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It’s way too dangerous to look at last year’s RPI rankings as an indicator or this coming season’s RPI.
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Early season tournaments are how schools are able to play “extra” games. NCAA limits teams to 29 games (not including Conference tourney) OR 27 games with one Early Season Tournament (Max 4gp in tourney). So if Beilein & Co eliminate participating in early season tournaments, UM will be scheduling 1 or 2 fewer non-conference games…that course of action doesn’t really make sense, IMO.
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Just some questions for this thread… Some interesting points and some I’m not sure on.
Is there really an agreement among fans to not play in preseason tournaments? What teams aren’t playing regularly in some sort of preseason tourney? Feel like non-conference tourneys are key for putting together a good non-conference schedule every year. Look at Ohio State’s schedules for an example of what not playing in these tourneys looks like.
Any good examples of programs that have figured it out?
The point about making the top-200 is key, if one or two of those schools do the schedule looks a lot tougher.
Is VA Tech supposed to be that bad? They were a top-100 team last yera.
It’s fine to criticize, but it’s only helpful when it’s constructive – and whining that they don’t understand the RPI doesn’t seem so to me. Neither is whining about “swift denials” blah blah blah. Gimme a break.
Anyway, I do think they care, but they’ve made a certain cost-benefit analysis. They want some games where there’s a high likelihood of winning/playing youngsters or bench players/working on different aspects of offense and defense during games. They are willing to take the RPI hit (and probably a few less people in the stands) to get this. Every program does it. Some do it a lot more (take a look at all the B1G schedules and then get back to me on how many teams have a significantly tougher nonconference schedule), some a little less (though everyone has a couple). And as for seeding, JB might think it prepares the team better for B1G play – e.g., maybe they win a close game against Purdue by pulling out the zone that they practiced against Mount St. Mary’s – in which case seeding is improved.
But personally, I’d probably prefer to have a couple less tomato cans. Something like taking one or two of those games and switch them to MAC or Horizon League teams. Or maybe do one more high major game. That’d be my preference, and I think it plays into JB being a little more risk averse than I would like. Still, I can see why they do it the way they do it – and by now, it’s clearly how JB operates.
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No, people don’t get up in arms because others level any criticism against Beilein–that’s bogus. What people get upset about is the criticism which has no basis whatsoever, and is thrown out there no matter what the actual facts are. Take your statement, for example, that every year, our OOC schedule costs us seeding position. We’ve made the NCAAs six times under Beilein, and only once–last year–is it even remotely arguable that our OOC schedule made the slightest difference in our tournament seeding. Once. And even then, the real issue with our tournament seeding was that we had a terrible record against the top 100 teams we did play prior to the tournament–4-12-rather than that we played Bryant instead of CMU.
There are plenty of criticisms one can legitimately levy against Beilein–ones which even those of us who like him a lot overall are forced to acknowledge. The defense has been atrocious for the last few years, recruiting has been less than expected recently, auto benching, certain game and roster composition decisions, etc.–those are fair. Frankly, reasonable criticism of the OOC schedule is fair and I agree with it. However, making unsupported, erroneous statements and then accusing anyone who disagrees of being a “Beilein apologist” will get people riled up.
Tell us, 93, how has our OOC schedule lowered our seeding in the six years Beilein made the tournament (it certainly hasn’t kept us out since we were .500 or less in the three years we didn’t make it)?
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Yes, yes, and yes.
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I might agree with you on 1 but didn’t people last year say before the year began that Delaware St, Bryant, Youngstown St and Northern Kentucky were bad and weigh down their schedule? Of course Charlotte hurt as well but that’s because they lost to UConn.
Scheduling 1-2 fewer non conference games isn’t the worst idea if you’re scheduling 3-4 teams ranked 250+ Ken Pom. Unless the athletic department just wants some extra money from fans to see some tomato cans which isn’t a good look either.
I think this has a lot of merit. Plus I think they like these games as ego-boosters OR reality checks (see NJIT/EMU).
Particularly during that Christmas break, it seems there is a benefit to getting into a groove and feeling good about yourself when the student section is out and the atmosphere is a little damp. It can’t hurt to feel good about your game as you enter B1G play, even if its smoke and mirrors beating lower tiered teams.
Obviously 2015 they weren’t good enough to make the NCAA tournament but losses to EMU/NJIT certainly didn’t help them. I would say 2015 really hurt them in the form of results and team psychology perspective.
