The Case against Wichita State

[swish1]

i think wsu should continue to try and schedule some 3 game series where one game is in wichita, one is the true road game, and then one can be a semi-away game. like the lsu series. i dont know how many teams would be willing to do that but it would help the sos.

[ABC]

Let me repeat. We have to figure out how to replace some of the Chicago States with top-50.

Yes, I know it isn't easy. But I am not talking about scheduling Duke or Kentucky.

Actually how about top 100, let alone top 50!

When they say "Come to us, we will play once" you can't say yes to that BS.

Don't make it sound like it was "Hey, do we play Ohio State or Chicago State?"

You are not reading very carefully.

I am asking for more top 50 or top 100 games. Not Ohio State.

In today's realtime RPI, there are the following top 50 teams:

Cleveland St.
Utah St.
George Mason
Old Dominion
Temple
St. Mary's
UAB
Colorado St.
Southern Miss

Here are teams from non-BCS conferences that are 50 - 100 in today's RPI:

Valparaiso
New Mexico
Harvard
Drexel
Marshall
Butler
Coastal Carolina
VA Commonwealth
Dayton
Princeton
Duquesne
UTEP
Belmont
Richmond
Gonzaga
Portland
Oakland
Clemson
Vermont
Kent St.
James Madison
Charleston
Bucknell
Wright St.
Florida Atlantic
Hofstra
Massachusetts
IUPUI
Tulsa
Miami (OH)

In these two lists, I left out SDSU, UNLV, MSU and UNI.

I have a real, real, real, real, real hard time believing that we couldn't get just a few of these teams on our schedule.

[The Mad Hatter]

Here is the problem ABC:

How do you know which schools are going to be in the Top 100 when you go to schedule?

Furthermore, if multi-year deals are involved, how do you know who will be in the Top 100 a year or two down the road?

When we scheduled the LSU series, it sure looked like that would be a consistent top 100 game on our schedule. How has that worked out?

We just recently did play Cleveland State. It just happened to not be the year they got into the top 50 of the RPI.

It is one thing to say you don't ask for Ohio State or Duke, but the reality is that there are only a relatively small group of schools that you can consistently count on being in the top 50 of the RPI and getting games with them is difficult. If you don't schedule them, then you are just having to guess who will be good any given year (or over the next 2-3 years for series).

[ShockTalk]

Very good, ABC. And a good % of these teams won't totally fall off the RPI map in their down years.

[ABC]

Really ladies, so we don't even try? Really? Wah, wah, wah.

We didn't schedule Cleveland State. It was a return Bracket Busters game, btw.

We know Chicago State, UMKC, Texas Southern and Alabama A&M aren't ever going to sniff the top 100.

I don't get the resistance to trying to schedule better. If we don't win the MVC and get left looking in, it will be b/c of a lack of top 50/100 wins.

We have one freaking top 100 win right now! And that is Tulsa, which is barely in at 98.

[SubGod22]

Here is the problem ABC:

How do you know which schools are going to be in the Top 100 when you go to schedule?

Furthermore, if multi-year deals are involved, how do you know who will be in the Top 100 a year or two down the road?

When we scheduled the LSU series, it sure looked like that would be a consistent top 100 game on our schedule. How has that worked out?

We just recently did play Cleveland State. It just happened to not be the year they got into the top 50 of the RPI.

It is one thing to say you don't ask for Ohio State or Duke, but the reality is that there are only a relatively small group of schools that you can consistently count on being in the top 50 of the RPI and getting games with them is difficult. If you don't schedule them, then you are just having to guess who will be good any given year (or over the next 2-3 years for series).

You can have a pretty good idea. Maybe some will miss, but we have to take that chance and schedule these games. I'm all for playing almost any of those teams. Home and home or whatever is fine by me. It's much better than knowingly scheduling so many very bad teams that will most likely not crack the top 200.

[ShockBand]

I would much rather us go and try and get home and home setups with teams in the same boat as us - say George Mason, Utah State, and the like. I would imagine many of them have the same scheduling difficulties as us in trying to get games with the "Big Six". I'd happily take one or even two less home games for better overall competition.

[Kung Wu]

Really ladies, so we don't even try? Really? Wah, wah, wah.

