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Message: [QUOTE="mred, post: 4909884, member: 1324"] I think you're overstating things. The holiday tournaments are specifically intended to have good competition -- it's not that he can't control the competition, it's that they intentionally play in tournaments have have other high-major schools. ISU only played three teams this season worse than Butler's #133 NET, and one was a road game. ISU only played 2 Quadrant 4 games. It might feel to home fans like the schedule is weak because a lot of the good opponents are either on a neutral court (various holiday tournaments) or are the same in-state teams we see every year (Iowa, Drake, UNI), but ISU's non-conference schedule has been consistently objectively solid the past few years. Per warrennolan.com, here are ISU's non-conference strength of schedule ratings based on RPI going back to 2021 (which is as far back as he has it): 2024: #29 2023: #5 2022: #22 2021: #23 And thank goodness the non-conference schedule wasn't any harder this season, because it was a struggle without Emily Ryan, who was out due to injury until after all the hard non-conf games were over (and wasn't really at full speed until ~7 games into the conference schedule). [/QUOTE]