Big Sky moving to 11/20 format

[VUGrad1314]

How and why? How would a game vs anyone in the Valley be any worse than a SWAC or MEAC game?

That's based on the assumption that each team would cut their worst non-con opponents to make room. I don't trust some programs to do the right thing.

Then they need to be forced to do so. Bring back the scheduling mandate. I don't know why the MVC ever dropped it in the first place.

[tribecalledquest]

How and why? How would a game vs anyone in the Valley be any worse than a SWAC or MEAC game?

That's based on the assumption that each team would cut their worst non-con opponents to make room. I don't trust some programs to do the right thing.

Then they need to be forced to do so. Bring back the scheduling mandate. I don't know why the MVC ever dropped it in the first place.

Because the coaches bitched and moaned about it.

[tribecalledquest]

Simple fix for that: Elgin bans all non-D1s except for exhibitions and any team deemed to be fattening up on too many cupcakes from bad conferences sees its NCAA unit share cut until they fall in line (reasonable allowances will be made for teams in rebuilding cycles but this sub 200\ sub 250 crap just to fill a spot needs to end. Bring back scheduling standards.

Youre giving Elgin too much credit. He's not doing that. He's good slipping to the 15th rated conference.

Right. Lots of evidence to back this up. The league has done nothing but gone up since Elgin took over many years ago. Dude isn't perfect but look at where the MVC was in the late 80's early 90's.

[BearsCountry]

There are other sports than men's basketball to worry about when it comes to scheduling.

[Jsnhbe1Birds]

that other conferences (even ones with less money) can make work...but not the mvc. argument invalid. im fine not doing 11. but, something needs to be done.

[uniguy]

There are other sports than men's basketball to worry about when it comes to scheduling.

Other conferences, bigger and smaller, have found a way to figure it out.

[uniguy]

If adding a team and going to a 20-game league schedule makes programs cut opportunities against the best teams on their schedule to accommodate, then this league has no hope, and an extraordinary problem with priorities.

We can't sit here and say that it is very difficult to put together a competitive schedule as a mid-major, and then turn around and say our schools wouldn't step up to the plate in this situation. If the honest-to-god reason we aren't expanding and trying to make the league stronger is because of the fear that our teams would cut the best games from their schedule and leave the D2s with two fewer noncon games, why are we even trying to help ourselves out? We need to just pack it up, stop trying to be competitive and be happy with our one bid if that is truly how it is. Goodness gracious.

[VUGrad1314]

So let me get this straight... Coaches complain about stringent scheduling standards which are good for the league and its at large chances and then complain when those standards are relaxed and their sub-par scheduling leaves them on the wrong side of the bubble. Well what's it going to be coaches? What is it you want? You can't have it both ways. I hear all this talk about how non-D1s don't hurt RPI,and they're right, but they do hurt SOS and SOS matters. The opportunity cost of a "harmless" non D1 game is actually quite harmful: it's one less spot for a potential resume enhancing game.

If you have a team that can challenge in this conference and you underschedule you aren't playing to win you're playing not to lose. Teams that do that always get burned come selection time. The NCAA has shown time and again that solid RPIs built on strong SOS's get bids. Not all RPI's are created equal. That's why the A-10 got two at-large bids. If you schedule terribly and fatten up on easy wins to protect your RPI you're one loss away from sinking your ship and saying RIP to your tournament chances. Stop complaining and start working. We can either fight back against the P5's scheduling tactics or knuckle under and get rolled over and knocked out. The fact that a conference that fights so hard and does so well in the tournament does so little to maximize the number of bites it gets at the apple is so counterintuitive it utterly baffles me.

Success for this conference should be based on its ability to replicate 2015 where they had a shot at 3 bids if Illinois State had won the final. The A-10 did it this year and we had better metrics. There are no excuses. Many MVC coaches need to lose the "Oh woe is me what's the point attitude they portray to the media and get to work on solutions that will yield results. If freaking CUSA and the freaking Sun Belt can do it then so can the MVC. This isn't 1998 or even 2008 anymore. Stop scheduling like it is and get smarter\work harder.

[VUGrad1314]

This is why we need to schedule better: to minimize the chance that programs like these with no recent history of success beat out deserving mids for those precious final few at-large spots.
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https://twitter.com/Fieldof68Freak/stat ... 2903103493

[pafan]

So let me get this straight... Coaches complain about stringent scheduling standards which are good for the league and its at large chances and then complain when those standards are relaxed and their sub-par scheduling leaves them on the wrong side of the bubble. Well what's it going to be coaches? What is it you want? You can't have it both ways. I hear all this talk about how non-D1s don't hurt RPI,and they're right, but they do hurt SOS and SOS matters. The opportunity cost of a "harmless" non D1 game is actually quite harmful: it's one less spot for a potential resume enhancing game.

There's a bad assumption here: that a resume enhancing game is on the table.

You may recall the Aces' 2015-16 schedule, when Marty was projected to put Evansville's best team in ages on the court - but a putrid home schedule (SEMO, Belmont, 4 SWAC/MEAC teams, 2 non-D1 teams) and Wes Washpun doomed them to being outside the NIT bubble.

In that year, a "resume enhancement" would have been as simple as playing Western Kentucky or IUPUI or UN-Omaha. Any of those teams should have replaced the SWAC Invitational, or SEMO, not the non-D1 games.

Once you get a schedule, as McCarty has put together for '18-'19, which eliminates the perennial RPI 300+ teams, then you should begin to think about dropping the non-D1 opponents.