You might be able to make the case in 2011 as well. They made a big run late in the year to get into the tournament but probably the fact they didn’t play great competition in the non conference put them behind the 8 ball. Here are the following teams they beat in 2011 non conference
South Carolina State 327
Bowling Green 239-part of Legends Classic
North Carolina Central 316
Bryant 299
Concordia I am not sure why they played this game in Dec but it wasn’t listed as an exhibition. I imagine if they had beaten better teams ranked in the 100 of the RPI they would have gotten better than an 8 seed.
So in 2016, 2015 and maybe 2011 ironically those are arguably 3 of the weakest teams during the Beilein regime.
I do agree I would like to see a little tweak to the scheduling. Presuming 1 Early Season Tourney plus 4 Power-Conference games, that gives the staff 5 remaining games to schedule. Instead of using them all on Low-Major Conference teams, I would prefer to see 1 or maybe 2 (depending on the competition of the Tournament) scheduled Mid-Major Conference teams.
If it were me doing the scheduling, I’d trade out 1 of the 5 Low Majors with a team from the A-10 or Mountain West; historically 2/3 of the teams in those conferences finish with RPIs inside the Top200. Don’t look at the top of the conference, but target a middle of the pack team from the A10 or MWC without a dominant big man or an insane 3-point shooter; should be a recipe for a less stressful Win against a team with RPI ranking that will “count” for Tourney purposes.
In a season like this year where the Early Season Tournament guarantees you 2 Low-Major Opponents, trade out 2 of the 5 Low-Major scheduled opponents with Mid-Majors.
In the grand scheme of things, though, that’s just a slight tweak to the scheduling preferences, IMO.
Completely disagree, not with the general concept (I, too, think we should schedule less 250+ teams), but with the notion that it is hurting us in getting in/seeding. In '15, EMU (throughout) and NJIT (as it turned out) were exactly the type of team that you and I are advocating playing (EMU was #120 in rpi, NJIT was #183)–the problem was that we lost those games. In '11, we were 20-13 going into the tournament including the win over Concordia, with a really bad loss to #193 Indiana–we were actually seeded 19-23 spots ABOVE our rpi (#51) as a #8 seed (29-32 on the s line). There is no way we were getting a higher seed with those numbers if we had played EMU, for example, rather than Bryant–even if we had done so for all the teams you named.
So we’re back to '16. And there, I’m still waiting for someone to show me a team which was 4-12 against top 100 teams, 11 of those losses by double digits, and got a higher seed because they played less absolute tomato cans.
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If that’s true, then shouldn’t you criticize the RPI or its importance as far as seeding goes?
Interestingly, based on the RPI projections in Dylan’s article, this year’s nonconference schedule (165 average RPI) is less rigorous than last year’s (159).
That said, it’s clearly a much better sked from a fan standpoint, since there are more name teams. It’s good to see the program moving in that direction.
It is disappointing that U-M would rather cut a check to Kennesaw State than any of the local schools, no question.
For comparison…
Wonder how many road games IU will play in the non-conference 
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Final IU schedule for comparison
Mgoblog has written about the hoops scheduling problems ad nauseaum, but here are some examples:
http://mgoblog.com/content/how-schedule-college-basketball
Mgoblog is a poor source for anything related to basketball. Those guys know zilch about hoops.
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Ace is pretty good IMO.
I respectfully, but adamantly, disagree.
So just out of curiosity, which part of those articles did you disagree with?
Whether they are/aren’t a good source for hoops news, some of the items discussed are very similar to items discussed on this board.
In general, I think UM can do a better job of reducing the odds of having 4 or 5, 200+ RPI teams. Sometimes teams that look decent on paper tank — injuries, poor chemistry, bad luck — that happens. But there are ways to schedule good matchups (AKA, very high probability of winning) against teams projected in the 140-185 range of the RPI.
For example, scheduling a mid-to-lower A-10 team (Richmond, Fordham, UMass, Duquesne, URI) is a probable “W” and a probably RPI inside the Top200 — especially if you pick a team w/o a dominant big man and w/o an elite 3-point shooter. Second tier C-USA teams generally have RPIs in the 120-170 range. OVC, Sun Belt, Mountain West also traditionally have 3-4 teams with RPIs inside the Top200.
This year simply replacing 2 from this last 3 non-conference games vs Central Ark, MD-EShore, Furman with a middling A10 team (not Dayton) and a 2nd/3rd place team from the OVC or Sun Belt … that wouldn’t change the projected record, but it would greatly improve the schedule profile for NCAA Tourney purposes.
As an aside, I don’t like scheduling mid-major teams from your same recruiting footprint — I don’t know the math, but it feels like higher chance of upset. The guys play each other in high school, summer ball, pick-up games; more excitement to show you were an overlooked recruit than there is awe of the name on the front of the jersey.