I read the most recent 4 letter bubble watch which stated that the 1 thing that the selection committee will use as a mark against us is our plethora of 300+ RPI opponents. It got me to thinking who could we schedule for next year (and in the future) to eliminate that concern from the selection committee.
Assuming 30-31 regular season games, here is my ideal opponent schedule (current rpi)
We have 18 ACC games, that's not going to change (3-201)
1 Big Ten opponent (15-145)
4 games in the 2k Sports Classic
- 2 guaranteed vs Providence, Indiana, and Washington (69, 98, 203)
- 2 unidentified opponents (???)
7-8 non-conference opponents
- VCU (26)
- UNC-Asheville (73)
- Richmond (97)
- George Mason (109)
- William and Mary (111)
- George Washington (128)
- Old Dominion (137)
- Liberty (173)
Our independently scheduled opponents would have an average RPI of 97 without Liberty or 107 with.
Also, if we could get the Asheville game at home we would never have to leave the state except for conference play and go to Madison Square Garden.
Comments
Playing that tough of a schedule is a good way to go 17-15 and end up on the wrong side of the bubble. See: Clemson. It helps us in the analytics categories, which I think will start getting more weight, but we really just need four of those. That's a physically draining schedule playing those teams every night with the ACC gauntlet to come.
We went through this last offseason, it was clear that we needed to avoid 300+ teams....then Buzz (who handles the schedule himself) signed up 6 of them.
If there is a justification for it, it would be that Buzz felt like his team needed to accrue wins and success early to prepare for the ACC schedule. And that the ACC would be so strong, the road games vs. Top 25 opponents would cover up for it. Theoretically, that's right. Our RPI isn't very important right now because we are clearly in the tournament. The RPI doesn't have that big of an impact on seeding, just a differentiator for bubble teams.
Our schedule this year has played out like expected, we didn't get to UCLA in Anaheim, aTm is worse than we expected but Nebraska is a little better. Michigan is getting back to where we thought they would be. Ole Miss is who we thought they would be.
At least Buzz said "we won't be playing them again" after we played The Citadel. That was more about style of play (nobody plays like that, no reason to play a practice game against it). But it shows that he's evaluating his schedule choices.
I think our schedule is getting more bashing then it deserves. Yes there are some bad teams on it. But we also got Texas A&M (NC), Nebraska (NC), Ole Miss (Home), and Michigan @ Michigan. They might not be perennial BB powerhouses, but being power 5 schools they are expected to be decent.
Your not wrong, we did play a sufficient amoung of P5 programs in the non-con.
Just look at our RPI profile though: http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/rpi/_/teamId/259
Issue isnt those games you described above. Its the RPI 200+ games we played that hurt our metrics. It seems like we are better off not playing those games, rather than winning them.
Yep, it was a good schedule, just picked the wrong cupcakes. Which was pretty unavoidable, not sure why we did it.
(there is the possibility that we have an OOC cupcake budget and that teams in the 15-200 range cost ....say $50K for a visit where as teams >300 cost $10K and we ran out of money to schedule decent teams. That's just supposition, but a possibility)
Its usually the other way around. Cupcakes usually cost more than say a house salad or something more substantial. Especially cupcakes that do not have a football program, because then the basketball team becomes the only revenue generator for an entire athletic department sometimes. Cupcakes usually rent out their team for a stiff beating 5-6 games a year to bring in enough money to cover multiple sports.
Same thing happens in football, here is an article with some financial comparisons. If you scroll down about two thirds of the way you can see how it sometimes backfires, this time involving OSU Kent State and Virginia Tech.
http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2016/6/22/11648368/scheduling-c...
Here is another showing top payments for football in a season:
http://thebiglead.com/2013/09/28/2013-college-football-cupcake-list-who-...
I had forgotten that Buzz handles the schedule himself.
From a fan engagement standpoint, I do wonder if Whit has had any discussions with Buzz about potentially scheduling teams around the state to bolster some of the Drive For 25 efforts. While 07Hokie's schedule would be crazy for one year, I do think there's merit to scheduling teams in the state that would bring out decent crowds.
I'm sure Buzz probably likes the freedom of scheduling without outside factors pressing on him, but I think it's important for someone to be in his ear about potentially getting games in areas concentrated with lots of alumni.
Would VCU or UR be interested in a series, or even a one-off game at the Richmond Coliseum?
I know we've been over scheduling ODU before (and for all we know, Buzz may share Greenberg's sentiments there), but it wouldn't be a terrible idea to approach them.
I think the DMV area Hokies would turn out huge for games in Fairfax against GMU, or at the Verizon Center against Georgetown or Maryland (if the Terps would be willing to schedule a "neutral-court" game).
