The switch from RPI to NET rating sucks too. If we beat Akron last night, they don’t make the tourney, which stinks for them considering the year they had. Their RPI is 36. Their NET is 91. They would easily be an at-large 10 years ago.
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Since an at large bid isn’t on the table with how bad the MAC is currently, there is no sense playing murderer’s row. The Sun Belt challenge gives us a home and home with 2 top 150 programs. Mix in 2 P4 buy games and a few home buy games. Fill in the rest with other top 150 mid majors; Wright State, Missouri Valley, Socon, Ivy, CAA, etc. Love the home and home with Air Force, but find a better MWC team next time. Find a better MTE where we can play top mid majors and lower level P4 teams on a neutral court.
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BINGO
Christ almighty, I had no idea Akron had an RPI of 36. That is seriously depressing how bad the NET is boning us. But the committee would have found a way to leave Akron out at #36. Weren’t we top 30 when they fucked us in 2005 or 2006?
We need our top minds in the MAC office figuring out how the conference can game the NET ranking system better because whatever we are doing now isn’t working.
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Yea us any how.
I believe Indiana State had a NET of 28 last year, and also a very recognizable player with fun nicknames… and they were left out.
Now, the bottom half of the MAC didn’t do the conference any favors, but I do believe the top MAC teams are fairly close in quality to those over the past 20 years.
Just got home. What coulda been…
I jumped out of my seat and screamed more in the past three nights than I have in 25 years of following Miami basketball and that’s not an exaggeration. That’s what basketball should be.
Thanks to OU for hosting me at their bar Thursday and Akron for hosting me Friday. You guys suck.
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Hoophawk30 has certainly depressed the heck of me. Sounds like he has inside information that our season is over and we are losing a lot of kids to the portal
We cant schedule neat teams anymore and it only matters what happens in one weekend in clevelad that we will always be up against it to beat the local teams
I much prefer the Travis Steele post game press conferences
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It’s been ages since we’ve gone into a season with any kind of momentum, I’m curious what we’ll be able to muster. At worst I would hope for something similar to this year, but replace at least one DIII and one bad low-major home game with two decent programs.
Semi-related note but I wonder if there’s even a theoretical point where UC, X, or UD would be willing to schedule a 2 for 1 if our program were strong enough. That ship has almost certainly sailed based on where the MAC is at, barring some miraculous change in the college basketball landscape. Replacing NIU with UMass should be help a little.
While I have exactly zero inside knowledge or connections to the athletic department, this smacks of excuse making. First off, it’s demonstrably false that “every program in the country plays at least 1 or 2 non-D1 games.” It may be the case that most/all MAC schools have as the league has slid in relevance, but that doesn’t make it universally true.
And I simply don’t believe that Miami couldn’t still get a game at a place like Duke or Kansas or Kentucky or Maryland (all Charlie Coles road trips) if this current regime actually wanted to play there. This year’s Duke schedule included a couple of games (Wofford and George Mason) against teams I’d put on a roughly comparable trajectory as ours. Kentucky played Lipscomb and Wright State. Maryland schedules complete dogshit nonconference since Gary Williams retired, so we won’t talk about them. But the point stands.
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I don’t think he’s saying we can’t get buy games against the top of the sport if we wanted to.
We can’t get games against mid-lower power conference teams/high level mid major teams that we could very well beat.
Sure we can. Here’s a game against a “mid-lower power conference team.”
Fair, but when Indiana agreed to that game, they expected to be much better (like top 20 team at worst) and certainly did not know how good we’d be (hell none of us did).
Now that it’s out there that this roster is really good, if we have basically the same one next year we aren’t getting a game like that again (a winnable power 5 game on the road).
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If you look at IU since 2010, there are only two things that distinguish them from, say, NC State. First, State actually had a fluke Final Four run. And second, State doesn’t have batshit boosters who think that Everett Case is magically coming back.
Now that I think about it, let’s play State. They’ll be in year one under a new coach and may not want to schedule tough. But they can’t afford too many quad 3 games and get an at-large out of the ACC. At least make the call.
Agree generally but this year IU was supposed to be really good, and not just in the eyes of their delusional fans…
But I’d love a game against the likes of NC State and perhaps new coach Will Wade lol.
Did Dick just stay in his seat for the Cavs game?
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Perhaps my word selection of “all” was poor. But every MAC team most certainly played at least one D2/3 team. Better word choice would be “majority” of teams in the country play a non D1 team every season. Its not excuse making–I’ve talked to several mid-major D1 coaches/assistants over the past few years and they all have the same issues with scheduling. Sure we can be bought for 1-2 good games each year (IU/Mich this year) but I think what we are really hoping for and talking about is to get more good mid-major teams on the home and home schedule and replace the MDES/Sacred Heart type games. Would be great to re-kindle the local UC/X/Dayton games but that shipped has probably sailed and it takes two to tango (with Steele here, no chance of X playing us).
With the current structure of NCAA hoops and NET Rankings, there are only two considerations we should be making with scheduling: financial sustainability and wins.
Financial sustainability dictates 1-2 buy games a year, hopefully similar to UM and IU this year. It also means we are going to bring in 2 non D1 teams a year. As was litigated earlier this year, its a difference between paying a school a couple thousand vs 60+ thousand.
Wins dictates bringing in those non D1 teams as well as low majors. We need to be shooting for 20+ wins every single year. That is how you build a program where you are playing in Cleveland on Friday and Saturday consistently. Players want to come play where they will win.
If the MAC ever gets its collective act together enough to where an at-large conversation is even worth having, then we can start worrying about competitive schedules and how many Q1 and Q2 games we have, but right now, all it does is hurt the perception of the team. I don’t care who we beat if we are pushing 20-25 wins every year.
Money and wins, that’s all that matters.
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=>Small chance does Miami get a chance next year to beat a winnable major conference team. Nobody will want anything to with Miami now. “Buy” games mean a team is “buying” a win. Don’t expect a team that is projected mid-table in a league to play us. It will be back to the CC era with scheduling opponents.
So for Miami to get a “buy” game next year it will have to be a team that is not afraid (ex. Duke).
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