Scheduling is everything

[jayschool]

Bottom line: We were done on Jan. 1 unless we could have done three things:

 

1) Finish the B1G regular season at 15-3 or better,  with one of those wins would have been at Purdue or at Ohio State, as well as beating both PSU and Illinois on the road.

2) Finish the B1G regular season tied with MSU for first place at 16-2, meaning we would have had to go 15-1 over the final two months (we went 12-4).

3) Win the B1G tournament by beating Michigan, MSU and Purdue on three consecutive days.

 

Tall order there.

[atskooc]

19 minutes ago, Handy Johnson said:

Does OU get in without Tre' Young on the roster? Remember they're selling a TV show, and the first word in show business is "show."

OU might not win a game without him on the roster, so it's doubtful they would have made it in.

[throwback]

Exactly. I'm just not sure why the committee made a show of "we watch X number of games live" or "this member watches this conference closely" when it's all about Q1. I guess they have to justify their existence.

 

Maybe it's time to just use a formula like NCAA Hockey and let the formula pick & seed the teams - everyone knows what it is ahead of time, there's no mystery.

 

Ha - that'll never happen. 

Edited March 12, 2018 by throwback

[nustudent]

14 minutes ago, throwback said:

Exactly. I'm just not sure why the committee made a show of "we watch X number of games live" or "this member watches this conference closely" when it's all about Q1. I guess they have to justify their existence.

 

Maybe it's time to just use a formula like NCAA Hockey and let the formula pick & seed the teams - everyone knows what it is ahead of time, there's no mystery.

 

Ha - that'll never happen. 

This is my issue.  Stop with the hub bub about evaluation.   There were certain teams (Nebraska being one) that were never truly under evaluation, because they based it on one or two measures.

 

I am fine with that, but just come out and say it.   Don't paint a picture that you are evaluating when you really only look at two columns and completely disregard things like the eyeball test. 

 

This is where the true frustration lies.  

[Blindcheck]

Scheduling for Q1 games is difficult, because you can't adjust your schedule as you realize that certain Big ten teams are not in Q1

 

 

Wisconsin is generally Q1 home and road.

Maryland is generally Q1

Mulitple Big ten teams would generally by Q1 on the road...

 

But this year, they were not...were they much different from years past, yes and no.

 

[Handy Johnson]

28 minutes ago, atskooc said:

OU might not win a game without him on the roster, so it's doubtful they would have made it in.

What you say is accurate, my point is, all things being equal, don't you think the Networks want the freshman phenom who leads the Nation in scoring on TV?

[tjp21]

9 minutes ago, Blindcheck said:

Scheduling for Q1 games is difficult, because you can't adjust your schedule as you realize that certain Big ten teams are not in Q1

 

 

Wisconsin is generally Q1 home and road.

Maryland is generally Q1

Mulitple Big ten teams would generally by Q1 on the road...

 

But this year, they were not...were they much different from years past, yes and no.

 

 

This is why you're going to have to really be a conference cheerleader in the non conference schedule under the quad system. Look at how many Q1 opportunities the ACC, Big 12, and SEC had.  It's going to be even more important for us because we aren't a name school in basketball.  We won't get the benefit of the doubt. Like others have said, by the time conference play started this year we had virtually no shot.

[hskr4life]

The committees message this year....

 

Wins and losses do not matter.  The RIGHT wins and losses is the only thing that matters.

 

While I disagree with this 100%, we need to find a way to work the system int he coming years.  Schedule teams from mid-majors that aren't going to bring the record down.  A-10, AAC, Mountain West, Mo Valley.  

 

The one problem that I see is that it is constantly changing.  The criteria, quadrants, RPI, etc. seems to change every year.  Next year it might be something totally different.  That sucks.

[throwback]

Something else that made it next to impossible for us - our Q1 games were at the top of the range, rather than in the middle/bottom. Much tougher to beat the #10 RPI team on the road than the #70 RPI team.

 

NU Q1 games

• Home games vs #5 and #12 (1-1) = all upper 1/2 of the 1-30 range
• Neutral vs #12 (0-1) = in upper 1/3 of 1-50 range
• Road games vs #9, #14, #20, and #44 (0-4) = all but CU in upper 1/3 of 1-75 range, and CU was still in the middle third

So no games against teams in the lower part of the quadrant range - that's where the B1G really hurt us. Road games against teams like PSU, NW, Wisc, Minn all usually would be Q1, but not this year. Plus not getting a crack at PU, MSU or OSU at home.

