SOS #2

[Big Zip]

Glad to see someone in the Media agrees with those of us who would like to see KD schedule a tougher OOC schedule. SOS on Elton's mind -- he must be reading this boardI find it interesting to note KD has regressed from what he said (according to Elton) when he was orginally hired. Also, interesting to note from the article (for those of you who advocate for this great schedule) Akron's SOS is the worst in the conference at 304, yet the conference as a whole is 5.

[Big Zip]

Not sure why the link didn't work -- here it is for thoe who'd like to read it....http://blog.cleveland.com/sports/2008/01/m..._insider_2.html

[Captain Kangaroo]

[GoZips]

Got to love Ellen. He is the queen of deliberate slight.Posting an article today using two week old data that is no longer relevant. i.e. SOS of 304. Hockey puck. The Zips SOS (a worthless measure to be sure) iscurrently in the 250 range. Not that it matters. The truth is always the first casualty when you slander some one.Run your eyes up an RPI chart starting at the position of lowly Akron. You will find several recent opponents that Akron defeated. Way up near the very top is ateam that needed two overtimes and the help of the officials to squeak out a two point victory at home. Ahem. The Deadhawks hold a lofty RPI and a sore assfrom the butt kicking they recently endured at the hands of the low life Zips.But, Ellen, to be sure, is a master at bias. He needs to be in order to appear to be an earnst while journalist or is that urinalist?There is no cover for distorting facts. Use them or keep quiet. Inventing your own to suit your will is yellow urinalism. Touche'

[skip-zip]

Big Zip...I'm with you.I don't like the writer, and he might not be accurate on the SOS. But regardless, our SOS is an embarrassment. And we're certainly not helping our conference either. And when March rolls around, we'll likely get the same treatment if we need to rely on selection committees to grant us an at-large bid to a post season tournament. If OUs coach has been the one leading the charge to get our conference to schedule better, than I salute him. We can't just continue to win our 20+ games, against numerous weak opponents, and expect anything to change. And since we play in the MAC, our OOC schedule is our only opportunity to do anything about it, and we're simply not taking advantage of it.

[ZachTheZip]

Might I remind you all that we had an equally bad SOS last year, but still ended on top of the MAC RPI by nearly 20 spots? The stronger schedules didn't help those teams whatsoever.

[zipdiehard]

I find this SOS quite odd in that it doesn't seem to make mathematical sense. Last week I had done some figuring using the RPI ratings through the Dayton game (ours should have jumped with a quality win, OU bad loss, and Cant's win).UA: 4 games against top 100 rpi teams (including 2 wins), 5 against 100-200, 3 against 200-300, and 1 against 300+ team. Our worse loss was to a team ranked 142.Can't: 5 games against top 100 rpi teams (3 wins), 6 against 100-200, 1 against 200-300, 1 against 300+ team. Worst loss 241.OU: 4 games against top 100 (0 wins), 4 against 100-200, 4 against 200-300, 1 against 300+. Worst loss 84.While I understand the relevant rankings, How is our schedule SO much below these two (especially OU)? I'm not including Miami's as it was insane compared to all other MAC teams (except maybe Toledo).

[skip-zip]

In response to uakronkid...1) Great. Our RPI was better than the other teams in the MAC last year. The point is, it was not good enough.2) Even if the other schools that played tougher schedules did not get into post season play on that particular year, they are getting a number of long term benefits that will help them grow their program.

[UAZipster0305]

Might I remind you all that we had an equally bad SOS last year, but still ended on top of the MAC RPI by nearly 20 spots? The stronger schedules didn't help those teams whatsoever.

...and it certainly didn't help us get an at-large bid to ANY post-season tournament.

[RowdyZip]

Dead horse, folks. DEAD HORSE.

[Zips fan]

The MAC is a one bid conference, period. The last at large bid was???? I don't care about SOS and our OOC schedule nearly as much as the MAC. It is time to play against the conference schools. This is the only place our confernce schools needs to worry about. The top record is gauranteed the NIT and the tournament champion, the NCAA bid, everyone else goes home. KD can schedule who ever he wants. He is getting the most out of this team and that is what counts.

[ZachTheZip]

Might I remind you all that we had an equally bad SOS last year, but still ended on top of the MAC RPI by nearly 20 spots? The stronger schedules didn't help those teams whatsoever.

...and it certainly didn't help us get an at-large bid to ANY post-season tournament.

