MVC Should Get In on The Alliance

[Jsnhbe1Birds]

Top tier mids playing each other just gives one of those teams another loss to be used to keep them out.

This

x2

This afraid to play mindset is amazing. Yes, lets play a Q3 in stead. A loss to a fellow Q1 is better than a Q3.

[uniftw]

This isn't going to get anyone a bid. What it will do is potentially add another loss to keep teams out AND hurt them come selection Sunday on a seeding line.

There is no new at large bids for MM schools coming, it doesn't matter how you schedule. One extra game sure as hell isn't going to get you there.

If it's all about Q1 games feel free to SWAC yourself out to all the Q1s that will take you. Sure, you'll lose a few but if you win one? Man...imagine if you win one. It won't actually help you get a bid...but you'll have won one.

[VUGrad1314]

So some of you think the solution to the P5 ducking tough matches against mids is for... Mids to duck tough matches against each other... I have no idea whether joining the Alliance will work, but I know for certain an avoidance strategy like the one you're proposing won't work. Consider this: There's a chance that the Nevada-Loyola game could be an at-large elimination game for the loser if they are not the AQ from the conference. Is anybody about to tell me that this game shouldn't be played because it's too much of a risk or that it's bad for the conference to play this caliber of opponent?

[VUGrad1314]

This isn't going to get anyone a bid. What it will do is potentially add another loss to keep teams out AND hurt them come selection Sunday on a seeding line.

There is no new at large bids for MM schools coming, it doesn't matter how you schedule. One extra game sure as hell isn't going to get you there.

If it's all about Q1 games feel free to SWAC yourself out to all the Q1s that will take you. Sure, you'll lose a few but if you win one? Man...imagine if you win one. It won't actually help you get a bid...but you'll have won one.

Don't you constantly rip on teams for bad scheduling and lord UNI's high scheduling standards (which we should all aspire to reach) over the rest of the conference? Now you're saying scheduling doesn't matter and playing winnable games against quality opponents to boost your metrics won't help and shouldn't be done? What changed?

[uniftw]

This isn't going to get anyone a bid. What it will do is potentially add another loss to keep teams out AND hurt them come selection Sunday on a seeding line.

There is no new at large bids for MM schools coming, it doesn't matter how you schedule. One extra game sure as hell isn't going to get you there.

If it's all about Q1 games feel free to SWAC yourself out to all the Q1s that will take you. Sure, you'll lose a few but if you win one? Man...imagine if you win one. It won't actually help you get a bid...but you'll have won one.

Don't you constantly rip on teams for bad scheduling and lord UNI's high scheduling standards (which we should all aspire to reach) over the rest of the conference? Now you're saying scheduling doesn't matter and playing winnable games against quality opponents to boost your metrics won't help and shouldn't be done? What changed?

I think if you believe getting in an "alliance" which will give you one game and think that single game will make up for the rest of your schedule then your high and this alliance is doomed to fail from the start.

Now, if you want to build an entire schedule around playing quality teams, getting into quality MTE events, and setting up real series I'm all for it.

If you want to keep scheduling the same as has been done for the last decade and add this alliance as some kind of "LOOK AT MY SCHEDULE, I HAVE A QUALITY GAME" situation - as it's being sold as and promoted as I think it is a waste of time and not something to get locked in to.

I think trying to get everyone involved will kill this thing before it gets started. It's what killed the Bracket Buster. That even started off as the "elite" MM programs and teams that had real opportunities to make some noise in March. Within a few years everyone had to be a part of it and we had 200 schools playing bracket buster games and completely diluting everything it was supposed to be. That same thing will happen with this.

And all while being sold as a way to improve your schedule strength...without addressing the root cause of why so many MM schools don't schedule well.

[Jsnhbe1Birds]

ISU has a pretty damn good schedule but I'd take one more game in the alliance over Cleveland State etc. Always try harder. We're mad P5s won't play us but refuse to schedule other quality teams. That makes no sense. If we won't schedule other wuskity teams we can be mad P5s won't schedule us.