 

Just for fun, here's Tejas' Q1 games

• Home games vs #5, #12, #23, #26, and #27 (3-2) = with all 3 wins coming in the lower 1/2 of the 1-30 range
• Neutral vs #7, #21, #23, and #41 (1-3) = with win coming against lower 1/3 of the range
• Road vs #5, #23, #26, #27, #42, #49, #53, and #68 (2-6) = with both wins against middle 1/3 of the range

 

So NU was 1-6 vs Q1, Tejas 6-11. Looks like Tejas was clearly better than NU.

 

But when you look at just the upper half of those ranges (1-15 at home, 1-25 neutral and 1-37 on road):

• NU 1-5
• Tejas 0-9

Now bottom half of the ranges

• NU 0-1
• Tejas 6-2

 

Would NU have done better if it had received all of the opportunities in the lower half of Q1 like Tejas had - who knows?

 

5 of NU's Q1 opportunities came in conference, Tejas had 12.

 

Certainly just one talking point, so it doesn't completely mean the quads are garbage. But this would indicate it matters in what part of the Q1 range you're playing teams.

 

And it would indicate the committee didn't do much more than lazily glance at the Q1 number, rather than breaking it down any further - 1-6 vs 6-11 looks like a slam dunk for Tejas .... but 1-5 vs 0-9, not so much.

 

When you're basing your system on a poor metric like RPI, you're going to get some garbage results from time to time.

 

Edited March 12, 2018 by throwback

[nustudent]

5 minutes ago, hskr4life said:

The committees message this year....

 

Wins and losses do not matter.  The RIGHT wins and losses is the only thing that matters.

 

While I disagree with this 100%, we need to find a way to work the system int he coming years.  Schedule teams from mid-majors that aren't going to bring the record down.  A-10, AAC, Mountain West, Mo Valley.  

 

The one problem that I see is that it is constantly changing.  The criteria, quadrants, RPI, etc. seems to change every year.  Next year it might be something totally different.  That sucks.

This to me is the real issue. 

 

Every year or two the committee will have a new flavor of the week in what they use for criteria.  

 

I can live with being left out if we don't fit the criteria.   But the issue is...there's no rhyme or reason for it.   This year it was 'good wins'.   Next year, they'll probably catch enough flack to focus on fewer losses and they will change their basis.   This to me is what is most bothersome. 

[jayschool]

30 minutes ago, hskr4life said:

The committees message this year....

 

Wins and losses do not matter.  The RIGHT wins and losses is the only thing that matters.

 

While I disagree with this 100%, we need to find a way to work the system int he coming years.  Schedule teams from mid-majors that aren't going to bring the record down.  A-10, AAC, Mountain West, Mo Valley.  

 

The one problem that I see is that it is constantly changing.  The criteria, quadrants, RPI, etc. seems to change every year.  Next year it might be something totally different.  That sucks.

Here's a strategy:

Join a Power 6 conference.

Win 72 percent of your conference games.

Earn a double-bye in the conference tournament.

Don't stub your toe in the non-conference against weak mid-major teams.

 

Achieve all that in a single season ... and get a first-round NIT road game.

[throwback]

I guess if Q1 and Q2 is all that matters and Q3 and Q4 are ignored, logic would say you need more tiers at the top and fewer at the bottom to make it easier to compare/separate out teams.

 

[The Polish Rifle]

This dude is stumping for MTSU, but over the last 12 hours he has done a great job of ripping a new ahole in the committee. Basically the hill he is dying on is, teams that don't get quad 1 home games are getting absolutely boned.

 

 

[hskr4life]

Just now, The Polish Rifle said:

This dude is stumping for MTSU, but over the last 12 hours he has done a great job of ripping a new ahole in the committee. Basically the hill he is dying on is, teams that don't get quad 1 home games are getting absolutely boned.

 

 

Funny thing is that it'll be really tough for Nebraska to get Quad 1 home games outside of the ACC and Gravit Games Challenges in the non-con as well.  We basically have to hope for Quad 1 home games during the conference season.  We may need to start looking at playing a team or two in Omaha and KC.  Find a Quad 1 neutral team.

[nustudent]

1 minute ago, hskr4life said:

 

Funny thing is that it'll be really tough for Nebraska to get Quad 1 home games outside of the ACC and Gravit Games Challenges in the non-con as well.  We basically have to hope for Quad 1 home games during the conference season.  We may need to start looking at playing a team or two in Omaha and KC.  Find a Quad 1 neutral team.

We're no different than most teams.   We'll get a handful.

