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Post by wolf41 on Jul 27, 2015 16:22:23 GMT -5
We use to host such events and the league tournaments. What I remember about them is the athletic staff complaint about the burden on them. So in that respect, it may be better to play these on the road and let their staff suffer while we fans get to travel.
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Post by Raider Southpaw on Jul 27, 2015 17:06:48 GMT -5
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Post by mrose on Jul 27, 2015 18:06:11 GMT -5
C'mon, Wolf, how many casual basketball fans from the Dayton area are searching on Orbitz or Travelocity for a November getaway to DeKalb, Il??
I'm sure there are some long days and short nights hosting a MTE. If it were easy every school would be doing it.
WSU should be capitalizing on its strengths (great facilities, relatively good fan and community support, convenient geographic location, etc.) and wonderful opportunities instead of like Grant (above) looking to make an excuse why they didn't accomplish anything. FWIW, I turned the interview off around the 9 minute mark when it started to sound more and more like a paid advertisement.
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Post by wsutommygun on Jul 27, 2015 19:57:18 GMT -5
Opti, not sure that would eliminate ever seeing non D-1 games on the future schedules ( unless it was a league rule ) because WSU is still looking for enough home games for season ticket packages.
Raider Southpaw, I usually only have WING on for games ( mostly OSU football but some baseball Sunday night games if I'm in the car ). Would have tuned in Grant's appearance if I'd known ( if WSU gave any heads up, don't seem to be on their mailing list ). Anyway, glad to be able to listen to Bob and went back to the Jim Brown interview as well that was referenced. Coach Brown talked about Vitaly, Dirk, and Ilgauskas.
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Post by wolf41 on Jul 28, 2015 11:52:10 GMT -5
I understand your point mrose, but over the years we have played in some good tournaments. I remember my wife and I traveling to LSU and the U.of Washington in recent years. And if the weather in DeKalb is not terrible, time spent there, or in a western suburb of Chicago, could be fun for a 3 day weekend.
But I do agree that we need to replace sub-D1 teams with mid-range D1 teams. MAC teams like OU, UA, KSU, would be fine, as would teams like Robert Morris or from KY. or Evansville or Ind. St. I don't think we are asking for the moon.
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Post by mrose on Jul 28, 2015 12:00:48 GMT -5
Good idea, optimist. Out of the conferences you listed many of their members are having the same difficulty as Wright State with scheduling. That said, I'm going to throw you a bit of a curve ball. By the way, opti, you need to get an updated list of conferences. The Great West went the way of the Dodo bird and the Pacific Ten has grown into the PAC 12.
You listed the A-10. That conference has a policy that members can only schedule D I contests. Not sure of the others, but other "good" conferences (MWC, WCC, etc.,) may have a similar policy. Which would be in our favor. However, the A-10 also has a RPI threshold policy. They have a cut-off of RPI 200. A-10 Top-Tier teams scheduling games with programs having a RPI 200 or worse are penalized. The A-10 uses the past year's RPI. Other conferences are using a multi-year moving average (4 years) to determine acceptable RPI. Also, some use 250 RPI as the cutoff. The thinking, programs can have an off or down year due to injuries, etc.
Our problem is we are becoming our own worst enemy. Grant is correct in his assessment teams don't want to play WSU. Why? If they lose it's a bad loss. Last year's RPI was ~265. Lower quartile. Our 4-year avg. RPI is near 200 (195); Lower half. There's nothing for other's (decent mid-majors) to gain by playing WSU, only increased risk.
If you're a coach or assistant at a top 125 program tasked to schedule games WSU won't be on your radar very long. WSU's RPI is borderline. Then look at the roster. Who's returning, what new additions are coming in? What reason would you have to think there will be a marked improvement with WSU? How will playing WSU, home or away, improve your SOS, RPI, or other metrics used in a potential selection/seeding in March?
So, we end up with what we have. Doing the same thing over and over, again and again, expecting a different result. We can schedule games with members in some of the conferences you mentioned. However, we can't get enough games with those better conferences. There's too much risk in them playing a questionable program. In the end the best Donlon or Grant can do is schedule a home-home with the worst of the Conferences (MEAC) or desperately schedule D III programs.
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Post by mrose on Jul 28, 2015 12:14:38 GMT -5
I agree, Wolf. UW, LSU, Chicago, Utah were all good tournaments for the program (played quality BCS/top 100 schools) and for the fans to go to exciting places. Additionally, we got some TV exposure with those games--at least with UW and Utah.
Unfortunately, I don't believe those caliber of early season tournaments/programs want us anymore. I believe it's a direct reflection of the program the past several years. We've become a mediocre program. The UW's, LSU's, Utah's of the world hosting early season MTE events want a higher level of competition than what WSU has demonstrated lately or will bring to their event. They're bringing in programs like Belmont, Murray State, Valpo, etc., who are consistently good and won't be RPI killers, but should be wins on their home court.
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Post by wolf41 on Jul 30, 2015 13:47:35 GMT -5
Mrose, I agree with you 100%. We are not the team we were in our recent past. But keep that under your hat. We don't want to set the fan base.
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rod
Mail Room
Posts: 1
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Post by rod on Aug 1, 2015 22:46:40 GMT -5
I don't quite understand the 2 D3 games. Wasn't Northern Kentucky and their 2 additional conference games supposed to make scheduling easier and reduce the number of non-D1 non-conference games? What's the point of adding NKU?
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Post by Big D on Aug 2, 2015 9:22:24 GMT -5
I don't quite understand the 2 D3 games. Wasn't Northern Kentucky and their 2 additional conference games supposed to make scheduling easier and reduce the number of non-D1 non-conference games? What's the point of adding NKU? We added Northern Kentucky to get back to having an even number of teams in the conference so that we could have travel partners again.
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Post by wsutommygun on Aug 2, 2015 9:31:53 GMT -5
Had intended to avoid this thread since there is no longer any speculation with the schedule for 2015-16 but, heard about Rod's post. Although Big D may have a better answer...I'd say NKU helps as a travel partner ( heard HL doesn't use a computer model for scheduling but in theory the addition of the Norse should mean Thursday-Saturday or Friday-Sunday league games...can't promise there won't be 2 regular season trips to Wisconsin or Detroit some year but that shouldn't ever happen ).
The payout for non D1 is about a third so, if we ever averaged 3 times as much attendance for the other games then that argument goes out the door. If you listened to the interview Bob Grant did recently on WING he tried to explain it and took some of the heat for such scheduling.
I still prefer no non D1 teams for the regular season but I understand the reasoning financial and basketball. I still think it has to be a league rule not to do it.
As much benefit as WSU gets from a 10th team, schools still want x number of home games ( is there a way for us to sign 1 for 1's with games all being at Nutter? ).
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Post by wsuraider09 on Aug 27, 2015 14:41:59 GMT -5
Anyone hear when the Horizon League schedule is set to be released? Hopefully we avoid being shafted with the schedule like we did last year (one home conference Saturday game vs. 3 on the road)
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Post by twizman on Aug 28, 2015 21:00:38 GMT -5
Man, our non-conference schedule is no joke this year. Good for SOS for sure. Of course we have some bad teams on there, but we always do. The point is we have more good teams on the non-con slate than usual.
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Post by wolf41 on Aug 29, 2015 12:24:53 GMT -5
Speaking of schedules...is there any word on WBB? Either they are waiting for the HL to enable them releasing a complete schedule or they haven't wrapped up their non-conf schedule yet.
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Post by wolf41 on Aug 31, 2015 16:16:55 GMT -5
I was today that the women's schedule should be released late this week.
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