[VUGrad1314]

This isn't going to get anyone a bid. What it will do is potentially add another loss to keep teams out AND hurt them come selection Sunday on a seeding line.

There is no new at large bids for MM schools coming, it doesn't matter how you schedule. One extra game sure as hell isn't going to get you there.

If it's all about Q1 games feel free to SWAC yourself out to all the Q1s that will take you. Sure, you'll lose a few but if you win one? Man...imagine if you win one. It won't actually help you get a bid...but you'll have won one.

Don't you constantly rip on teams for bad scheduling and lord UNI's high scheduling standards (which we should all aspire to reach) over the rest of the conference? Now you're saying scheduling doesn't matter and playing winnable games against quality opponents to boost your metrics won't help and shouldn't be done? What changed?

I think if you believe getting in an "alliance" which will give you one game and think that single game will make up for the rest of your schedule then your high and this alliance is doomed to fail from the start.

Now, if you want to build an entire schedule around playing quality teams, getting into quality MTE events, and setting up real series I'm all for it.

If you want to keep scheduling the same as has been done for the last decade and add this alliance as some kind of "LOOK AT MY SCHEDULE, I HAVE A QUALITY GAME" situation - as it's being sold as and promoted as I think it is a waste of time and not something to get locked in to.

I think trying to get everyone involved will kill this thing before it gets started. It's what killed the Bracket Buster. That even started off as the "elite" MM programs and teams that had real opportunities to make some noise in March. Within a few years everyone had to be a part of it and we had 200 schools playing bracket buster games and completely diluting everything it was supposed to be. That same thing will happen with this.

And all while being sold as a way to improve your schedule strength...without addressing the root cause of why so many MM schools don't schedule well.

Given how serious Adams appears to be I firmly believe that this is for serious mids looking to do this as part of an already-strong schedule. I know Adams is also factoring in travel but I hope that's far down the list of priorities with the matchups taking precedence over everything else.

[uniftw]

ISU has a pretty damn good schedule but I'd take one more game in the alliance over Cleveland State etc. Always try harder. We're mad P5s won't play us but refuse to schedule other quality teams. That makes no sense. If we won't schedule other wuskity teams we can be mad P5s won't schedule us.

Why do you refuse to play other teams unless it's mandated as part of an alliance schedule set up? If you're willing to join the alliance whey aren't you (I'm not saying "you" as in ISUr per se but a larger sense of schools/programs) willing to do with without the alliance?

That's my confusion on this whole thing.

For years and years year and years schools (specifically many in the MVC) were willing to just schedule the little sisters of the poor - hell, the conference struck down the scheduling mandate that made the MVC great because so many schools pushed back against it - and refused to even try to schedule a "decent" OOC.

Why the sudden change from those schools? Is it because the alliance started and now there is someone else to do the work for them? Someone else to take the "blame"? Someone to take the time and put in the effort that otherwise wasn't there? These schools are giving up scheduling control to Mark, and Mark alone. Dates and other issues be dammed. Mark is now scheduling a home game and a travel situation for you to deal with - and he's not going to help you pay to get there or bring the other team in.

I have a "meh" standing on Adams. He clearly means well and advocates for MM programs - but he is paid and fed by the AAC at this point. He left the MVC to follow Wichita State to the AAC. His "do more with less" this is cute - until you realize he's now a pimp for a conference with an average basketball budget of like 6.5-7 million dollars. What he's doing is leveraging more bids for the AAC, A10 and MWC and getting schools in MVC, CUSA and MAC to get sucked into his scheme.

He has knowledge. He means well. He's over the top. He's Dick Vitale but instead of Duke and UNC it's about Wichita State and Dayton for him.

Again, I read quotes from Mark and coaches about why the love the idea of this alliance and I go back to the question "If you really want to play against these other MM programs why have you been fighting against it for all these years? Why haven't you actually made an effort to do it yourself? Why does Mark Adams need to be the one to do it for you?"

