2013-2014 Bracketology thread

[Aargh]

Congratulations to the main posters in this thread. You have spared the lives of several trees by posting your opinions using pixels instead of paper.

I haven't read your posts. They're too long. The world isn't about to run out of electrons or pixels, so the long posts aren't challenging the environment, they're just challenging the ADD of the posters, I tend to see inaginary shiny things about one paragraph into some of the posts.

[pafan]

Let's look at UNI (SoS 23) and Evansville. (SOS 204). Both teams played 11 D1 out-of-conference games.

Evansville played 2 RPI top 50 teams (Butler, Xavier) UNI played 1 RPI top 50 team (IA State). Evansville also played one more top 100 team.

Evansville played 3 RPI 250+ teams. UNI played 1. Major advantage UNI.

Since you specifically brought up SLU:
If you take out the worst of the RPI teams and insert SLU (RPI #53), UE's SoS rises to 0.561 (rank #37) and UNI's rises to .626 (rank #3).

All real data provided by bbstate.com, all fake data calculated by me.

[rlh04d]

Congratulations to the main posters in this thread. You have spared the lives of several trees by posting your opinions using pixels instead of paper.

I haven't read your posts. They're too long. The world isn't about to run out of electrons or pixels, so the long posts aren't challenging the environment, they're just challenging the ADD of the posters, I tend to see inaginary shiny things about one paragraph into some of the posts.

If you prefer short posts, I'm sure an Evansville teenager will have something for you soon

Intelligent conversations are rarely short enough for people with ADD to be involved in That's why Twitter is so popular.

[TheAsianSensation]

How much of the SOS problem is out of teams control? It's always been hard to get a game with a name team but seems like it's harder to get a mid like St Louis, Xavier, etc. than it used to be.

Some. The part that can't be controlled very well is getting the marquee games. It's tough enough to get name teams to play you, and then some of them don't turn out to be good anyways. There's a bit of luck involved.

The one thing I think we can control is cupcakes. We should all have the capability to at least avoid a bottom 75 or bottom 100 schedule.

[rlh04d]

How much of the SOS problem is out of teams control? It's always been hard to get a game with a name team but seems like it's harder to get a mid like St Louis, Xavier, etc. than it used to be.

Some. The part that can't be controlled very well is getting the marquee games. It's tough enough to get name teams to play you, and then some of them don't turn out to be good anyways. There's a bit of luck involved.

The one thing I think we can control is cupcakes. We should all have the capability to at least avoid a bottom 75 or bottom 100 schedule.

Yeah. It's one thing to not be able to get a Duke on the schedule. Entirely different to trade 300+ RPI teams for an ORU, Denver, etc. you can make a very solid schedule with 75-175 RPI opponents. Just stop scheduling terrible teams.

[Play Angry]

Many MVC schools are too broke to buy quality OOC games. WSU paid 30-50% above market rate to purchase ORU and Western Kentucky this year. Nobody else in the MVC is doing that.

There should be an absolute ban on scheduling SWAC schools as well.

[rlh04d]

Many MVC schools are too broke to buy quality OOC games. WSU paid 30-50% above market rate to purchase ORU and Western Kentucky this year. Nobody else in the MVC is doing that.

There should be an absolute ban on scheduling SWAC schools as well.

You purchase one and done home games. It wouldn't cost MVC teams a thing if they were to schedule home and home games against the same teams we're paying. The road games would be better for the RPI as well.

It probably wouldn't make sense for non-WSU teams to schedule pay games anyway considering their poor attendance. Why pay a mediocre team to show up and then fill your arena half full while charging peanuts? Just schedule some decently competitive home and home series. Better RPI, better financially, and more likely to get fans to come to the games. Different ball game for us ... Home games are far more valuable to us because of attendance and ticket prices. We want to go on the road against higher RPI teams than the kind most MVC teams need right now as well.

[Drakey]

Drake has what appears to be a great coach who wants to coach here forever. Drake has the potential to be the BEST program in the Valley. Horrible hires and a bad administration stopped that from happening for a long time. The hiring and retention of a clown like Mark Phelps could have been the death knoll, but Giacoletti appears to know how to build a program and how to coach. It will take time, but I think you will see steady improvement and growth in the Drake program over the next five years. I'm guessing Drake's recruiting class next year will be among the top 3 in the Valley, and we have a coach who knows how to get the most out of his players.

Drake is definitely on the way up. I don't actually see nay programs in the Valley who are in a long term declining cycle. The Valley will definitely get stronger over the next 5 years.

[Play Angry]

Lunardi's January 2nd Bracketology has Wichita State as a 2 seed, Indiana State as a 14 seed (getting the automatic bid).

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/bracketology

[rlh04d]

Drake has what appears to be a great coach who wants to coach here forever.

Let me guess: It's his "dream job"?

Seriously, though, why are you counting on a coach not from the area with zero ties to the school making about $450k a year and not yet getting support from the community to want to "coach here forever" after one year? I wouldn't say that about Marshall.

Giacoletti does seem like a very good coach so far. I do not believe he wants to coach there long term.