CUSA making big moves in hoops

[TylerDurden]

I would ilke to point out that CUSA and the Fun Belt are legitimately beefing up the at-large resumes of their best teams with these unusual moves. These will help. (how much it helps is a fair debate....but it does help)

I would also like to point out how all these manipulations are possible because of unbalanced conference schedules. Most mid-major leagues can do some version of this thanks to their conference membership.

The MVC has no such option, with round-robin on the table already. CAA is in the same situation at the moment. WCC actually took away round-robin to get their schedule matrix.

The real test will be if the A-10 or Mountain West bites at this.

I'm pretty skeptical that this will result in much.

How much these moves impact tournament resumes depends entirely on how well the top teams in your league did in the nonconference season. If you lose all of the key nonconference games it doesn't matter how many times Middle Tennessee plays Western Kentucky with regard to at-large consideration or seed line.

At-large bids are an exceptionally tough nut to crack for mids, but you have to crack it in the nonconference portion of your season. If all of your top teams run the table in nonconference play and have some P6 wins, then sure this can help some. But if you ran the table, you don't need to do this because your resume is good enough already.

I think leagues who would be open to this sort of scheduling gimmick (think OVC/Horizon/MAAC/MAC/etc) want to tell their schools they're trying something even if the numbers don't add up. It's a play on emotions.

Using last year as an example, C-USA had a couple of good teams, but neither were anywhere close to making the NCAA Tournament - they got 3 and 4 seeds in the NIT with top-40 RPIs.

Is another game against the top four in your league going to change your seed line? That's really the question at hand here. Does WKU and MTSU playing each other another time boost the winner enough to improve a seed line? If you think the answer is yes, go for it. I don't think the evidence supports that conclusion, but I'm not an AD in C-USA or the Sun Belt.

[VUGrad1314]

Here's another article on these scheduling changes:

https://deadspin.com/a-college-basketba ... 1826990796

One question that keeps rattling around in my mind is could this potentially help a traditionally strong mid major conference like the MVC\MWC\A10 push an extra bid or even two in a good year over the goal line and grant all teams better seeding? I certainly think it's worth a shot, especially if we can get 2 more quality teams to make the pods work. Yes, it mostly comes down to nonconference scheduling but a little in-conference boost right before the conference tournament and at a time when the committee is watching is never a bad idea.

[TheAsianSensation]

It is really fun to revisit this.

CUSA did the thing this year....after 14 conference games, creating 3 groups and having each group round-robin with each other. The whole plan was to create good games for the (potential) at-large contenders.

Old Dominion won the league this year. How many Q1/2 games did they play in conference play this year?

0.


How many Q1/2 games did the other teams in the top group get in conference play?

They all got at least 4, and one got 5.


ooooooooooof.


ODU got really really unlucky. All the opponents that would've qualified as Q2 road games, they drew them twice at home based on the random schedule configuration. And they played NET 139 and NET 140 (4 and 5 spots away from Q2) twice on the road.

And remember, ODU beat Syracuse and VCU in the non-con. Now, they did take several terrible losses knocking them off the at-large board....but just imagine if they hadn't, and they had missed a chance at 6 Q2 games solely because of bad luck on the schedule configuration and 5 spots in NET.

[pafan]

And the members of that top pod had the following records in their final four games:

ODU: 2-2
Southern Miss. 2-2
Western Ky. 2-2
Texas-San Antonio 2-2
Alabama-Birmingham 2-2

Well, that went well.
The top team in CUSA is Southern Miss., at #91 NET, even though ODU won the league by two games.