Now obviously putting together a schedule to hit all those regions in one year isn't feasible or very smart for basketball reasons, but rotating around every few years to give fans an opportunity to see the Hokies close to home would be a smart move. That's just my opinion though.
I lean toward G-Town over UMD because they have a lot of empty seats every game, maybe half capacity, that could be filled by Hokies, while Comcast Center is usually very nearly full.
Yeah I totally agree with scheduling schools from different regions in Virginia. Playing VCU or UR in Richmond or GMU or Georgetown every so often would be great for Hokies that live in Richmond or Northern Virginia (such as myself). I was really hoping that were going to play George Mason or Georgetown this year before the schedule was released so I could go to those games
We scheduled a 2-game series against Ole Miss, and are expected to have a return trip to Oxford next season. Also, I'll be happy with even just half of those in-state non-conference games, but please take Liberty off the list. I hope we refuse to work with their new AD going forward.
Ok, so remove Liberty and an Ole Miss and for that matter ODU and that puts us at 30 games.
Let's say we go 3-1 in the 2k Sports Classic, win our acc-big ten challenge game, and go 5-2 in the other eight games, that would put us at 9-3 going into conference play.
I think at the very least we can go 9-9 in conference., putting us at 18-12 going into the ACC tournament. Depending on matchups, we could possibly get 2 wins, making us 20-13 with but would have to be one of the toughest non-conference schedules in the country and having a winning record in the ACC.
I think our resume would look very good.
Unless we have significant unexpected attrition, by all accounts we should be an even better team next year. 18-12 would be a huge disappointment to me, even with that good of a non-conference schedule.
Regarding Liberty, I'm partially just giving you a hard time. I do have my own personal reasons for not wanting to play them and I absolutely haaaate that they're a team that we usually have to pay to play but I totally understand why it makes sense to toss them on our schedule.
I think these +/- 150 rpi opponents are the key. You see so many non- P5 teams with puzzling RPI's then you see that everyone they play is in the 100-150 range with a sprinkling of under 100's and it somehow works out.
I'd love to play a couple of tournaments with good competition, then load up the schedule with VCU, GM, Richmond, Radford, VMI, and any other VA school we can get. If we still have empty slots put in WVU, ETSU, or even UT. This is probably a terrible idea in practice, but I would love it.
I don't think this is a bad idea. It's not like you play those early games on the road however, and i'm not interested in a home and home series with most of these schools.
If we could play a few teams out of VCU(#26), Richmond (RPI #96), GMU (#110), W&M (#112), ODU (#134), Liberty (#162), over the likes of VMI/Hampton/Longwood/Norfolk St.. we'd have much better Non-Con SOS than we are used to.
I'd be happy to take on 2 of the dumpy programs in the early stretch as a warm-up and have in-state home and home series with 2 more of the VCU/Richmond/GMU/ODU. Those are fairly consistent in-state programs to square off with before ACC play.
Along those same lines...
I'm sure the logistics would be next to impossible, and there are many reasons to not do it, but I've always thought it would be fun to have a Virginia State Championship-type of tournament where a bunch of the top teams in VA play each other. Guarantee two or three games for every team, play it on or before Thanksgiving, and fill up an arena somewhere in Virginia. I think it would draw good crowds.
My opinion here is that we should schedule against teams from areas of hotbed talent, even being willing to go on the road for a few of those games. I say this to benefit us in recruiting because it gives our coaches a chance to invite kids in for some of those away games that may not have a chance to see Virginia Tech play in person otherwise and it gets these guys ready for a bit of the road schedule that is the ACC. Too much home cooking makes you a bit fat and happy and then you run smack into the ACC road wall, ala NC State. Buzz is already recruiting kids from the class of 2020, so its not like he doesnt have an idea of where some of this talent is already.
Some of the teams I would suggest to add in would be
Loyola-Chicago (Chi town is another hot bed of talent)
Toledo (Bring in kids from the Cleveland area)
Marshall (the rest of Ohio)
New Orleans (considering Buzz used to coach there and that would give us a game to bring kids in from Mississippi over to East Texas)
St Josephs/Temple (Gives us exposure in Philly)
Fordham/Hofstra/St Johns (New York City specifically the Bronx and Queens, try to schedule at MSG or the Nets new home)
Florida Gulf Coast/South Florida (Florida specifically IMG Academy kids)
Tulsa (gets you Oklahoma, Kansas, Parts of Texas)
Rice/Texas A&M Corpus Christi/Sam Houston State (a big swath of Texas)
Almost all of these schools are regularly found in the RPI 100-200 range and could help with exposure to Buzz style of basketball.
