Smart scheduling in the NET era

[thatguy2016]

First off: The #1, #2, #3 way to get into the NCAA tournament is to WIN GAMES. Everybody (hopefully) gets that. The point of this is not to make excuses, but to recognize reality.

Second: George David Odom was really good at manipulating the RPI under the old system - that's why we played games like Canisius, Marshall, and Richmond back in the day. Decent but not great teams that won lots of games were gold within the RPI. Plus the ACC had an implicit advantage with the RPI. It's time to apply some similar foresight into scheduling in the NET era.

The Mountain West Conference is scheduling smart and gaming the NET ratings. Looking at the NET, the MWC played a grand total of 60 games against Quad 4. 9 of those were in conference. Of the remaining 51 Q4 games, Air Force played 12 of them (apparently they did not get the scheduling memo) meaning the remaining MWC teams played an average of 3.9 Q4 OOC games.

The ACC played a total of 136 Q4 games. Many of those were within conference regular season or at the ACCT - 62 of them, to be exact. (home/road/ACCT games against UL, plus home games against FSU, GT, ND, and BC, plus playing FSU at the ACCT - all Q4 games). Still, ACC teams played an average of 4.9 Q4 OOC games.

Those Q4 games and the resulting poor OOC SOS stick out like the turd in the punchbowl come selection time.

Nevada got in. Clemson did not. Nevada played 3 OOC Q4 games. Clemson played 6. KP rates Nevada's OOC as #72 in the nation, Clemson's at #315 (NCAA has Clemson's SOS worse). Here is who Nevada played:

Q3 H Utah Tech
Q3 H Grand Canyon
NR H William Jessup - not D1, doesn't count
Q4 @ UT Arlington
Q3 Tulane - neutral site tournament
Q1 Kansas State - neutral site tournament
Q3 Akron - neutral site tournament
Q2 H Sam Houston State
Q2 @ Loyola Marymount
Q3 @ Pepperdine
Q1 @ Oregon
Q4 UC San Diego
Q4 Norfolk State

Other than the neutral site tournament - does this "look" like a tough schedule? Two Q1 games (lost both), Two Q2 games (split), the rest Q3 and Q4

The key to scheduling smart is to, at all cost, avoid Q4 games. The MWC has the blueprint. Let's copy it.

WIth the distinct possibility that the ACC will continue to give us plenty of Q4 games within conference, the goal should be to have zero Q4 games OOC.

 

[Wakeforest22890]

I’d say a couple Q4 is fine but identifying teams more likely to be around 225th instead of 300th can go a long way. Also to your first point Clemson didn’t just have more Q4 teams on the schedule overall, they also lost to two of them.

 

[BeachBumDeac]

I’d say a couple Q4 is fine but identifying teams more likely to be around 225th instead of 300th can go a long way. Also to your first point Clemson didn’t just have more Q4 teams on the schedule overall, they also lost to two of them.

we said all of this a year ago, that we should schedule teams from 150-250 instead of 250-350

but a lot of it is a crapshoot. You can try to schedule those teams but who the hell knows in this age of the portal where those teams will actually end up in the rankings

 

[Kory]

why not schedule as many Q1 OOC games as you can and then play those Virginia-style to just beat the spread

 

[Wakeforest22890]

we said all of this a year ago, that we should schedule teams from 150-250 instead of 250-350

but a lot of it is a crapshoot. You can try to schedule those teams but who the hell knows in this age of the portal where those teams will actually end up in the rankings

Yeah I think the key is to stop scheduling teams that clearly are Q4 with no upside: Howard and South Carolina State.

 

[thatguy2016]

There is pretty decent persistency among the bottom teams in D1

Over the past 3 years, teams who finished below 300 in a given year did it again the next year 60% of the time, and were Q4 teams the following year 97% of the time.

So, don't play anyone who finished the prior season >300

 

[thatguy2016]

also, it sucks to say this, teams like Nevada and San Diego State have a big advantage over teams like Clemson and WF re: neutral site tournaments. There will only be one ACC school, and we're pretty far down in the order. Nevada/SD State present as beatable Q1 teams.

