The Case against Wichita State

[Capitol Shock]

I never thought that I would say this but I think that it's time to legislate the scheduling of ku and kstate and then at least we would have two bcs games on the schedule each year.

[tropicalshox]

I never thought that I would say this but I think that it's time to legislate the scheduling of ku and kstate and then at least we would have two bcs games on the schedule each year.

It would pretty much solve the problem.

[ShockTalk]

As if you haven't heard this before: It is what it is!

We are not a BCS team. You have to adapt. Fighting the system and being bull headed will get you no points for your dance card.

I looked at SDSU, St. Mary's, BYU, Utah St, UAB, VCU, and Richmond (didn't even look at any other teams). From their total non-con schedule they had 48% at home, 30% away, and 24% neutral. WSU had 58% at home, 8% away, and 33% neutral and the only away game was not of their scheduling.

None of the other teams had fewer than 3 road games with 4 having at least 5. There were a number of road games we wouldn't schedule - New Mexico St (St Marys), Weber St (BYU), Buffalo (BYU), Denver (Utah St), and Iona (Richmond). Also home games that I'm pretty sure will be H/H that we wouldn't schedule - Utah St (BYU), UTEP (BYU), Weber St (Utah St), George Washington (UAB), Kent (UAB), VCU (UAB), S. Alabama (UAB), Wofford (VCU), Tulane (VCU), VCU (Richmond).

SDSU has H/H with Gonzaga, California, and St Marys. St. Marys had a home game with St John's. Richmond at home - VCU and Wake Forest, away - ODU, AZ St, Seton Hall, and Iona -- all probably H/H.

Did these teams have some misses in their H/H scheduling? Yes. But some have hits as well. IMHO, at this time, we cannot depend on the Valley to boost our resume. We need to give up one home game each year to set up 2 quality alternating H/Hs.

[fairbanksfan]

Nothing wrong with that. I think it's something that should be pushed.

[60Shock]

Personally, like probably most of you, I have always been of the opinion that if it isn't broke, don't fix it.

But, clearly, something is definitely broken here.

The AD and coaching staff need to figure out some way to fix it. I don't like the idea of one and done's anymore than the rest of you. But if that is what it takes for several years, then let's get off our high horses and bite the bullet. Plus, without BB and the conference challenge game, this year's schedule would have been one of the worst of any quality school in the entire Div 1.

As I stated before, MT fought this problem for what, seven years, and now GM has fought it for four more. So, for at least 11 years and probably this dates back for many more years than this, we have had the same blasted scheduling problem.

Of course, it should go without saying that if and when we do end up scheduling some higher quality teams in lieu of the cream puffs, it would be extra nice if we rose to the occasion and won a few of these games as well.

[cjp27]

I'm not sure this is as easy as claiming "scheduling." What some are saying about this being a catch-22 is right. Plenty of others beat the crap out of cupcakes during the non-conference season, then ride the coattails of a usually overrated conference to skate into the tournament. As long as the process favors the big conferences through the mandatory games they play, it will always be like this. We can't help who will schedule us, and we shouldn't be penalized because the MVC is a god-awful conference right now.

In KC today, it was being suggested that a Big 12 team with an 8-8 or 7-9 conference record has a legitimate shot at making the tournament. And the person suggesting it was right. That is total ####. Right now Missouri is 17-5 overall, but 3-4 in conference. Their "quality win" was against Illinois. No others. They are currently ranked #14 in the entire country.

We are going to be frustrated on an annual basis. It really doesn't matter who we schedule. Let's pretend we beat the crap out of Connecticut and then beat Michigan State. Further assume we ended with only three losses overall. Does anyone here really think we would be higher than a six seed? That some .500 team from a "power conference" wouldn't be rated higher than us? The system is totally screwed up, and it's not going to change as long as the cartel is allowed to operate unmolested. So we can really just forget the scheduling issue. There is no reason we shouldn't win the conference tournament every year, particularly when we beat up on the MVC all the time.

Think about this.... we beat UCONN, they go and play Chaminade and Virginia instead of winning the tournament. They are probably not even ranked at this point.... Meanwhile, UCONN is right on track to finish at or below the predicted 8th place finish in the Big East.... and they've been top 10 all year, and are probably looking at a 3 or 4 seed.

