Strength of Schedule

Who said 24 wins?

I am not going to scour multiple threads on two sites, but the overwhelming view the last two seasons was that we needed way more wins to make it than we actually do. One quote in particular was that going 12-0 in the OOC pre-Duke would be “unimpressive”!!!

I thought VCU was better than us. BG second game of the season with more than half of the roster playing their first season was a HUGE challenge and one we barely escaped. They are 11-2 and in play for both the NCAA and NIT at this point in a conference that is objectively tougher than the PAC-12 this year. @Rutgers will never be an easy game as #21 Iowa just learned.

Dave hit the nail on the head in this thread saying we aren’t a CAA school who needs a monster OOC to have a chance. The Big East is a powerhouse and the PAC-12 is a disaster last few years.

I thought a weaker than normal schedule was just what the doctor ordered for this team.

I agree, the weaker schedule gave a new group a chance to learn to play together, which is paying dividends now. And even so, it isn’t as weak as has been reported, as I claimed a few weeks ago, we likely played 3 tournament teams out of conference with an outside chance of Princeton still making it.

I thought a weaker than normal schedule was just what the doctor ordered for this team.

So was the schedule weak or not?

So was the schedule weak or not?

We have the #48 SOS out of
353 teams. Gtown is 85, DePaul is 108, Va Tech is 75, and Michigan is 68.

Not weak, not strong. Just right.

We have the #48 SOS out of
353 teams. Gtown is 85, DePaul is 108, Va Tech is 75, and Michigan is 68.

Not weak, not strong. Just right.

But this whole thing revolves around the Non-conference SOS, not total SOS. Of course we'll have a top 50-75 SOS when 18 games are Big East games. That would put us as one of the lowest SOS teams among the power conference schools, aka the teams we're competing with for selection/seeding.

Seems like you finally admitted what everybody has known since the beginning that the OOC schedule was weak. I'm proud of you.

But this whole thing revolves around the Non-conference SOS, not total SOS. Of course we'll have a top 50-75 SOS when 18 games are Big East games. That would put us as one of the lowest SOS teams among the power conference schools, aka the teams we're competing with for selection/seeding.

Seems like you finally admitted what everybody has known since the beginning that the OOC schedule was weak. I'm proud of you.

How you divorce OOC SOS from the overall SOS is crazy to me. The strength of our conference informs the scheduling.

There are plenty of ACC, Big Ten, and SEC teams behind us in SOS. Tennessee and Michigan are both in the top 7 of the AP and are both well behind us in SOS at 67 and 68.

The original argument, of which all of this is derivative, was that our OOC was so awful it would hurt our chances of making the tournament. Well, here we sit with five games left + the tournament and we are in unkess we lose the next 6.

How you divorce OOC SOS from the overall SOS is crazy to me. The strength of our conference informs the scheduling.

There are plenty of ACC, Big Ten, and SEC teams behind us in SOS. Tennessee and Michigan are both in the top 7 of the AP and are both well behind us in SOS at 67 and 68.

The original argument, of which all of this is derivative, was that our OOC was so awful it would hurt our chances of making the tournament. Well, here we sit with five games left + the tournament and we are in unkess we lose the next 6.

No, the original argument was that it would either hurt our chances of making the tournament OR hurt our seeding. Right now, we are in the 8-9 game range which is a couple seeds lower than one should expect a 19-7 team with wins @Marquette, vs Marquette, vs Villanova, and @Creighton just in conference.

Looking at the general SOS is fine obviously, however, how much do you think VCU and Bowling Green impact that in the grand scheme of things. For the amount you obsess over it one would think every time they win our SOS would go up 3-5 spots, or drop that much with a loss. I can guarantee it doesn't move a fraction of a spot though in each game. So why the obsession?

No, the original argument was that it would either hurt our chances of making the tournament OR hurt our seeding. Right now, we are in the 8-9 game range which is a couple seeds lower than one should expect a 19-7 team with wins @Marquette, vs Marquette, vs Villanova, and @Creighton just in conference.

Looking at the general SOS is fine obviously, however, how much do you think VCU and Bowling Green impact that in the grand scheme of things. For the amount you obsess over it one would think every time they win our SOS would go up 3-5 spots, or drop that much with a loss. I can guarantee it doesn't move a fraction of a spot though in each game. So why the obsession?

Do you think we'd have a better seed all other things the same except if instead of having two cupcakes wins we'd had two losses to or split with to say Maryland and Syracuse?

No, the original argument was that it would either hurt our chances of making the tournament OR hurt our seeding. Right now, we are in the 8-9 game range which is a couple seeds lower than one should expect a 19-7 team with wins @Marquette, vs Marquette, vs Villanova, and @Creighton just in conference.

Looking at the general SOS is fine obviously, however, how much do you think VCU and Bowling Green impact that in the grand scheme of things. For the amount you obsess over it one would think every time they win our SOS would go up 3-5 spots, or drop that much with a loss. I can guarantee it doesn't move a fraction of a spot though in each game. So why the obsession?