As I posted yesterday...we played as many Top 100 non-con games as Texas, OU, Syracuse and Arizona State.   They just won theirs.    The big difference came in conference this year.   The Big 10 had 7 +100 RPI teams this year.   The 4 prior years....had 17 total.   Nearly double the average this year.   In all likelihood, our chances for Q1/Q2 games goes up dramatically next year

[hskr4life]

4 minutes ago, hskr4life said:

 

Funny thing is that it'll be really tough for Nebraska to get Quad 1 home games outside of the ACC and Gravit Games Challenges in the non-con as well.  We basically have to hope for Quad 1 home games during the conference season.  We may need to start looking at playing a team or two in Omaha and KC.  Find a Quad 1 neutral team.

 

I will also say... like @nustudent and I already pointed out multiple times... this is just IF they are still using the quads next year.  They might completely change things and then it would be a dumpster fire either way.  We are on here talking about how to improve our schedule to get more Quad 1 opportunities when the quadrant system might be more of a Kentucky 5* in that it's one and done.

[PimpMario]

"...committee valued strong non conference scheduling in its process."
 
https://www.thescore.com/ncaab/news/1484409https://www.thescore.com/ncaab/news/1484409
 

Absolutely

[jayschool]

1 minute ago, hskr4life said:

 

I will also say... like @nustudent and I already pointed out multiple times... this is just IF they are still using the quads next year.  They might completely change things and then it would be a dumpster fire either way.  We are on here talking about how to improve our schedule to get more Quad 1 opportunities when the quadrant system might be more of a Kentucky 5* in that it's one and done.

I hear color schemes and slush-fund balances will be big with the committee next year. (Hint: Go Blue and secure a top Bag Man.)

[HuskerFever]

42 minutes ago, jayschool said:

Here's a strategy:

Join a Power 6 conference.

Win 72 percent of your conference games.

Earn a double-bye in the conference tournament.

Don't stub your toe in the non-conference against weak mid-major teams.

 

Achieve all that in a single season ... and get a first-round NIT road game.

 

...to a team you already beat this year.

[hhcmatt]

is the B1G going to be "good" next year?

Will playing 20 conference games help or hurt the conference and/or us?

[HuskerFever]

What I get from this is that we should get rid of PBA, schedule all neutral non-conference games, sign a contract where we get a large margin of ticket sales, and rack in all those Quadrant 1 games.

[jayschool]

1 minute ago, hhcdimes said:

is the B1G going to be "good" next year?

Will playing 20 conference games help or hurt the conference and/or us?

That's what's so frustrating about all of this.

We can talk all day about strategic non-conference scheduling and Q1 victories and "bad losses" and WAB, SOR, KPI, BPI, RPI, SOS, DDS, MD and MREs.

But that takes away from what should be, in my mind at least, the benefit of playing in a major conference. Finish in the upper half of that conference, and you should have at least a 50-50 chance of making the Dance. Finish in the upper third, and you should be golden.

So now the coaches, in addition to recruiting and developing players, and then getting them ready to compete at the highest level, needs to forecast conference strengths and weaknesses, and scheme the non-conference schedule to make up for perceived conference liabilities.

It's all too, too much, and it's all too, too removed from what used to be the most important part of the basketball season: playing as well as you can during your conference season.

It's a mind game played on a spreadsheet more than a physical game played on a court.

[The Polish Rifle]

6 minutes ago, hhcdimes said:

is the B1G going to be "good" next year?

Will playing 20 conference games help or hurt the conference and/or us?

My guess, Moos has already been on the phone with the B1G and has demanded home games against OSU, MSU, Purdue and Michigan - at least 3 of them, at home, prime time.

[hhcscott]

12 minutes ago, hhcdimes said:

is the B1G going to be "good" next year?

Will playing 20 conference games help or hurt the conference and/or us?

Based on the metrics they are using, the B14G can't be good unless the whole conference commits to playing all quad 1 non-conference opponents next year and comes out with .750 winning percentage across all 14.  The problem, as it has been in football is that the murderers row that we have in the conference knocks all our teams down. We keep talking about how PSU beat OSU, but every time  that happened, I have to believe it dinged our conference because it reduced the impact of OSU on the conference RPI.

 

I was going to suggest that the PAC-12 and the B14G work up a crossover scheduling (there was a plan that fizzled to do this a few years ago) so that more games for both conferences will be P5, but based on what we are seeing that would only screw both conferences even more

[HuskerFever]

5 minutes ago, hhcscott said:

I was going to suggest that the PAC-12 and the B14G work up a crossover scheduling (there was a plan that fizzled to do this a few years ago) so that more games for both conferences will be P5, but based on what we are seeing that would only screw both conferences even more

 

I remember when we had the Big 12/Pac-10 challenge, but they did away with that. The Pac-12 no longer has any crossover challenges anymore. I don't think anybody wants to touch that conference.