Utah State

[Quickzips]

While looking over some NCAA bracket information I found this quote from ESPN's Andy Katz to be quite intriguing and relevant to the Zips.

4. Utah State coach Stew Morrill is a terrific coach who never receives the publicity he deserves for the job he's done with the Aggies. He's also a bit stubborn when it comes to scheduling, refusing to compete in tournaments at a neutral site or play road games at power conference schools without the promise of a return game. He might never change his scheduling philosophy after this season. The Aggies won the WAC by three games and got an at-large berth as a 12-seed after losing the conference title to New Mexico State.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/tournament/2...&id=4996455

Utah State made the tournament as a 12 seed at large from a mediocre (although admittedly better than the MAC) WAC this year. New Mexico State who beat them in the conference finals is also a 12 seed. Their schedule:

http://espn.go.com/ncb/teams/schedule?teamId=328

They did play some good programs in OOC including BYU and St. Mary's, but there is a noticeable lack of teams from the six power conferences. They also took on some real clunkers including Idaho State, Southern Utah, Cal State Bakersfield and Western Oregon.

What interests me so much about this is Utah State's scheduling is quite similar to what we get each year out of KD. They are probably helped by having a little better conference schedule than us, but at the same time we took on a couple teams from the big six conferences. Yet Utah State was able to make it to the big dance with an at large bid and a 27-7 record. Now I have been as critical as anyone about KD's scheduling woes, but this makes me wonder if he is that far off. I'm sure there are a lot of other factors in this equation that I am missing, but it is something interesting to think about.

[Zip Watcher]

Maybe we can start a home & home rotation w/ Utah St. ... get it in sync with Wyoming, so that it's a 2 game West swing each year.

[Quickzips]

Maybe we can start a home & home rotation w/ Utah St. ... get it in sync with Wyoming, so that it's a 2 game West swing each year.

Didn't really think of it that way when I was posting this, but it makes some sense. Utah State would be a solid OOC foe to schedule for a nice home and home series.

[zippy5]

You have to win em all for that strategy to work

[Z.I.P.]

Maybe we can start a home & home rotation w/ Utah St. ... get it in sync with Wyoming, so that it's a 2 game West swing each year.

My guess is, you've never taken the ride to Logan -- or Cheyenne. Geography is a big reason why these schools get few high major home-and-home skeds. And Stew Morrill is one tough SOB -- the kind of guy the Great GP-1 would love.

[Quickzips]

You have to win em all for that strategy to work

Utah State was 27-7 with losses to 14-17 Utah, 20-12 Northeastern, 26-5 St. Mary's, 17-16 Long Beach State, twice to 22-11 New Mexico State, and a 22 point drubbing by 23-10 Louisiana Tech. Not exactly losing to Austin Peay and EMU, but it isn't like this is a team that won 30+ games and never got blown out either.

[skip-zip]

I guess we can analyze and compare games all we want. But, Utah State's SOS rank was right around 100 this year. With the conference we play in, we'd have to make quite a few OOC adjustments to get to that level.

Another note: I sure wish Rhode Island had gotten to the big dance. It would have made me feel a little better about how we stack up against NCAA tournament level competition.

[Dave in Green]

..... Now I have been as critical as anyone about KD's scheduling woes, but this makes me wonder if he is that far off. .....

All I can tell you from my perspective is, no, I don't think KD is that far off. A little off of what it would take to accomplish what Utah State accomplished, but not a lot. As we've discussed before, I think it's a simple matter of replacing 2 or 3 of the weakest opponents in the 200-300 RPI range with 2 or 3 opponents closer to 100 RPI.

Utah State did benefit this year from the fact that 3 other WAC teams had RPI ratings of 79 or higher, and they were 4-2 against these 3 conference teams in the regular season and 1-1 against them in the tournament, for a 5-3 record against high RPI teams in their own conference.

If this year's MAC had the same percentage of high RPI teams as the WAC, and the Zips had the same percentage winning record against those teams as Utah State, the Zips would have had a much higher SOS and RPI even with the weak OOC schedule.

[mivid12]

..... Now I have been as critical as anyone about KD's scheduling woes, but this makes me wonder if he is that far off. .....

All I can tell you from my perspective is, no, I don't think KD is that far off. A little off of what it would take to accomplish what Utah State accomplished, but not a lot. As we've discussed before, I think it's a simple matter of replacing 2 or 3 of the weakest opponents in the 200-300 RPI range with 2 or 3 opponents closer to 100 RPI.