We didn't schedule Cleveland State. It was a return Bracket Busters game, btw.

We know Chicago State, UMKC, Texas Southern and Alabama A&M aren't ever going to sniff the top 100.

I don't get the resistance to trying to schedule better. If we don't win the MVC and get left looking in, it will be b/c of a lack of top 50/100 wins.

We have one freaking top 100 win right now! And that is Tulsa, which is barely in at 98.

Nobody is resisting. Everybody wants it. I think they are just saying it isn't as easy as picking up the phone and it's a done deal.

Next year's schedule is going to be much improved over this year's and last year's. And I bet if we continue to have success next year, the following year's schedule will be even better.

Rebuilding a program also means building new relationships with coaches that will give us those games we all want. That just has to take time _after_ your program starts winning.

[ShockTalk]

Same old story. A lot of us would give up 2 low RPI teams for 2 home and home series that potentially would be teams in the 35 to 80 in their good years and 75 to 150 in their down. Nevertheless, that would be better than any of the 5 lower teams we had this year and 3 of them probably are having strong years (for them). Your only losing one home game a year and still having 3 "cupcake/buy-in" games.

[wusphlash]

Really ladies, so we don't even try? Really? Wah, wah, wah.

We didn't schedule Cleveland State. It was a return Bracket Busters game, btw.

We know Chicago State, UMKC, Texas Southern and Alabama A&M aren't ever going to sniff the top 100.

I don't get the resistance to trying to schedule better. If we don't win the MVC and get left looking in, it will be b/c of a lack of top 50/100 wins.

We have one freaking top 100 win right now! And that is Tulsa, which is barely in at 98.

Nobody is resisting. Everybody wants it. I think they are just saying it isn't as easy as picking up the phone and it's a done deal.

Next year's schedule is going to be much improved over this year's and last year's. And I bet if we continue to have success next year, the following year's schedule will be even better.

Rebuilding a program also means building new relationships with coaches that will give us those games we all want. That just has to take time _after_ your program starts winning.

You said a lot in that first sentence. It's not just a phone call.

You have to also consider that our record in Gregg's first two years was not good. That makes us even less attractive. I'm sure more people will answer the phone call of a coach who has back to back 25 win seasons. At least is will let Gregg start some dialogue.

And to a previous posters comment, guessing who will have good year two or 3 years out is sometimes a matter of luck. Not a simple process but we do need to try and follow a good schedule next year with another the next, etc. etc. etc.

[ABC]

Yea right, luck.

Well were aren't even trying to be lucky with Chicago State, and Prosthetics Univ.

Many of the top 100 RPI teams have the same schedule issues as we do. Remember that we didn't fill in our schedule until very late? So it doesn't take looking three years into the future.

I can't believe all of the defense of this schedule.

[Capitol Shock]

I think it's strange that ESPN would run an article like this about the Shockers of all teams. What about kstate, nebraska, colorado or any of about 100 other teams? To me, it's like they are trying to justify the exclusion of the shocks from consideration of an at large. Whereas, it seems as in the case of Nebraska, they are trying to justify their inclusion into the tournament based on beating one ranked team in conference at home? They lost to Texas Tech and Davidson for Pete's sake and they should be considered for an at large?

I can smell a screw job being devised. Just keep winning Shocks.

[ShockerPrez]

I have not read the article, so I am asking this question so that my mind can wrap around this subject:

Did ESPN really spend a whole reporter's time writing an article on why WSU should not be in the tournament?

Seriously? I wasn't aware that us getting in the tournament would be a travesty of national sport, thus necessitating the pen of a reporter to sway public opinion to the contrary.

[Capitol Shock]

What out of conference quality wins did we have in 2005? Providence?

This is a joke.

[ABC]

What's a joke? That the NCAA looks at top 100 wins, along with RPI, and that we have one top 100 RPI win?

In 2006, the MVC was better, so we had several top 100 wins in-conference.

Providence was 106 in 2006.

There are 334 Division 1 teams in the country. We are on an incredible unlucky streak for several years to not play teams in the top 1/3.

I have no doubt we will take care of the top-100 problem with wins over MSU, UNI, VCU and the MVC tourney.

But, let me ask again, how/why can you guys defend this schedule and criticize a reporter who states the obvious?