But you implied that in order to be successful, a team should not be scheduling any weak opponents. And yet UConn won more than a half dozen titles with such a schedule!
But you want no other school to follow the same formula now.
Other programs can follow whatever formulas they wish. If they want to prepare themselves to play the elite teams
in March, so as to have a chance to beat those teams, then yes, I expect them to play as many
competitive teams in their OOC as they can, and lay off the sugar. Now, that being said, I'm only talking about top ranked teams that have
a legitimate chance of getting to the final four, and possibly winning it all. I'm not referring to teams that have absolutely no chance of getting that far.
Those teams can schedule whomever they wish. In their case, it's not going to make any difference. Example:
Rutgers, Iowa State, Virginia,
Green Bay, Kansas State, etc.......those schools are not going to win a championship. They can schedule whatever program they wish. In their case, it won't matter. They will not be in the conversation at the end of February. vowelguy, please understand that
I am a UConn homer, and as such, my comments lean in that direction. I make no apologies for that. To be honest, I really don't care what other programs do. I only care what UConn does.
There are several dynamics here you may be over looking in your above statement.
1. UConn was already at the top of the leader board. They weren't trying to "catch" or over take another team. They were the team that the others were trying to over take. And as you said, they were winning championships while doing so. It's hard to argue with success.
2. There were/are a lot of teams that don't want to play UConn at any time (except for the national championship). Let's face it, If you schedule UConn, that's almost a guaranteed loss. Most coaches like to schedule teams they at least have a chance to beat. They make their schedule to build a positive winning momentum going into their conference portion of their schedule. When you suffer a blowout loss, you have to go back to square one and try and fix some things. Any momentum you had is gone.
I say it every year.
No team wants to be in UConn's region in the NCAA tournament. Why??? UConn ALWAYS comes out of its region. Sometimes Geno will play a smaller program as a favor to the coach. He gets requests from smaller programs every year to schedule a game. It's not unusual for teams to refuse UConn's overtures to schedule a home and home series.
Syracuse refused UConn's request to play a homecoming game in the Carrier Dome for Breanna Stewart last year, remember? UConn had to turn to
Colgate (38 miles further away) for the local hometown game they wanted for her in her hometown of Syracuse. Colgate was very happy to oblige. They considered it an honor to host UConn in their tiny 1700 seat gym. Every UConn fan got their wish last year for UConn to finish the season the way they did, by exacting a small amount of revenge by blowing out Syracuse with relative ease and winning the NC at their expense.
My comments were in reference to the other programs that are trying to win a championship TODAY. The reasons I've given are clear.
No team can improve by playing weaker teams. How did
Baylor's blow out win (140-32) win over hapless
Winthrop help them? Did they learn more from their loss to UConn, or that win over Winthrop? Which game do you think exposed any weaknesses they had? I can't say it any plainer that that. If you (a team) want to bolster your won-loss record at the expense of lesser talented teams in the beginning of the year, that's your prerogative.
How far back are you willing to go with respect to what UConn did to make your point? A person's outlook can change over time. We are suppose to learn from the past (or we're doomed to repeat it). I fail to see any relevance in your query about what UConn did 5-10 or 15 years ago. The point I was making is in reference to TODAY, not last year, not 10 years ago.
IMO, teams outside of the top 15, don't have a snowball's chance in He** of winning a NC. They are ranked outside of the top 15 for a reason.
Lest I remind you what
Bill Parcells said with respect to your won-loss record and your status. That was/is a true statement. You cannot argue THAT point. If you don't agree with my take on this, that's OK. I have absolutely no problem with that.
The fore going is MY opinion, and I stand by it.
If I make a statement that is factually incorrect, that's something else.