 

[Deacsfan27]

Yeah, we beat Hampton and SCSU by a combined 58 points and moved up a total of two spots in KenPom. Those games do absolutely nothing for you at all other than helping those schools out with their AD funding by providing buy-games.

 

[BeachBumDeac]

Yeah, we beat Hampton and SCSU by a combined 58 points and moved up a total of two spots in KenPom. Those games do absolutely nothing for you at all other than helping those schools out with their AD funding by providing buy-games.

what would be the monetary difference in trying to replace those buy-games with buy-games with higher ranked teams?

 

[thatguy2016]

I’d say a couple Q4 is fine but identifying teams more likely to be around 225th instead of 300th can go a long way. Also to your first point Clemson didn’t just have more Q4 teams on the schedule overall, they also lost to two of them.

WF played 5 Q4 games within conference this year. If that is the new norm, we need to try to play zero OOC (understanding that shit will still happen, like South Carolina imploding and becoming a Q4 game for Clemson)

 

[uncaboref]

what would be the monetary difference in trying to replace those buy-games with buy-games with higher ranked teams?

There is not going to be a huge difference payout wise (not like the gigantic differences you see in football). However, teams like a CofC/UNC-W/Richmond/Furman/Davidson are starting to ask for 2-for-1's rather than doing straight buy games these days, unless you are a team like UNC/Duke/Kentucky/Kansas, where your buy game has a decent chance to end up on ESPN/espn2, so the schools are sometimes willing to go to those places for a single game.

 

[PaddyWF]

If we don’t see more A10/ Socon/Conference USA/AAC teams on the schedule soon, then something is off.

Even most of the Ivy League teams had decent KP this season.

 

[Deacsfan27]

There is not going to be a huge difference payout wise (not like the gigantic differences you see in football). However, teams like a CofC/UNC-W/Richmond/Furman/Davidson are starting to ask for 2-for-1's rather than doing straight buy games these days, unless you are a team like UNC/Duke/Kentucky/Kansas, where your buy game has a decent chance to end up on ESPN/espn2, so the schools are sometimes willing to go to those places for a single game.

Personally I am fine with doing 2-for-1's with regional schools who are perennially decent teams.

 

[DCDeac]

Wonder if next year you'll see some bubble teams simply opting out of games that have no value. I mean, if Rutgers just claims car trouble and doesn't go play Minnesota at the end of their season, they're in the tourney right now. If a big name loses in an early tourney and the consolation game is against Monmouth, you're better off skipping it. Just say the team got food poisoning in Jamaica and go home.

 

[Wakeforest22890]

You can also just win those games by the margin that other teams are but yeah by playing the game you need to actually show up and play like an NCAAT “should”

 

[KidA23]

You can also just win those games by the margin that other teams are but yeah by playing the game you need to actually show up and play like an NCAAT “should”

Yea, this was my thought. If we're going to be stuck playing awful teams, we have to beat them by margins that reflect that.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

You can also just win those games by the margin that other teams are but yeah by playing the game you need to actually show up and play like an NCAAT “should”

Pretty much my thoughts. We had winnable games in the ACC we just weren't good enough to win. Let's get better players who consistently play better. All this NET stuff is a distraction.

 

[Deacsfan27]

At the end of the day, if you are a really good team in a conference that is where the ACC is right now (a lot of bad teams for a "Power" conference), then you won't have a ton of trouble getting into the NCAAT if you play to your capability.

All of this NET talk (as far as it's Wake related) is figuring out how to work the system because we continue to be on the bubble. The best way to do it is field a team that beats the shit out of KP 200+, even if they are in your conference.

 

[thatguy2016]

You can also just win those games by the margin that other teams are but yeah by playing the game you need to actually show up and play like an NCAAT “should”

sure

first, it's hard to beat a team by 30 points. You get up by 30, do you put the walk-ons in? I documented how the last 4:00 vs. UL last year cost us .6 in KP efficiency for the year.

second, SOS is specfically called out as a point of emphasis, separately from the NET ratings (which already have SOS baked in). So to some extent you can't 100% offset the negative value of playing bad teams

 

[thatguy2016]

and to those saying "just win games"

yeah, I said that. We should win games. And we should maximize our chances within the system. Right now we are doing neither.