2012-13 discussion

[BirdmanBB]

Take it for what it's worth, but when our new AD came into place he was getting feedback from current fans in some phone conversations and I just so happened to be one of them. I of course brought up scheduling and he brought up some ideas including the one he pulled off with Northwestern where we are giving them a football game to get a home/home in basketball. He reiterated how hard it was to get some of those games and jokingly said if I could get them a home/home with a BCS team, they would be open ears.

I think the fact that we had to sell out our football team just to get a home/home with Northwestern of all teams says it all. If we got the same treatment of some other teams like Creighton, we might have gotten a straight up home/home with them. Make sense now?

[AndShock]

You can make a good schedule without a bunch of home-and-homes with BCS schools. A team like Ohio wouldn't agree to a home-and-home? Any MAC school? I don't even care if you have to do a 5 game east coast road trip to ACC schools all with one-and-dones, it would be a lot better for IlSU and the Valley as a whole than the trash they're putting together now.

Wichita State put together a great schedule last year with exactly 0 BCS teams on the schedule that wasn't part of a tournament. Quit using this BCS home-and-home excuse.

[CaliRdBrd]

You can make a good schedule without a bunch of home-and-homes with BCS schools. A team like Ohio wouldn't agree to a home-and-home? Any MAC school? I don't even care if you have to do a 5 game east coast road trip to ACC schools all with one-and-dones, it would be a lot better for IlSU and the Valley as a whole than the trash they're putting together now.

Wichita State put together a great schedule last year with exactly 0 BCS teams on the schedule that wasn't part of a tournament. Quit using this BCS home-and-home excuse.

I agree. Take the one and dones. Gonzaga did and look where they are now.

[BirdmanBB]

You can make a good schedule without a bunch of home-and-homes with BCS schools. A team like Ohio wouldn't agree to a home-and-home? Any MAC school? I don't even care if you have to do a 5 game east coast road trip to ACC schools all with one-and-dones, it would be a lot better for IlSU and the Valley as a whole than the trash they're putting together now.

Wichita State put together a great schedule last year with exactly 0 BCS teams on the schedule that wasn't part of a tournament. Quit using this BCS home-and-home excuse.

I'm not trying to defend our scheduling over the Jank era. I agree. I would like to see more teams on our schedule from good mid-majors. Our AD tried to get us games with both SLU and ODU last season, but for one reason or another, the dates fell through and we ended up with an open date around Dec. 10th.

So far our schedule isn't that impressive, so I am hoping we can get something going.

2 of (Navy, Farleigh Dickinson, Delaware St., Prairieview A&M) at home
2 of (Northwestern, UAB, TCU) in South Padre
Western Michigan (return bracketbuster)
Wyoming (Challenge)
@ Bracketbuster

It seems like we are so strapped to get games that Jank even has a clause in his buyout that whatever team he goes to has to provide ISU with a home and home. However, the way it is written, if/when Jank accepts the SMU position, they don't have to pay the buyout nor do they have to provide a home/home because it's not a head coaching position he is immedietly going to.

[Khan4Cats]

I completely agree. I have it in my head that Jank is a firm believer that 20+ wins, regardless of the competition, is they key to getting a job at the next level. Our next coach should have to sign a contract indicating that he will never schedule a SWAC team, or any team with a 200+ RPI...

Good luck completing a schedule. Is there a team in the country that doesn't schedule a team with a 200+ RPI?

Raising Hand. UNI only got two on the schedule last year as part of the exempt tourney (South Padre) they were in. Had 4 on the schedule the year before, but two were from our exempt tourney (Las Vegas), one was from the MWC-MVC Challenge, and one was the last of 2 for 1 with North Dakota (Coach Jake's alma mater). In the 2009-10 season, we ended up having 5: 2 from our exempt tourney (Paradise Jam), our MWC-MVC game, the road game of our 2 for 1 with North Dakota, Iowa (who was horrible but I would still take them every year on our schedule), and Northern Illinois. In the 2008-09 season, we ended up with 4: two from our exempt (Chicago Challenge), one as the end of a 2 for with South Dakota State and one to open the season with Denver that was a home and home and gave us a decent road game in 09-10.

In the last 4 seasons, UNI has scheduled exactly 1 game with a team that ended up over 200 in the RPI other than multi-year contracted series, MWC-MVC Challenge and exempt tourneys that have gotten us shots at larger schools. It can be done.

[Aargh]

According to both ShockerNet and VolNation, WSU and Tennessee have agreed to a H/H starting in Knoxville this year, with Tennessee coming to Wichita next year.

