Elgin: Play difficult schedules

by **MVCfans** » October 26th, 2011, 5:26 am

Good to see this information coming out of media day yesterday.

Elgin is requiring that each team play in one so-called multi-team event annually. These tournaments — such as the 76 Classic in Anaheim, Calif., that Drake has agreed to compete in next year — allow mid-majors to face their BCS counterparts on a neutral court on national TV. The 76 Classic Field for 2012, for example, includes California, Georgia Tech and Kansas.

“It elevates your school profile, and in turn elevates the conference profile,” Drake coach Mark Phelps said. “If you’re fortunate enough to get a win, it sends shock waves for that day across college basketball. Here was a Missouri Valley team beating a BCS team. It’s on television, they’ve got all the video of it. It’s going to be on ESPN, it’s going to be on all the national networks. It’s a huge advantage for that day, and it can linger for a couple of days.”

Elgin said he would provide unspecified financial incentives to compel Valley schools to appear in such tournaments, particularly if the field includes a BCS team among the top 50 or top 25 in RPI. He said nine of the 10 league teams are appearing in multi-team events this winter (Drake is in the Paradise Jam and Northern Iowa is in the South Padre Invitational). The exception is Evansville, which is opening its new Ford Center this year and will host Butler and Indiana in its first two contests, plus visit North Carolina.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/articl ... -schedules

**Sponsor**

by **BirdmanBB** » October 26th, 2011, 8:03 am

We were told this preseason that Jank was in the middle of finalizing a deal for another MTE similar to the one we are currently doing which is 2 home games and 2 neutral games (and its not the chicago invitational). Might be vegas im thinking.

by **Ali** » October 26th, 2011, 8:30 am

So Elgin is going to require teams to do something that they're already doing? Yeah, that's going to make a huge difference.

by **SubGod22** » October 26th, 2011, 8:32 am

There's really no reason for us to not play in these. You get to play an extra couple of games that don't count against the limit and get a chance to play some good teams. If nothing else, the experience that some of these games offer could go a long way and if you're able to win a few here and there, your season looks that much better. And not to mention, it'll help numbers like the RPI which in turn help everyone else in the conference.

by **DoubleJayAlum** » October 26th, 2011, 8:44 am

Let me translate Elgin's statement ---

"Hey Eddie Munster, stop putting together POS schedules and play somebody decent!"

by **unipanther99** » October 26th, 2011, 8:51 am

Next year...The Panthers will play in the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament in the Bahamas in a field that includes Duke.

I'm already excited about this and it's over a year away. Our young guys will have a year of experience under their belt.

by **BirdmanBB** » October 26th, 2011, 9:06 am

DoubleJayAlum wrote:Let me translate Elgin's statement ---

"Hey Eddie Munster, stop putting together POS schedules and play somebody decent!"

You mean to tell me that Bethune-Cookman, Chicago St and Norfolk St. are not respectable opponents? :Bam:

All I can say is that this year we inquired about playing DePaul for a 1 and done at their place and even offered to buy up a bunch of tickets and they still said no. yikes.....

Next season so far we will have a 4 game MTE, Home MWC challenge game, WMU and a road bracketbuster. Thank god there are no returns with any of the 3 games I mentioned above, but I do know that Jank likes his home games so there will be more cupcakes until we can get to the 7 or so that he wants every non-con season.

by **ACECARD** » October 26th, 2011, 10:17 am

Looks like we are playing with fire here. It's one thing to play the top 25 teams, it's another one to beat them. If every Valley team plays two top 25 teams, and the record comes out 0-20, how in the heck is that going to lead 3-4 teams into the big dance. My point is that it's going to take more than just playing these type of teams, you're going to have to win a majority of them. I agree that you don't learn much by playing teams that are worse than you are, but if you're going to play teams that are better than you, better be prepared to beat them if it's going to lead more teams into the big dance. I think that the Aces can finish 4th or 5th in the league this year, but I'm not quite able yet to wrap my brain around beating Butler and Indiana, at home, and North Carolina on the road.

by **SubGod22** » October 26th, 2011, 10:22 am

ACECARD wrote:Looks like we are playing with fire here. It's one thing to play the top 25 teams, it's another one to beat them. If every Valley team plays two top 25 teams, and the record comes out 0-20, how in the heck is that going to lead 3-4 teams into the big dance. My point is that it's going to take more than just playing these type of teams, you're going to have to win a majority of them. I agree that you don't learn much by playing teams that are worse than you are, but if you're going to play teams that are better than you, better be prepared to beat them if it's going to lead more teams into the big dance. I think that the Aces can finish 4th or 5th in the league this year, but I'm not quite able yet to wrap my brain around beating Butler and Indiana, at home, and North Carolina on the road.

You can't win them if you won't play them. That's been the problem lately as a number of schools have seemed to have no desire to push themselves or take the chane. And if we went 0-20 we wouldn't deserve any bids anyway.

by **2livewu** » October 26th, 2011, 10:43 am

Ali wrote:So Elgin is going to require teams to do something that they're already doing? Yeah, that's going to make a huge difference.

By "already doing" do you mean 5 or 6 times in the last 10 seasons? Also, for instance, Rice and Providence aren't top 25 RPI teams.

It's not enough to try and schedule decent when you expect to be good. You need to schedule when you aren't expecting to be good, and many schools are guilty of this far too often.