It's all a PR thing at this point. School T and School R could have scheduled a home and home on their own terms and made it work. In stead they both wanted to bitch about not getting home games and not getting games against P5s. Now Mark comes along and goes "I have an idea, let me take School T and School R and schedule them against each other and say it's part of an alliance!" and everyone is like "GREATEST IDEA EVER!!!! WHY DIDN'T ANYONE THINK OF THIS BEFORE?!?!?!?" Meanwhile coaches and ADs around the country are going "Thank god. We can say Mark is making this all possible and without him the P5s were going to ruin us all. Without him we couldn't have ever imagined how we could get our school (School T) to play against School R". It shifts all previous blame off of them while they can take the forward thinking approach - like Steve Forbes at ETSU last week when he said

“Mark Adams is the leading expert in the issues involving mid-major scheduling,” said Forbes, whose team led the Southern Conference with 71,000 fans attending games in Freedom Hall last season, which is the most for the program since the early 1990s. “By joining his scheduling alliance, we are giving our program the opportunity to improve the profile of our non-conference schedule and provide our fans with quality home games. The landscape of scheduling at the mid-major level is changing, by joining Mark’s scheduling alliance we are being progressive in our efforts to stay ahead of these changes. Scheduling quality road games has never been an issue, but getting quality home games is a major problem for us and we are exploring any and all options to improve this situation.”

http://www.etsubucs.com/mbasketball/new ... e-in-2019/

There's no way ETSU and ISUr (for random example) could have ever found a way to schedule each other. But now, thanks to Mark Adam's alliance that's possible!!!!

[uniftw]

Given how serious Adams appears to be I firmly believe that this is for serious mids looking to do this as part of an already-strong schedule. I know Adams is also factoring in travel but I hope that's far down the list of priorities with the matchups taking precedence over everything else.

It's going to grow....and grow...and grow...just like BracketBusters did. Why do I believe that? I'll refer you to more quotes from the Forbes interview I referenced in my last post

The Alliance, which is the brainchild of college basketball insider and ENTHUSIADAMS™ owner Mark Adams, will be a consortium of “like-minded” mid-major programs from multiple conferences for the 2019-20 season, with plans to expand that presence further in the years to come.

Future Vision:

The Alliance will transition from the two-game format in 2019 to a comprehensive MTE (Multiple Team Events/Non-Conference Tournament) strategy for multiple aligned conferences/teams in 2020.
The Alliance’s goal is to create cost effective challenge games and MTE’s with oversight by The Alliance’s teams and participating conference leaders.
These MTE’s will be designed to bring the best mid-level spending conferences/teams together to create great match ups and add value to NCAA resumes.
The goal is to save money while leveraging the collective value of participating top teams from our conferences and teams.

So he's also going to take away your MTEs that involved P5 schools. He wants to create MTEs specifcally for MM/LM schools. What's that going to do? Get you sucked into games against LMs that you're locked into.


I don't care if ETSU ends up being a "Q1" team, being them will not help your tournament resume. The committee won't care if they are technically a Q1 team. Locking yourself into an alliance with low major conferences isn't going to help you.

Top teams from the AAC aren't going to join/stay in this. There's no chance a home game against a SoCon team and a road game against a Sun Belt team is going to get you into the tournament if you weren't already. BYU, Gonzaga, St Mary's aren't joing this for any real period of time.

Maybe it works, but it's just a middle man doing (And taking credit for) what the schools should have been doing themselves but refused too

[VUGrad1314]

I am wholly against this if it takes away our MTE games against the P5. I only want this if it replaces the low majors and non-D1s. Otherwise I want no part of it because it actually subtracts value from the schedule and adds to the stratification problem plaguing the sport.. Though I believe the article mentioned that this alliance is in part a response to some yet unknown changes to the way MTEs are structured. This could end up being our best and only option.