[havoc]

Raising Hand. UNI only got two on the schedule last year as part of the exempt tourney (South Padre) they were in. Had 4 on the schedule the year before, but two were from our exempt tourney (Las Vegas), one was from the MWC-MVC Challenge, and one was the last of 2 for 1 with North Dakota (Coach Jake's alma mater). In the 2009-10 season, we ended up having 5: 2 from our exempt tourney (Paradise Jam), our MWC-MVC game, the road game of our 2 for 1 with North Dakota, Iowa (who was horrible but I would still take them every year on our schedule), and Northern Illinois. In the 2008-09 season, we ended up with 4: two from our exempt (Chicago Challenge), one as the end of a 2 for with South Dakota State and one to open the season with Denver that was a home and home and gave us a decent road game in 09-10.

In the last 4 seasons, UNI has scheduled exactly 1 game with a team that ended up over 200 in the RPI other than multi-year contracted series, MWC-MVC Challenge and exempt tourneys that have gotten us shots at larger schools. It can be done.

If you are trying to prove it can be done by pointed out UNI has played 2,3,4, or 5 teams outside the top 200 RPI, well, I don't think you are doing a very good job.

[Khan4Cats]

Raising Hand. UNI only got two on the schedule last year as part of the exempt tourney (South Padre) they were in. Had 4 on the schedule the year before, but two were from our exempt tourney (Las Vegas), one was from the MWC-MVC Challenge, and one was the last of 2 for 1 with North Dakota (Coach Jake's alma mater). In the 2009-10 season, we ended up having 5: 2 from our exempt tourney (Paradise Jam), our MWC-MVC game, the road game of our 2 for 1 with North Dakota, Iowa (who was horrible but I would still take them every year on our schedule), and Northern Illinois. In the 2008-09 season, we ended up with 4: two from our exempt (Chicago Challenge), one as the end of a 2 for with South Dakota State and one to open the season with Denver that was a home and home and gave us a decent road game in 09-10.

In the last 4 seasons, UNI has scheduled exactly 1 game with a team that ended up over 200 in the RPI other than multi-year contracted series, MWC-MVC Challenge and exempt tourneys that have gotten us shots at larger schools. It can be done.

If you are trying to prove it can be done by pointed out UNI has played 2,3,4, or 5 teams outside the top 200 RPI, well, I don't think you are doing a very good job.

I actually did show just that. Other than contracted tournaments where the control over who we play is put in someone else's hands or multi-year contracts where you can't judge how long a team may stay up or down always, UNI has scheduled exactly 1 (one) team that ended up with an RPI over 200 in a one and done arrangement in the last several years.

The original comment to which I responded implied that every team in the country had to schedule 200+ RPI teams every year and there was no way to avoid it. I showed it could, and has, been done by a team without the deep financial reserves to just pick any team. This is different than several teams in the conference that make a habit of scheduling the Chicago State's and SWAC teams, not as a part of an exempt tourney where they have to play them to get a bigger name school on a neutral court, but simply as a buy game to get home dates knowing that they will be 200+ RPIs when they schedule them and still doing so.

That is, of course, different than playing teams that end up with an RPI over 200, since some teams turn out to be worse than expected or have injuries or other things that hamper their season. Those you can't always avoid. But you can avoid just buying crap teams to get home games and wins. That puts a drag on your RPI and everyone else in the conference as well. Which is the major complaint that was levied against Jankovich.

I can understand if Bradley or Southern want to do a few of those to try and build some winning tradition, but the teams expected to be in the upper half (and next year there will be probably 7-8 teams that have reason to believe they can finish in the top 3) should be looking to avoid those games and actually challenge themselves. And that doesn't mean selling out to buy games, but actually working home and homes with other mid-majors or finding the lower majors that are expected to be good and getting those games.

[Khan4Cats]

According to both ShockerNet and VolNation, WSU and Tennessee have agreed to a H/H starting in Knoxville this year, with Tennessee coming to Wichita next year.

Nice series. Glad to see Cuonzo willing to take his team on the road and challenge them, especially as they are doing some re-building. Koch Arena will be as hostile as any arena in the SEC that his team will have to play in.

[beatingrillz]

According to both ShockerNet and VolNation, WSU and Tennessee have agreed to a H/H starting in Knoxville this year, with Tennessee coming to Wichita next year.

Nice series. Glad to see Cuonzo willing to take his team on the road and challenge them, especially as they are doing some re-building. Koch Arena will be as hostile as any arena in the SEC that his team will have to play in.

They won't play in Koch.