http://www.hokiesports.com/mbasketball/recaps/20160912aaa.html
Our season opener is against Maine and it's a 9 PM start (??). Other out of conference highlights include at Michigan for the ACC-B1G challenge, and Mississippi at home in early December
UVA game isn't over winter break this year, but our ACC opener against Duke is.... (December 31st). Not sure why that happened, but oh well. Final two games are at home against Miami and Wake Forest
Other ACC scheduling highlight includes the fact that 6 of our 9 home games are on the weekend
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Duke and 'Cuse over break. Students can't win.
Yeah, why do that?
Because we play 18 ACC games now. Everyone will be playing 3 or 4 games over break.
I understand that aspect of it, but don't schedule Duke and Syracuse over the break. Give us Wake Forest and Boston College instead.
I can understand that you might not have a choice about one of those, but BOTH of them is a bit wrong.
Duke and Syracuse don't want UNC and UVA over the break.
Reminder: we are in the Wake/BC category in this league.
Honest question -- why do you think that? We finished 5th in the ACC last year, we're in several
preseason Top 25 and it's common knowledge that we return basically everyone and add a couple great players as well. We are not in the same category as a team that went 0-The ACC last season.
Because, regardless of how well we played last year, Tobacco Road still runs this conference. It's a blueblood thing, not a recent success thing.
It's market appeal, not quality of a single team.
Market appeal tiers:
1: UNC, Duke
2: UVA, Louisville, Syracuse, Notre Dame
3: Miami, FSU, NCSU, Pitt
4: VT, BC, Wake, Clemson, GT
This honestly pisses me off. As a townie, I won't have any problem with getting to these games and being in the student section. But for everyone who is going home, the ACC screwed them over.
39-0 confirmed.
Wow, just 4 Saturday home games all season. Sundays aren't bad - just makes for a really late night getting back to Northern Virginia. Very much looking forward to seeing what Buzz can do this year!
vMaine (w); vHighPoint (w); vVMI (w); nNewMex (w); nTexA&M (l); nConsolation (w); @Mich (l); vUMDES (w); vMiss (w); vCitadel (w); vCharleston (w); vUMBC (w); vDuke (l); @NCSU (w); @FSU (l); vCuse (w); vND (w); vGT (w); @Clem (l); @UNC (l); vBC (w); @UVA (l); @Miami (l); vUVA (w); @Pitt (l); @Louisville (l); vClem (w); @BC (w); vMiami (w); vWake (w)
20-10, 10-8
Ole Miss, Michigan, New Mexico and possibly even Texas A&M. This is a solid non-conference schedule, Seth Greenberg.
Depends on how bad the bad teams are. That's what kills you.
And unfortunately that part of the schedule is awful. RPI's from last year: Maine (311) VMI (311) Maryland-Eastern Shore (309) Citadel (319) UMBC (338) Charleston Southern (298) High Point (161 actually not bad) New Mexico (144) Michigan (58). Need to beat New Mexico so we can get Texas A&M (18) since getting Cal State Bakersfield would be disastrous (281). Hopefully some of these teams are improving this year and aren't in the 300s but this a poor out of conference schedule. So many lose-lose games. Gonna need to win at least 10 games in the acc to be on the right side of the bubble
6 roughly 300 schools? That puts us in the 100 rpi category without top 10 wins.
Don't forget we also get BC twice who was 250th last year though I would certainly assume they'd be better. Rant for another day but scheduling that many 300+ schools is just dumb. Lowers your margin for error and hurts your seeding. There's a ton of shitty teams that we would roll by 20+ in the 150-200 range that wouldn't hurt our RPI as bad as some of these teams. God forbid we lose to one of them
Hasn't somebody argued on here before on how scheduling a Div 2 team would actually be better than the 300+ RPI teams? What was the basis behind that argument?
I've made that argument before, not sure if it was on here or not. But the basis behind it is that it accomplishes our goal of padding our win totals but unlike playing someone awful like Maine it does not affect our RPI or SOS since only division 1 games are factored in to those calculations. Baylor has been doing this for a couple years now.
For a good example o why this is a bad idea, a couple years ago Tomahawknation (who does surprisingly great basketball work) did an analysis last year on what FSU's RPI and SOS would look like if they simply hadn't played a couple of their RPI anchors (which would essentially be the benefit of playing a D2 team) and their RPI and SOS both improved by around 15 points. They were the second team out that year, with an RPI 15 spots better they would have been in. There is just no reason to be playing 6 of these games
Yep, 6 of these anchor games is suicide. And since the head coach makes out the schedule in college basketball, it's on Buzz.
Basically, for every 300+ game you win, you need to win a top 20 game to even it out. Luckily we could be playing 5-8 games against top 20 competition in the ACC, but we need to win a lot of them. That Duke game at home over break is really important. As is UVA at home. Syracuse is at home but they will probably be outside the top 20 in RPI (Boeheim notoriously schedules for wins). Louisville, UVA and UNC are top 20 games on the road. Need to beat aTm so we can get a shot at UCLA (fringe top 20 team). Need to root for Miami, who we have at home who is probably top 40.
The other thing to factor in is how the RPI is weighted. Home wins only count for .6 wins and Away count for 1.4 while home losses count for 1.4 losses and so on. Mess around like we did last year with Alabama State and it can crater our RPI. Which is another reason its dumb to play 6 of these games, why give yourself that many chances to have a horrible game?
Basically means we need to root for everyone in the ACC out of conference. Need Clemson to be a top 75ish team again and BC to not be absolutely awful since we play them both twice. Ideally FSU could be a sneaky good road win and we can knock off two of Pitt UNC NC State and Louisville on the road one time who should all be at least top 50 RPI.
