Great Game! Suprised More Fans Aren't Talking About It!

[60Shock]

Of course there is a gamble scheduling schools several years out. Nothing is guaranteed.

But, obviously the more games we schedule against decent teams increases the percentages that several of them will still have decent RPI's when we eventually play them.

To not even make the effort (and I do not know if that is really the case or not) makes little to no sense to me unless all we want to do is to booster our W/L record against very weak teams, which turns out to be pointless.

Are we the only school in a non-BCS conference that has OC scheduling problems? Don't think so. Otherwise there would never have been the need for the BB. We just need to add a few more meaningful games per year and take our chances.

[The Mad Hatter]

Sub brings up some good points and I'll go a bit farther.

The Syracuse's and Cincinnati's of the world can schedule the Utah Valley, Centenary's and SWAC's of the world because the league schedule will do more than enough to raise the RPI to eye catching levels.

Competing in The Valley (especially this years version) magnifies the SWAC non-league games when submitting your bid to the Dance Team Board.

In other words, be justified in your contention if you really want to be included. If your league schedule doesn't merit consideration, at least show you tried to put your best foot forward.

Alabama A&M, Texas Southern & Nicholls may have made the school some quick money, but at what price if you are really trying to be the next Gonzaga? 8)

Texas Southern has been a positive RPI team, since they are competing for their league title and Nicholls State was supposed to be the same, but have been disappointing in league play.

Syracuse's expected OOC SOS is 129
WSU's expected OOC SOS is 68

There is only marginal room for WSU to improve it's out of conference SOS, while there is enormous room for most other Valley schools to improve theirs (since half the league had an OOC SOS of over 200, 1 over 300, and the next best team to WSU was at 141).

[SubGod22]

Sub brings up some good points and I'll go a bit farther.

The Syracuse's and Cincinnati's of the world can schedule the Utah Valley, Centenary's and SWAC's of the world because the league schedule will do more than enough to raise the RPI to eye catching levels.

Competing in The Valley (especially this years version) magnifies the SWAC non-league games when submitting your bid to the Dance Team Board.

In other words, be justified in your contention if you really want to be included. If your league schedule doesn't merit consideration, at least show you tried to put your best foot forward.

Alabama A&M, Texas Southern & Nicholls may have made the school some quick money, but at what price if you are really trying to be the next Gonzaga? 8)

Texas Southern has been a positive RPI team, since they are competing for their league title and Nicholls State was supposed to be the same, but have been disappointing in league play.

Syracuse's expected OOC SOS is 129
WSU's expected OOC SOS is 68

There is only marginal room for WSU to improve it's out of conference SOS, while there is enormous room for most other Valley schools to improve theirs (since half the league had an OOC SOS of over 200, 1 over 300, and the next best team to WSU was at 141).

You'd rather rely on the rest of the league to pick it up? We can improve our schedule and still win games and not rely so much on what the rest do. I hope others pick it up as well, but that shouldn't mean that we should sit back and wait for that.

On top of that, it could also help for seeding purposes when the tournament rolls around. We all know higher seeds have better opportunities to advance which means more money and exposure for us which leads to better recruiting.

[ShockTalk]

Of course there is a gamble scheduling schools several years out. Nothing is guaranteed.

But, obviously the more games we schedule against decent teams increases the percentages that several of them will still have decent RPI's when we eventually play them.

To not even make the effort (and I do not know if that is really the case or not) makes little to no sense to me unless all we want to do is to booster our W/L record against very weak teams, which turns out to be pointless.

Are we the only school in a non-BCS conference that has OC scheduling problems? Don't think so. Otherwise there would never have been the need for the BB. We just need to add a few more meaningful games per year and take our chances.

I don't disagree that scheduling for competitive mid majors is difficult, however, C-USA, MWC, and the Atl-10, (all of which we were once considered piers of), didn't see the need to join BB to bolster their scheduling. Yes, some schools in those conferences have a regional location advantage over WSU, but so do many like the Colonial. However, I think they use BB to try and get one step higher on the ladder.

Totally agree with your last sentence. You cannot depend on others to get you where you want to go as a mid major. Not conference play, not conference deals (MVC/MWC), and not BB. They MAY all bolster your drive to the goal and that's a nice bonus. Schedule up a little bit and prove your worth by winning. If you don't win often enough, at least you'll know where you stand and whether you're "deserving" or not.

[The Mad Hatter]

Sub brings up some good points and I'll go a bit farther.

The Syracuse's and Cincinnati's of the world can schedule the Utah Valley, Centenary's and SWAC's of the world because the league schedule will do more than enough to raise the RPI to eye catching levels.

Competing in The Valley (especially this years version) magnifies the SWAC non-league games when submitting your bid to the Dance Team Board.

In other words, be justified in your contention if you really want to be included. If your league schedule doesn't merit consideration, at least show you tried to put your best foot forward.

Alabama A&M, Texas Southern & Nicholls may have made the school some quick money, but at what price if you are really trying to be the next Gonzaga? 8)

Texas Southern has been a positive RPI team, since they are competing for their league title and Nicholls State was supposed to be the same, but have been disappointing in league play.

Syracuse's expected OOC SOS is 129
WSU's expected OOC SOS is 68

There is only marginal room for WSU to improve it's out of conference SOS, while there is enormous room for most other Valley schools to improve theirs (since half the league had an OOC SOS of over 200, 1 over 300, and the next best team to WSU was at 141).

You'd rather rely on the rest of the league to pick it up? We can improve our schedule and still win games and not rely so much on what the rest do. I hope others pick it up as well, but that shouldn't mean that we should sit back and wait for that.

On top of that, it could also help for seeding purposes when the tournament rolls around. We all know higher seeds have better opportunities to advance which means more money and exposure for us which leads to better recruiting.

I'm not arguing that we shouldn't improve our scheduling, but that the bigger problem has been the conference than us, and that it would be easier for pretty much every other team in the conference to schedule tougher than it is for us.

This is not merely theoretical. We all know that they Valley has successfully mandated tough scheduling. We have direct evidence that this kind of conference wide mandate does far more than any individual team can for assuring at-large bids for the conference.

[SubGod22]

Fair enough and I agree. The rest of the league does need to do a better job as well. The reason '06 went so well for us were all the Top 100 teams in conference. That's how the BcS leagues get mid tier schools in the Dance. That's how the Valley needs to be so we can get more teams and better seeds.

Until that happens, and even after, we need to beef up the schedule and set ourselves up for March and a better seed.