Evansville @ IUPUI

[Cdizzle]

The past 3 seasons, UNI has finished 1 spot ahead, tied, and 1 spot ahead of UE. UNI has won a whole 2 more regular season MVC games than UE combined over the past three years. Let's not pretent UNI, at the moment, is head and shoulders above UE.

And yet UNI has averaged 36 spots higher in the RPI over those 3 seasons. It gets way worse if you go back 5 years, which includes a cyclical peak and valley for each program (-73). Which is the whole point of what people are getting at. The fact that every year Evansville improves throughout the year and does fairly well in conference is great. The fact that they suck the big one in the non-con before they do that is the problem. I realize it may not matter to some fans, but to other teams/fans, getting two games against #80 instead of #120 is a big deal when it comes down to Selection Sunday.

Good luck to Evansville this year. They have a nice schedule put together and are off to a good start. Hopefully they can put a couple of early season feathers in their cap.

[purple&orange]

I can understand the frustration from some fanbases as the margin of error for making the tournament can be quite slim with the RPI using a formula that takes some control out of the hands of the team it is trying to evaluate in the rankings. It has taken longer than anyone wanted, and there is still work to be done, for Evansville as a program and I'm not sure any fellow UE fan would disagree there. It's early and this team is young yet I believe can compete with anybody in the league on any given night, and also lose to and possibly get blown out by any team on any given night.

NCAA bids are earned and the reality is the company you keep (your fellow conference foes) play a role in that. A buddy of mine is a UK fan and he was convinced they'd get in last year because of the 8 letters on the front of that jersey, never mind they beat/scheduled nobody in the non conference and played in a weak SEC. When I told him this is exactly the struggles that bubble teams from The Valley are faced with because of the difficulty in scheduling non-conference (UK's weak was because of chicken Cal's doing) and the non-NCAA teams in league play not helping the computer profiles, the perception factor, not adding a marquee win late, etc it sort of stung him. These bids are earned throughout the year and the margin is often at times unfairly razor thin.

I respect what Wichita did last year, UNI going to multiple tournaments, now with Creighton leaving those are the two programs that right now year in and year out seem to be the programs that by name alone will be in the top of the standings based on the perception of what have you done lately. Getting swept by UE didn't seem to hurt Wichita much last year, but that bid was earned throughout the year and it takes a strong November-December by everyone to give teams the ability to pick up more good wins come January-Arch Madness, and unlike a lot of major schools who can afford to just wait until conference play to pick up some "good wins" it's much tougher to get that here. It won't change, embrace it, knowing that those battles every single night will test your favorite team come March and that they will be as prepared as anyone when the time does arrive.

[Dean Wormer]

It seems rather silly to be proclaiming league championships after beating a team like IUPUI, but I don't get the non-con slam on UE. Seems to me the non-con schedule has always been pretty decent, with some decent wins the last few years..WKU, Butler come to mind.

I don't have the schedule RPI's for the last 5 years, but I would have to think it's at least mid-pack every year. It's not like they schedule like Illinois State or have ever pulled what MSU did last season.

[mvcfan31]

Jesus Christ guys, its week one! Everyone on this website seems to have one extreme or the other when talking about the Aces. Sure this wasn't a huge win, but it was a nice win. IUPUI brought back George Hill, who plays for the Pacers, to honor him. So it was a a decent environment and an emotional games for them and the Aces found a way to win.

As an Aces fan I'm not going to say I think we are going to the NCAA tourney, BUT I really do think they deserve some respect in this conference.

By the way the freshman run Marty's motion offense way better then the team did last year. So much better court balance when they don't just stand around and watch colt play. Just an observation.