You forgot to include the Final Four dates:
National semifinal: April 1st
National championship: April 3rd
If you book now, flights to Phoenix are pretty cheap.
As mentioned above, students are shafted in regards to home schedule for umpteenth year in a row. Duke, 'Cuse, and ND all over winter break?? Are you kidding me?
Why we always get one big game at least during winter break is frustrating to no end. I don't seem to remember getting any road games at Duke/UNC during winter break like that. Not that it matters for them since they'll put butts in seats regardless. But I hate that it'll be yet another big game without the student section lit up making it hard to play.
Thinking NYE in Blacksburg may be on the docket for me this season. Would love to make it to that Duke game.
im actually kind of excited that duke is over break i can make it! sucks for the students though I really feel for them, especially now that we're relevant
Danny Coale caught that ball
I'm not sure what this is about, but it will get a leg from me every time.
Danny Coale caught that damn ball, dammit
There's a lot more Sunday games than I expected. I'm only a few hours away from the burg, so that shouldn't be an issue (other than a few sleepy Monday mornings.) I'm glad we pulled Wake for senior night, although that falls on Spring Break. Starting ACC play with Duke on NYE is....different. Looks like I might be ringing in the new year in downtown Blacksburg.
Late start due to a triple header with Women's basketball and Volleyball.
Maryland-Eastern Shore is becoming the basketball version of ECU. Glad they're on the schedule for the upteenth year in a row /s
I wish VT was playing WVU this season. It would have been a home game and I do feel as if it would be a great game this year.
I'm ready for some Buzzketball!
I might be the only person not disappointed by the low ranked teams on the schedule. We really need a year or two to rack up the wins and get Buzzketball into good shape. Blowout wins will help recruiting more than close wins or losses against better opponents. ACC membership means the recruits will know that they are going to get national exposure and big wins OOC will help get us more TV time if we have a better W-L record (IMHO).
That being said, I would like to a gradual increase in the schedule difficulty as Buzz stays here and gets more and more of his players into the program.
I finally had some time to look at our schedule for more than just a second and so this is how I see things.
I compared the schedule to the CBS 2016-2017 Preseason rankings. By this look, we have four opponents from the 300+ point in The Citadel, VMI, Maryland Eastern Shore, and UMBC. I know there have been objections to Maryland Eastern Shore but they bring a Hokie legend back to the hall so I am ok with this team being left on the schedule.
We have another four opponents #200 to #299 including Georgia Tech, the lowest ranked ACC team this season. The other three opponents in this group are High Point, Maine and Charleston Southern. I think my only issue so far with the programs selected are that I think we could have a bigger impact if we scheduled more of the local programs such as William and Mary, James Madison, George Mason, GW, American, Hampton, and Christopher Newport. This is up to the coach though, so far so good with only eight opponents above the 200+ range.
Looking at our opponents from #100 to #199, we have Boston College twice, Ole Miss and Wake Forest. Thirteen games of our 28 known games will be above #100 which is not terrible for the tier of the ACC we were in when most of these games were scheduled. Its a definite improvement over past seasons
Teams from #50 to #99 are New Mexico, Clemson twice and Notre Dame. Four more games that are all winnable this season. That covers more than half our known schedule now and I think we manage to win at least 13 of these 16 games. That makes winning against the top #50 opponents a much more manageable task to being both a winning program and potentially making the tournament.
We have 12 games against top #50 opponents, not including the additional round(s) of the Thanksgiving tournament in Anaheim and whichever ACC teams we see again in the Conference Tournament. CBS has us ranked #48 as they are not as bought in on our rise to the top as some other sites. I happen to think we will end the season somewhere in the thirties, especially if the ACC can deliver such a high ranked SOS. This should be good enough to get us into the tournament at about an #11 or #12 seed because of matchups and how the Tournament ranks some of the conference champions. As we get closer I will provide a more in depth view of our OOC schedule and where I think our strengths and weaknesses are. I think my only concern with this set of rankings is that the ACC may be seeded a bit too high, with only three teams outside the top 62. Most years the ACC usually has three or four teams from the 60s-80s. Even with that being true though, our games against the top 100 should amount to about half or more of our schedule.
Team Rank
Maine 251
High Point 204
VMI 300
New Mexico 68
Michigan 43
Maryland Eastern Shore 322
Ole Miss 108
The Citadel 326
Charleston Southern 266
UMBC 317
Duke 1
NC State 32
Florida State 31
Syracuse 21
Notre Dame 52
Georgia Tech 218
Clemson 62
North Carolina 6
Boston College 196
Virginia 9
Miami 27
VIrginia 9
Pittsburgh 36
Louisville 16
Clemson 62
Boston College 196
Miami 27
Wake Forest 101
Do you know what CBS bases their preseason projections off of? They didn't really say in the post so I'm curious if it's just writer opinion or mathematically based.
The Kenpom preseason rankings should be coming out soon which I personally think are the best in the business, interested to see where we+our opponents rank
CBS rankings seem to be at least partially influenced by a writer. This was one reason I thought the ACC as a whole were ranked too high. 12 of the top 62 teams? Conference is good but not quite that good I don't think. Couple of the other opponents rankings surprise me as well. I had thought Michigan this season was supposed to be in the top four of the Big Ten.
I do agree that Kenpom rankings are the best which is why I went there for my first take. As you point out they haven't been released yet and since I haven't done enough research on these teams yet to form my own opinion of how we will stack up I wanted to compare based off someone that had instead of using rankings from last season.
As long as Kenpom ends up something close to what CBS has in terms of number of opponents across each numerical grouping though we have a well balanced group of opponents this season that should allow us to reach the tournament as opposed to schedules of years past.