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Message: [QUOTE="Cats-F10, post: 4442754, member: 12319"] I am impressed with the expertise and insight that is clearly behind the scheduling for the Arizona Wildcats women’s basketball team for this year. Context is critical towards evaluating and understanding Arizona’s scheduling. There are 7 new players on a 12-person team, and one of those players, Lauren Ware, is out for the entire season due to an earlier injury. Thus, in effect, there are 7 new players on an 11-person team, and their best returning player, Cate Reese, was coming off of shoulder surgery. For their new players, 3 are starters (the transfers) and 4 are freshmen - all 7 are highly regarded. But, the adjustments will take time. The general trend for this year’s schedule was that the games would become increasingly difficult, which should help the team prepare for conference play while optimizing opportunities for the adjustments. I see their nonconference schedule as being nicely aligned with the composition of the team. Regarding the Strength of Schedule, Massey ratings project that the Cats will have the 7th most difficult SOS (SSF column) by the end of the year, although this is early in the season for computer rankings. The nonconference games that are predicted to be the most difficult are with Baylor and Kansas. Even though the #7 ranking in the country is not as high as that of Stanford, which comes in at #5 in today’s projected SOS rankings, context is once again a factor. Arizona tried to schedule Texas for this year, but this did not happen because scheduling depends on the availability and circumstances for both (emphasis added) teams. If the Texas game had also been added, as seems to have been expected by Arizona, Arizona’s projected SOS ranking could have been higher than that of Stanford. Regarding last year’s nonconferencce schedule, the actually scheduled games included Louisville, Texas and DePaul, with the Texas game being cancelled soon before the game due to Covid. Looking forward, I understand that scheduling for Texas and UConn are in a planning stage. What has happened with the Arizona Wildcats team is one of the most interesting stories in women’s college basketball over the last few years. The story includes a team, which had a bad conference record (2-16) as recently as 2018, subsequently winning the NIT, and then going to the 2021 NCAA Tournament Championship game, and losing to Stanford by one point when their last shot of the game missed and time expired. Their predicted overall recruiting class for this year (high school and transfers) would clearly be one of the very best in the country. And their 2-year high school recruiting class for the 2022 and the 2023, as measured by cumulative HoopGurlz rankings, is evidently 2nd only to UConn, and higher than that of Stanford and South Carolina, which placed 3rd and 4th by this measure. [/QUOTE]

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