VCU will actually have an enormous impact on our seeding as a quad 1 game. We look so much better than other teams in our pool due to quad 1 wins. When the committee makes that last minute decision there are only a few things that will matter and quad 1 record is about the highest. It won’t matter if the quad 1 win is over Tennessee or VCU.

I don’t think we would have beaten better teams early in the season. We shouldn’t have beaten VCU to be honest. They were better than us.

Our current seeding seems to be because of our losses to Providence, DePaul, and Georgetown. If we one those games our seeding would be better.

Despite being 19-7 our seeding is understandable, given the bad losses in conference. I believe the bad wins in OOC aren’t holding the seeding back for this team.

Do you think we'd have a better seed all other things the same except if instead of having two cupcakes wins we'd had two losses to or split with to say Maryland and Syracuse?

If you replace UMES and Mount St Mary's with Maryland and Syracuse, we'd be in generally the same spot with an 0-2, we'd be a seed line or 2 higher at 1-1 and we'd be 3 seed lines higher with 2-0.

Villanova - Morgan St., Quinnipiac, Canisius, LaSalle, Penn, Furman, UConn, St. Joe's, Temple, Michigan, OK State, Kansas

Tennessee - Lenoire-Rhyne, LA-Lafayette, GA Tech, Louisville, Kansas, E Kentucky, Texas A&M - CC, Gonzaga, Memphis, Samford, Wake Forest, TN Tech

Kentucky - Southern Illinois, N Dakota, VMI, Winthrop, TN State, Monmouth, UNCG, Seton Hall, Utah, UNC, Louisville

Louisville - Nichols St, Southern U, Vermont, Tenn, Marquette, Michigan St, Seton Hall, Sentral AK, Lipscomb, Indiana, Kent St. Robert Morris, Kentucky

Duke - Kentucky, Army, E Michigan, SD State, Auburn, Gonzaga, Indiana, Stetson, Hartford, Yale, Princeton, Texas Tech, St. John's

St. John's - Loyola, Bowling Green, Rutgers, Cal, VCU, MES, GA Tech, MSM, Princeton, Wagner, St. Francis, Sacred Heart, Duke

Just a few teams and their OOC schedules. All this fuss over a game or two that we NEVER would be able to schedule anyway. The big boys play the big boys when the year starts. I bet if you asked them, they don't want either but the money is just too good. Do you think Duke and Kentucky wanted to play the first game of the year? No way. Calipari even said it. There are enough cupcakes on these schedule to feed all the daycares in the northeast. Stop with this nonsense. This schedule was perfect for ST. JOHN'S. Weak, strong, average........semantics. This team would be 16-9 right now and would be playing a must win tonight if we had played in Maui or traveled out to Ann Arbor. Ridiculous.

You guys just love beating the same drum! who cares what the schedule was. We are 19-7 coming off a huge win over Nova and in position to make the Dance. Lets go out there and beat Providence. Cant we all just be excited for the team instead of continue back and forth over non sense at this point. ( For what its worth though, Jon Rothstein in the beginning of the year said we had to win 23 games to be a lock. At this point if we win 1 more game ( 20 wins) we are locked up for a tourney berth)

If you replace UMES and Mount St Mary's with Maryland and Syracuse, we'd be in generally the same spot with an 0-2, we'd be a seed line or 2 higher at 1-1 and we'd be 3 seed lines higher with 2-0.

0-2 and we are on the outside looking in. You don’t get that. And a loss to VCU, Ga Tech, or Rutgers on top of that and it’s probably all she wrote.

It's a fair topic to discuss and continue to discuss. There isn't a right or wrong answer but winning solves all problems.

IF St. John's didn't sweep Marquette and split with Nova we'd be in serious trouble due to the scheduling.

However due to our conference SOS and being able to handle business there we can make up for it while other teams in other conferences can't.

I do think we need to make sure we sprinkle in some tougher teams OOC outside of Duke. I think another VCU like level game would have been nice and when the Cal game was scheduled it was probably thought they'd be of a higher caliber than they currently are.

I really hope Bowling Green punches the ticket.

0-2 and we are on the outside looking in. You don’t get that. And a loss to VCU, Ga Tech, or Rutgers on top of that and it’s probably all she wrote.

That is wildly incorrect

That is wildly incorrect

🙄

🙄

We'd be 17-9. Look at a team like Auburn who is 17-8 now and they don't have nearly as good of wins in their conference as we do with our wins over Marquette 2x and Villanova. They are in the 8-9 range with us.

Baylor is 17-9 with some absolutely awful losses. Yet, they are safely in now because of their good wins.

16-9 Ohio State is safely in.

17-9 Minnesota safely in with non conference losses to BC and Ohio State, but they have good wins in conference like we do.

We'd still be safely in at 17-9 with the good BE wins we have.

No, the original argument was that it would either hurt our chances of making the tournament OR hurt our seeding. 

AND that it wouldn't properly prepare us for the rigors of BE play. That one died on the vine very quickly.

AND that it wouldn't properly prepare us for the rigors of BE play. That one died on the vine very quickly.

Wasn't me that made that argument