I do agree however that adding some of the better programs in the state of Virginia wouldnt hurt either.
Not to be picky, but... that'd be like a school scheduling VCU to bring in kids from the DC area.
Akron, Kent State, and (FWIW) Cleveland State get you into or nearer Cleveland.
It makes it a two hour trip compared to a ten hour trip. The three schools you listed, two are typically outside the top 200 (Cleveland State and Kent State) and then Akron is usually a top 75 program. My goal was to get Tech into an area that is a reasonable drive against teams typically between 100 and 200 in the RPI. See New Orleans being from Mississippi to East Texas. See Tulsa bringing in kids from Kansas to North Texas. Another reason I cited Cleveland specifically is that Buzz has offers out to at least three kids from Cleveland right now, but essentially it would allow Buzz to show off to Northern Ohio, Southern Michigan, and Northeastern Indiana.
I like the thought, but if we ever went on the road outside Virginia (hell even inside, not counting a neutral court game against VCU), and a mid major that would be a terrible idea. If we're going to expand the footprint, then I'm all in favor of expanding the horizons to play a Xavier, SMU, St. Mary's, Seton Hall or someone like that then that's fine. But we don't need to show off these areas, especially if it means us going on the road to play Toledo, Tulsa, Evansville or any other random team in middle America. We don't need to be away from Cassell in November unless it's worth it. Setting up RPI 150 teams in the hopes of setting up a pipeline is great in theory, but it's not how things work.
I saw on TSL that playing a Division 2 school does not affect our RPI. It does affect out SOS, though, so it's not ideal to schedule more than one D2 school every year, but replacing a team like High Point that probably hurts our RPI with a team that doesn't have an effect on RPI and still gives of a win is ideal. We played West Florida back in the 2006-07 season I believe. We were going to make the tournament that year regardless of who we played in that game, but having a 5th seed as we did in the NCAA tournament vs. a 6th or 7th seed is much more desirable in the second round.
I would hope, that if that is even an issue, that the committee would punish you for playing a DII team instead of a Big South squad. For the big boys, nonconference cupcakes aren't that big of a deal. No one cares that we played High Point, VMI and the Citadel. That doesn't make the Duke and UVA wins any bigger, not does that make the NC State loss any worse.
For major conference bubble teams it's simple: did you avoid defeat to +200 RPI teams and did you beat +50 teams, especially top 15 teams. If you did, no one gives a damn who you played in November. If you didn't, and you're like Wake Forest or Clemson and have to tout victories over UNC Wilmington and Richmond isn't exactly a winning formula for avoiding the bubble and sweating it out on Selection Sunday.
"Hey, sometimes beating Richmond is a lot harder than you'd think" - LOLUVa football fans
FTFY
That doesn't seem to be the case. If you lose to a DII school, that is definitely punishable by the committee. But if you win, that's just another meaningless win that also happens not to bring down your RPI. I'm sure there are some DII schools who could take down D1 programs regularly, similar to there being FCS schools that can take down FBS schools regularly (ask our neighbors in Charlottesville).
My ideal schedule for next year:
We played 13 non-conference games, subtracting the tournament and the B1G/ACC Challenge leaves us with 8 freely scheduled games every year. One is already filled by Ole Miss for next year so 7 slots left to fill.
4 Teams we should play every year:
Team (RPI) (kenpom)
VMI (323) (325) ALWAYS at home
Radford ( 216) (281) ALWAYS at home
George Mason (109) (109) GMU and G'Town home-and-home series switching every year so we always play
Georgetown (76) (59) one at home & one in DC/NOVA every year
Average (181) (194)
4 Other games: would like us to play teams that are either in-state or in one of the surrounding states to at least create a sense of rivalry/excitement for the fanbase. 1 top 100 team (home-and-home series), 1 300+ team (home), and two 100-300 teams (home). For next year some ideas
Ole Miss (67) (73)
Longwood (336) (348)
Coastal Carolina (140) (189)
JMU (263) (237)
Average (201) (212)
Overall average (191) (203)
Overall average for this years schedule (257) (264)
Every 3-5 years we can play VCU in a neutral site game. We'll have at least one decent road game every year (GMU/GTown). The average opponents RPI raises about 60 points, enough to be respectable and doesn't have too many 300+ cakewalks. It is a very winnable schedule with a few quality wins that can be stacked against how those teams play in their conferences (A-10, Big East, SEC). There's lots of options for the "4 other games" that can be interesting for our fans and could get on TV rather than WatchESPN. Add in the Challenge and whatever tournament and opponents RPI will go up, giving us a better resume if we have a rough year in ACC play.