[RoyalShock]

In 2006 we didn't get in the tournament by the virtue of our OOC performance. It was all in the Valley where we had six top-50 RPI wins and no losses outside the top 50.

23-8 against a schedule like that will net you a 7 seed. And it was strictly due to the Valley being strong, top to bottom.

As for the OOC schedule there is one factor that I don't think has been brought up here. We pay our coach pretty dang well for a non-power conference school. I know we despise KU for the reasons given for hardly ever going on the road, but we have to pay Marshall somehow. And it isn't coming from big league TV contracts or dispersements from NCAA tournament games.

That said, I'd like to see an OOC schedule that gave us a couple of top-50 and a couple of top-100 games each year. If we can't win at least two of those then I'm not sure how much the other games matter. We probably wouldn't be tournament worthy anyway.

[ShockTalk]

I'm not sure this is as easy as claiming "scheduling." What some are saying about this being a catch-22 is right. Plenty of others beat the crap out of cupcakes during the non-conference season, then ride the coattails of a usually overrated conference to skate into the tournament. As long as the process favors the big conferences through the mandatory games they play, it will always be like this. We can't help who will schedule us, and we shouldn't be penalized because the MVC is a god-awful conference right now.

In KC today, it was being suggested that a Big 12 team with an 8-8 or 7-9 conference record has a legitimate shot at making the tournament. And the person suggesting it was right. That is total ####. Right now Missouri is 17-5 overall, but 3-4 in conference. Their "quality win" was against Illinois. No others. They are currently ranked #14 in the entire country.

We are going to be frustrated on an annual basis. It really doesn't matter who we schedule. Let's pretend we beat the crap out of Connecticut and then beat Michigan State. Further assume we ended with only three losses overall. Does anyone here really think we would be higher than a six seed? That some .500 team from a "power conference" wouldn't be rated higher than us? The system is totally screwed up, and it's not going to change as long as the cartel is allowed to operate unmolested. So we can really just forget the scheduling issue. There is no reason we shouldn't win the conference tournament every year, particularly when we beat up on the MVC all the time.

Think about this.... we beat UCONN, they go and play Chaminade and Virginia instead of winning the tournament. They are probably not even ranked at this point.... Meanwhile, UCONN is right on track to finish at or below the predicted 8th place finish in the Big East.... and they've been top 10 all year, and are probably looking at a 3 or 4 seed.

What about this, cjp27. We beat UConn, Mich St and UK. Don't you think we'd gotten a pretty good ranking after Maui? Could have been 20-3 now with several quality wins and probably still in the top 20-25.

Sometimes you just have to DO IT if you want it. UConn did and they're reaping the rewards. They've only lost to ranked teams and also beat Texas, Villanova, and Tennessee.

[shox1989]

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.

More top 100 wins doesn't necessarily solve the problem. As I recall, we had 9 top 100 wins last year, finished second in the #7 conference, had 25 wins and made it to the championship game of the #7 rpi conference and we still didn't get in. It was the first time ever that the #7 conference didn't get multiple bids.

The problem these days, is if you are outside of the BCS you have to be perfect in every area. There is no room for an error anywhere.

Our 9 top 100 wins was more than most of the other bubble teams and many more than many of the teams that were safely in, but last year we had one loss to a 200+ rpi team (Evansville) and apparently that killed our 9 top 100 wins.

The system (at least since 2005) has been skewed to try to keep non-BCS teams out. You shore up one area they get you in another.

[cjp27]

I'm not sure this is as easy as claiming "scheduling." What some are saying about this being a catch-22 is right. Plenty of others beat the crap out of cupcakes during the non-conference season, then ride the coattails of a usually overrated conference to skate into the tournament. As long as the process favors the big conferences through the mandatory games they play, it will always be like this. We can't help who will schedule us, and we shouldn't be penalized because the MVC is a god-awful conference right now.

In KC today, it was being suggested that a Big 12 team with an 8-8 or 7-9 conference record has a legitimate shot at making the tournament. And the person suggesting it was right. That is total ####. Right now Missouri is 17-5 overall, but 3-4 in conference. Their "quality win" was against Illinois. No others. They are currently ranked #14 in the entire country.