We were in the best position to get one out of any team in the MAC. All the other teams that preached "tougher schedules" were in worse shape than us. It seems to me that KDs plan worked the best out of the different MAC team scheduling philosophies.Look at the current RPI conference standings. The MAC is ranked 13th with an SOS of 6. The MWC is ranked 10th with an SOS of 18th. They get it. They will have good records when they play eachother in conference games, and the RPI is 50% your opponents records. If all the teams in the MAC had .500+ records, even against lesser competition, once we played each other those records would raise the RPI of every team in the conference. Instead, we get to play teams like Toledo, who played the #1 non-conf schedule, but was only 4-8 OOC. Their 4-8 record counts twice as much as their SOS when you play them.The RPI is 25% your record, 50% your opponents record, and 25% your opponents' opponents' records. The MAC conference schedule is longer than the non-conference schedule, so the entire conference should focus on getting wins before they play eachother, because the formula counts your opponents records much more than your opponents SOS. If the MAC played a weaker schedule but had more wins, the conference would improve in the RPI as the MAC season wore on because of all the winning teams you are now playing. That's how the big conferences do it, they have it figured out. Instead, the MAC sees the RPI before the conference starts, when it is still being carried by the SOS, and then scratches their heads when it plummets during conference play because we are forced into playing a bunch of losing teams.

[skip-zip]

Ok...so how about we just sit back and do nothing about it? We need to collectively schedule better as a conference, which challenges your players to compete at a higher level, increases the visibility of the teams/conference, helps recruiting, increases your chances of beating better teams down the road, and therefore increases the chances that more teams from this conference will be in a position for post season bids.You can schedule well enough to have a chance to be in this position, or you can play out the entire season for the only other chance you have, which is winning the conference tournament. Two Chances vs. One Chance.

[ZachTheZip]

Ok...so how about we just sit back and do nothing about it? We need to collectively schedule better as a conference, which challenges your players to compete at a higher level, increases the visibility of the teams/conference, helps recruiting, increases your chances of beating better teams down the road, and therefore increases the chances that more teams from this conference will be in a position for post season bids.You can schedule well enough to have a chance to be in this position, or you can play out the entire season for the only other chance you have, which is winning the conference tournament. Two Chances vs. One Chance.

Skip-zip, scheduling better is not the same as scheduling tougher. Let me show you what I mean. The Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, or the MEAC, scheduled the 2nd toughest schedule, collectively, in the country. They lost most of their games, but got your beloved "exposure" by playing a vast majority of their games on the road against "Major" conference teams. Their conference RPI was somewhere around 18 of 32. Then conference play started, and after only one week of it, the entire conference dropped to 25th in RPI and 11th in SOS. The reason for that is because they have the same mindset as you: scheduling tougher opponents to boost the RPI via the SOS factor regardless of the impact that has on the win/loss total. They are now stuck playing ALL sub .500 teams for the rest of the year, and that will ruin their individual SOSs and kill any chance they had of an at-large. Had they scheduled less road games against top opponents, and given themselves a chance to win more games, they would be in a much better position once the conference schedule is over.We're in the same boat with the MAC, although to a lesser extreme. We're stuck playing a bunch of loser teams for the rest of the year because they overscheduled. A win over Akron will look a lot better than a win over Miami because of the fact that the RECORD COUNTS TWICE AS MUCH AS THE STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE when you play an opponent. I would rather play a 11-3 team with a weak SOS than a 6-7 team with a top-10 SOS any day because of that reason.Conference play should INCREASE our strength of schedule, not cause it to plummet. The only way to do that is to have the other MAC teams have winning records OOC, and the only way that will happen is when they stop scheduling above their level.

[RACER]

like rowdy zip said it 'sdead let it die.the schedule is what it is.jd has his way of schedules and we can debate it all night.it not going to change.hopefully the zips can take care of business, and tear through the mac schedule.

[skip-zip]

Building a program is a process. Playing better programs, and the benefits that go along with it, is not something that's never been done before. In fact, it's done all the time. But that doesn't mean that you'll see immediate results. But you HAVE to schedule much better than we do in order to start the process. Citing that the MAC teams see their RPIs drop during conference play is EXACTLY the reason why it is so pivotal to play a high SOS when you can....during the OOC schedule. Until we can get the entire conference moving in the right direction to make the conference portion of our schedule really impact our national stature, it's our only choice. I certainly hope that you are not putting "exposure" in parenthesis as if you are joking about it. Exposure is EVERYTHING. Just count all of the people in this country who are Gonzaga basketball fans, and I assure you that most of them outside the state of Washington didn't even know the school existed 10 years ago. And over time, it resulted in their ability to recruit several future NBA level players, and continued to get higher and higher seeds from the selection committees. Frankly, the reason I get so fired up about this topic is because I've been attending Akron basketball games for 30 years, and we continue to follow the same path, and continue to get the same results.I want to see the philosophy change so that we are at least making an attempt to put ourselves in a position to get into the NCAA tournament by some other means than just winning the conference tournament.