even try.
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Not a Will Wade fan but shout out to him for scheduling VCU, Liberty, and UAB. Tech also scheduled George Mason and St. Joeās in addition to getting three mid majors in battle 4 Atlantis.
I bet thereās some hesitancy in the university because VCU, GW, and JMU all got wins the last time we scheduled series, but I do wish we would play more decent mid majors rather than doing the classic big 12 every game is top 75 or sub 300
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Yeah, current scheduling practices for high majors is basically the equivalent of a modern shot chart. Everything at the basket or behind the 3-point line.
All cupcakes or other high majors.
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Many people will be making some version of this joke between now and Saturday.
https://twitter.com/evanmiya/status/2023473956645179791?s=46&t=vkjgQUekzGC7z44tIfnIRQ
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Travis Steele talks vaguely about the difficulty of getting other schools to play Miami of OH. Kind of wish he had named names in terms of who ducked them.
https://twitter.com/CBoxSports/status/2020195859292418084?s=20
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How would they know to avoid those two? They were ranked 121 and 146 in Kenpom last year and their records werenāt very good. With all the player turnover, how would anyone know they would be good? And also how are they avoiding holiday tournament matchups? Seems purposeful on the part of St Louis and Miami OH.
Dayton is the same conference and played 6 P5 teams, including us.
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Iām thinking the dip around 2018-2022 resulted from the Chris Beard no middle defense getting popular and then the increase in offense is at least partially a byproduct of changes to the block/charge rule that made the no middle defense obsolete. Plus more experienced players staying in college for longer and as upperclassmen.
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As I said Dayton is an exception because they were (wouldāve been) a 1 seed in 2020 and are usually a top 75 team. If you are consistently a top 75 team as a mid major you can essentially get treated as a high major except for the fact that schools wonāt play @ you. However, that list of schools is around 7. Itās exactly that next tier 75-150/200 that high majors typically avoid because they arenāt good enough to be a good win but are still good enough that you have a 5-15% chance of losing (or more if they have a good year like SLU)
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SLU got a holiday tourney, just not a particularly good one (thatās where they lost the game to Stanford). But the A-10 gets worse MTEs than the P5s and SLU is generally not getting as good MTEs as VCU and Dayton.
MAC teams donāt typically get invited to good holiday MTEs
Look, all the leverage here in scheduling belongs to the P5 teams. Theyāre the ones to blame for these decent mid majors not getting better matchups.
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So difficult he scheduled three D2 schools?
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I mean, yeah, Iād like more details about how difficult it was for them to put their schedule together.
But letās assume (dangerous, I know) heās being honest and P5 schools didnāt want to schedule them, what was Steele supposed to do, leave holes in Miami of OHās schedule?
I have less sympathy for Miami U than SLU. SLU at least tried to schedule good mid majors. Miami scheduled played two 220 non con opponent: 145 Wright State plus was given 185 Marshall in MAC/SBC challenge.
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For reference Toledo in the same conference scheduled all but two non con game vs top 250 including six vs top 175
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I donāt really want to take up for any particular coachās scheduling practices tbh. So not really interested in defending Steele or Schertz on this.
Just want to point out that itās a structural problem and structural problems need structural solutions. Which is also why I think any āname and shame the P5 schoolsā solution wonāt be that effective.
For me, a structural solution is either something that (1) mandates certain games from certain buckets (leagues, probably), or (2) does the same through some sort of incentive (like altering payouts somehow), or (3) most heavy handed, having the NCAA more involved with actual schedules
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The Big 10 has not had a national champion since Michigan State in 2000. Which is sort of incredible.
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