With the current trajectory of the two programs I would rather see us play UMBC rather than JMU>
There are plenty of other options in that 100-300 range and it's just for one year. Fan-wise it's more about the school name than the program, you want someone who might attract a casual fan to go to a OOC game.
I follow JMU's basketball situation pretty closely since my wife is an alum and we have friends with season tickets in Harrisonburg. Here's my two cents regarding that program:
Yes, they are bad this year. A lot of that is due to Lou Rowe's inexperience as a first-year head coach after they let Matt Brady go after not giving him a new contract. Just think about that for a second - he wasn't fired, they just let his contract run out and didn't give him an extension. It had really handicapped his ability to recruit and it's showing this year.
Additionally, Rowe was stuck with a couple of assistant coaches that were holdovers from Brady's tenure, and there supposedly has been some friction with those decisions. They had even been suspended for a game earlier this season, but there hasn't been much talk as to why it occurred.
People thought that with SEVEN seniors on the squad, they'd be better after winning 19 and 21 games the last couple years... problem is, they have no natural point guard or even an above-average ball-handler since Ron Curry graduated after last season. They've played hard for most of CAA conference play this year after an abysmal non-conference stretch, but they haven't been able to close games at all.
Rowe is asking this team to run a system they don't really have the personnel to implement. They've got some decent length, but not a lot of shooting or athleticism on the court. I think they'll improve over the next few years because he's showing some signs of decent recruiting. Whether those guys pan out is another question, and Rowe will need to improve as a program manager as well. He'll need a chance to bring in his guys, not the ones forced on him by the administration.
If the AD gives Rowe the room to operate, I think they've got a chance to be successful. I know a lot of the hardcore fanbase is down on him and think JMU should have chased a guy with head-coaching experience, but I think he'll grow into the job if given the chance. We'll see though.
While I agree that Rowe might develop into a good coach after a few years, its has frustrated my brother (JMU alum) to no end watching him try to force square pegs into round holes all season. As a coach at this level, there has to be the point where you assess your strengths and weaknesses and manage your coaching technique and systems to the strengths. Rowe has failed to do that and wasted what was a good chance with such experienced players to have a very solid season and allow him to recruit new players in that much easier. Instead he has made it hard on his players, coaches and support staff to get behind him because they havent seen much in the way of flexibility in his coaching mindset. I do expect to see coaching changes at the end of this season where Rowe brings in his type of coaches but I still think they are probably three years from righting the ship now, rather than making things transition smoothly.
I think the most brutal part for me was watching them just flail helplessly in their OOC schedule. Especially the losses to Charlotte, Western Michigan, Appalachian State, and Texas Southern. Even the loss to UMBC, with how improved that program has been this year, still is bad. In conference, they have been the CAA version of Clemson. Losses piled on losses by very small margins. Five of their ten conference losses by two baskets or less.
I disagree with this a little bit.
Yes, it's important to know your players' strengths and coach to them, but I personally think it's a very different task for a 1st-year coach who has no connection to any of the guys currently in the program. To my knowledge, Rowe had been a part of recruiting some of the guys who graduated last year while he was an assistant coach at JMU before heading elsewhere.
This is just my opinion, but I think Rowe implementing his system now benefits the team in the long run rather than playing a style that doesn't fit his vision. It allows younger guys in the program valuable practice reps when they're counted on to perform next year after they've graduated the bulk of their squad. Additionally, it's proof of concept for recruiting - instead of telling a recruit how you're going to play once he gets here, you can point to weaknesses in the current system that show where he can help.
There's also the context of the CAA. It's a one-bid league that was always going to be an extremely tough battle to best UNC-Wilmington, though Charleston is making a run at them right now. Last year's JMU team won 21 games, didn't even sniff an NIT bid and lost their best player to graduation. They weren't going to contend for anything this year.
I do understand coaching is important, and it's a big question mark with Rowe right now. I also understand that bottoming out the program isn't great for attendance, but it's not like they were doing so hot at the gate under Brady. They're in a tough spot with basketball right now, and I'm not sure the administration really knows how to fix it. They're banking on a former player righting the ship, and if they're smart, they'll get out of his way to determine if that's the right course of action for the next few years. They haven't done that yet, so we'll see.
Another thought.
Have something like a "Commonwealth Challenge" that would be a tournament held in the Richmond Coliseum featuring 7 Virginia teams from the 7 conferences represented in Virginia, plus either VSU or VUU from Div 2 and set them up in a tournament that allows every team to play 3 games.
Always comes back to revenue and cost but we have had the discussions many times of an in state, even a rotating Tech Virginia matchup. I dont see Tech getting involved unless its at Cassell.