Schedule

[WuDrWu]

Bottom line:


Easy games make for better job security.

Tougher games make better teams.


I believe Coach Marshall, more often than not, will choose the path towards the latter. That may lead to frustration amongst fans who demand more home games, or more wins.

For my money, the potential windfall makes the gamble worth it.

We could schedule like Illinois State and all but lock in 20-23+ wins a year.

We could schedule like Creighton and pretend that dangling our feet in the water is the way to get it done.

Or we can do what I believe we have done the last few seasons and will continue to do in the foreseeable future..... schedule smart, schedule very tough and make the kids understand what it takes to compete at the highest level on the off chance that someday we might actually get there.

:wsu_posters: :goshocks: :posterwu: :posterwsu:

[Overtime]

I do not believe...in fact I am almost positive, that there will be an Arena game this year...It looks to me like it will be Tulsa next year and then perhaps one nonconference game per year thereafter

[tropicalshox]

Here is related information on strength of non-conference schedules. The work was done by Tornado on the Bradley board.

Past 5-6 years, using Pomeroy's data, the non-conference SOS...last five years

.........09, 08, 07, 06, 05.......Five-year Average
BU---201, 89, 42, 74, 201..........121.4
CU---224, 170, 82, 144, 194.......162.8
DU---289, 142, 302, 104, 226.....212.6
UE---219, 319, 225, 301, 309.....274.6
ISU--210, 198, 236, 291, 282.....243.6
InSU-146, 107, 109, 298, 210.....174.0
MSU-251, 140, 135, 69, 227.......164.4
UNI--100, 250, 158, 102, 124.....147.0
SIU -59, 13, 20, 110, 50..............50.4
WSU-169, 247, 148, 95, 139.......159.6

[ShockerFever]

It looks to me like it will be Tulsa next year

Where are you getting your info from?

[ShockerFever]

One thing to consider about SOS's. Sometimes schools actually try to schedule opponents that look good on paper coming into the year, but suck it up afterward. For example, in 06-07, LSU and Syracuse were Top 10 opponents going into the season. They underachieved and it cost us SOS points.

I like looking at schedules before the season gets going to see who's actually trying to get good games (even if they don't work out) and those who obviously are scheduling down intentionally (i.e. Illinois State).

[tropicalshox]

Last year's Redbird's schedule was a little too tough. This year they put a couple more cream puffs at home instead of on the road.

Jank makes it sound like this is a good deal for the fans. Come on! The Redbirds have good fans and deserve to see a decent non-conference team from time to time.

[boilershock]

Some more dates:

@Indiana St. 1/13/10
Indiana St. 2/6/10

Drake 1/1/10
@ Drake 1/23/10

[ShockerFever]

What's with a New Year's Day game.. on a Friday no less?

[SFL]

It looks to me like it will be Tulsa next year

Where are you getting your info from?

I think 'Overtime Live' pulled that one out of his keyster. :D

[shockerfan]

I just did some number crunching as MVC teams are releasing their schedules. I looked at the average RPI of each team's non-conference opponents (for 2008-2009) and seeing how each one holds up. It would definately seem that it's time for Elgin to put back the "150 or better" RPI rule. Here is how the team's that have released their schedule so far stacks up:

(I am doing "best possible" and "worst possible" for those that have tourney's where some of their opponents are unknown. And I went ahead and calculated WSU's even though we have yet to know what 2 "cupcakes" we get for the KC tourney which will definately bring our avg down)

Best/Worst RPI

Bradley = 164/164

Creighton = 136/160

Drake = 153/153

Illinois St = 225/225

Missouri St = 178/178

SIU = 178/178

WSU = 118/127

Now obviously we don't know if the teams on everyone's schedule will be definately better or worse this year. However, this is how the Valley would look at it if the "150 rule" was still in place I believe. Pretty sad really. It would be REAL scary to see the results if you took out the exempt tourneys and just looked at actual "scheduled" teams.

Creighton's appeared a LOT better than it actually is because of the Old Spice tourney. However, they won't get to play the WHOLE field. The main thing with theirs is that they have 3 teams on their schedule that were 300 or worse RPI last year.

Bradley's is also dragged down heavily. They may play OSU (28), BYU (21) and either Illinois (24) or Utah (30).....but they also have 5 teams that were 200+ RPI last year.

Of course we already knew that SIU's and Illinois St's schedules weren't good.

Ours is actually looking decent if the teams we play can do well again this year. We only have 3 teams 100+ RPI last year (of course as stated that will go up by 2 when we find out who we play before heading to KC)

Great work!

What about UNI, Evansville and Indiana State?

Thanks, I am updating as schedules are released by the Universities. I have updated my post with Indiana St's info.

[shockerfan]

I agree ShockerFan but I seem to recall difficulty in scheduling, especially when the MVC teams started killing giants. MT often commented on this issue and complained about issues such as 2 away games and 1 home game for even a mid to low BCS program. LSU is one of those better cases with a 1-1-1 and we all know how that series turned out.

Perhaps tournaments are the best approach?

Oh I completely agree. My only complaint are the schools who load up on too many 200+ opponents other than the tourney's they play in. And heck, some schools don't even participate in the exempt tourneys right now. There really shouldn't be too much reason to have more than 1-2 teams that were in the 150-299 range the year before. And I can't think of many reasons at all to have 300+ RPI killers on a schedule...other than MAYBE recruiting purposes? But even then.....

[Overtime]

Partially from my Keyster as SFL said...no inside info ...But I was at a function where Marshall spoke...He said it would not be this year and that it would start next year and that he would like to play one game a year at the Arena . He also said the first game would involve an old rival....I pulled Tulsa out of my.......

[martymoose]

Partially from my Keyster as SFL said...no inside info ...But I was at a function where Marshall spoke...He said it would not be this year and that it would start next year and that he would like to play one game a year at the Arena . He also said the first game would involve an old rival....I pulled Tulsa out of my.......

To take that a step further... It is Tulsa, 4 games over the next 4 years beginning 2010-2011.

[ShockerFever]

It's nice to have Tulsa on the schedule again. Kinda interesting though that they only wanna schedule us when they're good..


By the way.. when is this schedule supposed to be coming out again?

[martymoose]

It's nice to have Tulsa on the schedule again. Kinda interesting though that they only wanna schedule us when they're good..


By the way.. when is this schedule supposed to be coming out again?

Well, it'll be a good game on the schedule. If Tulsa lives up to expectations, damn that 2010 schedule is going to be awesome!

As for them only playing us when they're good...at least we got to pound on them a couple of times before they dropped us.