We are going to be frustrated on an annual basis. It really doesn't matter who we schedule. Let's pretend we beat the crap out of Connecticut and then beat Michigan State. Further assume we ended with only three losses overall. Does anyone here really think we would be higher than a six seed? That some .500 team from a "power conference" wouldn't be rated higher than us? The system is totally screwed up, and it's not going to change as long as the cartel is allowed to operate unmolested. So we can really just forget the scheduling issue. There is no reason we shouldn't win the conference tournament every year, particularly when we beat up on the MVC all the time.

Think about this.... we beat UCONN, they go and play Chaminade and Virginia instead of winning the tournament. They are probably not even ranked at this point.... Meanwhile, UCONN is right on track to finish at or below the predicted 8th place finish in the Big East.... and they've been top 10 all year, and are probably looking at a 3 or 4 seed.

What about this, cjp27. We beat UConn, Mich St and UK. Don't you think we'd gotten a pretty good ranking after Maui? Could have been 20-3 now with several quality wins and probably still in the top 20-25.

Sometimes you just have to DO IT if you want it. UConn did and they're reaping the rewards. They've only lost to ranked teams and also beat Texas, Villanova, and Tennessee.

I agree. This team has had a couple opportunities to jump up into the spotlight and has not taken advantage of them. It will be frustrating to see a UCONN team that many of us thought WSU was better than get a 4 seed while we struggle to stay out of the 12 seed play in round. Missed opportunities.....

[ShockerFever]

There was a rumor by a GMU fan that George Mason wanted to start a series with WSU and Marshall turned it down. I know, just a rumor...

Like others have said, you can avoid the Texas Southerns, Alabama A&M's of the world and know those aren't gonna be anywhere close to marginal wins. They are SOS killers.. and RPI killers.

Eliminate those and our chances increase. It seems like this coaching staff and/or AD don't have the same game plan. The Tulsa series is the only one in the last 3 years implemented by them that has been decent. That's it. That tells me it's on them and not everybody else like a couple of you seem to want to blame it on.

The Valley being sucky doesn't help. As Royal stated, we had 6.. count em 6 Top 50 wins thanks to the Valley in 2006. This year, we're begging for 1 Top 100 win. And as KC alluded to, we have choked against the 4 best teams on our schedule. So although we haven't had many, we have had opportunities to pick up good wins, but we've failed miserably so far at getting them. SO FAR, we are doing good with the avoidance of bad losses. However, we need to do more than avoiding bad losses. We MUST win against quality teams to set ourselves up. No doubt about it. We keep saying we are due for St. Louis but I'll believe it when I see it. So in that case, we better make the most of what we can now.

I hope our guys see all of this as well and begin focusing in towards the ultimate goal.

[tropicalshox]

Marshall's has said that the AD and himself want 4 buy games a year. If they stick to that it doesn't leave much room for improvement. This was the last year on the UMKC deal. I hope we don't renew and at least get someone better in that slot.

[jcdshocker]

Our best bet to get a Home and Home with any decent program will be to play at IBA. Most coaches know how hard it is to win at the Round House. We haven't proved that this year, but Koch is very intiminating place. Playing downtown will give us more to offer to a visiting team. Coaches like Eddie Sutton and Bobby Knight refused to ever play another game in Wichita. :cry:

Maybe as the level of high school talent goes up here in Wichita, there will be more teams that want to come here for recruiting. Big 12 teams or whatever they are called now might be willing to recruit some Wichita kids.

Scheduling is difficult for schools like WSU. To say it is easy is just ignorant.

[jdmee]

We keep saying we are due for St. Louis but I'll believe it when I see it. So in that case, we better make the most of what we can now.

I hope our guys see all of this as well and begin focusing in towards the ultimate goal.

Which one of Marshall's teams should have won the MVC tourney but didn't? Which one of Marshall's teams underachieved in St Louis? I don't see anything this year that tells me we cannot win in St Louis.

[SubGod22]

Our best bet to get a Home and Home with any decent program will be to play at IBA. Most coaches know how hard it is to win at the Round House. We haven't proved that this year, but Koch is very intiminating place. Playing downtown will give us more to offer to a visiting team. Coaches like Eddie Sutton and Bobby Knight refused to ever play another game in Wichita. :cry:

Maybe as the level of high school talent goes up here in Wichita, there will be more teams that want to come here for recruiting. Big 12 teams or whatever they are called now might be willing to recruit some Wichita kids.

Scheduling is difficult for schools like WSU. To say it is easy is just ignorant.

Bobby Knight is the one that agreed to bring Texas Tech here. So...