Utah State did benefit this year from the fact that 3 other WAC teams had RPI ratings of 79 or higher, and they were 4-2 against these 3 conference teams in the regular season and 1-1 against them in the tournament, for a 5-3 record against high RPI teams in their own conference.

If this year's MAC had the same percentage of high RPI teams as the WAC, and the Zips had the same percentage winning record against those teams as Utah State, the Zips would have had a much higher SOS and RPI even with the weak OOC schedule.

Utah St. has no business in this tourney...

the zips play a gutless occ schedule end of story

[Captain Kangaroo]

Bump. For fun.

[Dave in Green]

I thought it was "end of story."

[Captain Kangaroo]

I thought it was "end of story."

Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no.

Was it over when Steve McNees had the ball with 6 seconds remaining? Hell no.

And it ain't over now.

[Dave in Green]

OK, I'll bite. I think this is a good topic for discussion. But for a rational discussion, I think it needs agreement on common terminology.

This thread began with the premise that the WAC is a "mediocre" conference this year. By what standard? Someone's Laugh-O-Meter or Smell-O-Meter? Sorry, but all of our internal Whatever-O-Meters are wired differently. How can we arrive at a common consensus without a common method of measurement?

I'm on record that RPI is imperfect. But I think it's less imperfect than everyone relying only on their own private meters. RPI is a commonly accepted measurement, and it's what the NCAA uses. I'm open to other such measurements as long as they don't involve someone's basement formula for perpetual motion that we're all supposed to accept on faith.

So I'm just going to lay down the basic RPI math here to start the ball rolling:

The WAC had the 10th best conference RPI out of 34 conferences. That puts the WAC in the top 30% of conferences. That is not "mediocre." It's a goal that all non-BCS conferences should strive for, including the MAC.

Of 347 D1 teams, the WAC had 4 teams with an RPI of 79 or higher. That means that 45% of WAC teams were in the top 23% of all D1 teams.

Why would we not want the MAC to measure out like the WAC, which would presumably include more respect from the NCAA tournament selection committee?

[Zipmeister]

I thought it was "end of story."

Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no.

Was it over when Steve McNees had the ball with 6 seconds remaining? Hell no.

And it ain't over now.

The German's bombed Pearl Harbor!!

You can't believe everything you read on the Internet Capt. That's how World War I got started.

[johnnyzip84]

I thought it was "end of story."

Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no.

Was it over when Steve McNees had the ball with 6 seconds remaining? Hell no.

And it ain't over now.

The German's bombed Pearl Harbor!!

You can't believe everything you read on the Internet Capt. That's how World War I got started.

If the good Senator said so, that's enough proof for me!

[skip-zip]

OK, I'll bite. I think this is a good topic for discussion. But for a rational discussion, I think it needs agreement on common terminology.

This thread began with the premise that the WAC is a "mediocre" conference this year. By what standard? Someone's Laugh-O-Meter or Smell-O-Meter? Sorry, but all of our internal Whatever-O-Meters are wired differently. How can we arrive at a common consensus without a common method of measurement?

I'm on record that RPI is imperfect. But I think it's less imperfect than everyone relying only on their own private meters. RPI is a commonly accepted measurement, and it's what the NCAA uses. I'm open to other such measurements as long as they don't involve someone's basement formula for perpetual motion that we're all supposed to accept on faith.

So I'm just going to lay down the basic RPI math here to start the ball rolling:

The WAC had the 10th best conference RPI out of 34 conferences. That puts the WAC in the top 30% of conferences. That is not "mediocre." It's a goal that all non-BCS conferences should strive for, including the MAC.

Of 347 D1 teams, the WAC had 4 teams with an RPI of 79 or higher. That means that 45% of WAC teams were in the top 23% of all D1 teams.

Why would we not want the MAC to measure out like the WAC, which would presumably include more respect from the NCAA tournament selection committee?

I know. I don't get it either.

We can sit here and say that all of these SOS and RPI numbers shouldn't mean anything. But in the meantime, we've spent many seasons on the outside looking in at the NCAA tournament participants.

[Dave in Green]

Here's another interesting data point to be chewed over and interpreted. At the end of the regular season and before the tournaments begin, the Zips are currently #94 in RPI and NC State of the mighty ACC, who beat the Zips earlier this year, is #95. Check out their won-lost records against their SOS and ponder how they ended up so close on RPI:

RPI ... TEAM ...... WON .. LOST .. SOS

94 .... Akron ....... 24 ...... 10 ..... 171

95 .... NC State .. 19 ...... 15 ....... 68