West Coast Scheduling - again

[KnightBridgeAZ]

Reasonably lengthy article in today's Arizona Daily Star about the difficulty in scheduling that schools out west face.

It starts (since this is a Tucson paper) with Adia's comments about difficulty scheduling, but it goes much deeper. Comments - some extensive - from Dawn Staley, Tara VanDerveer and Lindsay Gottlieb.

This is not only an Arizona issue - in fact the article mentions that Tara, Kelly Graves, Adia, Gottlieb and I think at least one other asked the conference to schedule 2 more conference games for this reason, however the other coaches were against it.

In a sidebar Gottlieb comments that for a decent OOC team is going to consider - how easy is it to get somewhere, how will it fit in their schedule and what are their chances on getting a win? And "Arizona doesn't check all the boxes".

On a brighter note, next season looks a bit better than this one, with a destination tourney, the return obligation with Texas, also I think it is Kansas State and the start of a series with Gonzaga. Also teased an upcoming UConn home and home although that may not be next season, I think.

 

[Gamecockfan77]

What did Dawn say?

I would imagine she'd be open to adding Arizona.

We typically play a lot of road games and have done West Coast swings in past (and this year of course).

 

[CompSci87]

If this appears online, someone please post a link. I did a quick google and didn't find it.

 

[jonson]

Adia Barnes, other top coaches struggle to lock in games; costs, wins and fanbases a factor

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

What did Dawn say?

I would imagine she'd be open to adding Arizona.

We typically play a lot of road games and have done West Coast swings in past (and this year of course).

When you get chance read it since someone linked it. I was very impressed by what Dawn had to say (it wasn't about Arizona specifically).

What I found interesting is that it was formatted slightly differently in the actual newspaper. Of course, the Star has a deal with a California paper in San Jose for some of its PAC coverage, so I wonder if the writer (who is staff at the Star) was working with them.

 

[visitingcock]

When you get chance read it since someone linked it. I was very impressed by what Dawn had to say (it wasn't about Arizona specifically).

What I found interesting is that it was formatted slightly differently in the actual newspaper. Of course, the Star has a deal with a California paper in San Jose for some of its PAC coverage, so I wonder if the writer (who is staff at the Star) was working with them.

Among other things Dawn said about scheduling West Coast games, I liked this:

Question: Why don’t more teams play good-on-good matchups in cities like Tucson and Palo Alto?
Staley isn’t sure.

“Everybody wins. A loss is a win because it helps your NET (ranking). People don’t understand that,” Staley said.

“You can lose but you are always going to win because you’re going to get more points for going out playing on the road. There are some metrics that say you get more points than you would if you would have gotten that win at home. They weigh it differently when you are playing on somebody else’s home court. I think people don’t know that.”

 

[Plebe]

I want to raise something that's been mentioned twice in this thread (once in a quote from a coach) which I think may be a misconception. But I'm not sure, so someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

I still have much to learn about how the NET functions in the real world, but it's my understanding that a team's NET ranking is not necessarily boosted by playing another highly ranked team.

Unlike the RPI, the NET doesn't just reflect a win-loss record vs. a heavily weighted (75% in RPI) component that roughly approximates schedule strength. Rather, it evaluates how efficiently the team performed in each game relative to the opponent's rating and game location.

So, unlike what sometimes happened in the RPI, a highly ranked team is very unlikely to see their NET boosted if they're blown out by another highly ranked team. I think this may be a misconception based on how we were accustomed to the RPI working. As I understand it, the NET has neither a built-in reward nor punishment for playing a strong or weak opponent, but simply factors in the opponent's level in evaluating a team's performance.

Thoughts? Corrections?

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

I want to raise something that's been mentioned twice in this thread (once in a quote from a coach) which I think may be a misconception. But I'm not sure, so someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

I still have much to learn about how the NET functions in the real world, but it's my understanding that a team's NET ranking is not necessarily boosted by playing another highly ranked team.

Unlike the RPI, the NET doesn't just reflect a win-loss record vs. a heavily weighted (75% in RPI) component that roughly approximates schedule strength. Rather, it evaluates how efficiently the team performed in each game relative to the opponent's rating and game location.

So, unlike what sometimes happened in the RPI, a highly ranked team is very unlikely to see their NET boosted if they're blown out by another highly ranked team. I think this may be a misconception based on how we were accustomed to the RPI working. As I understand it, the NET has neither a built-in reward nor punishment for playing a strong or weak opponent, but simply factors in the opponent's level in evaluating a team's performance.

Thoughts? Corrections?

I'm not sure on the details, but I think this is another "depends how you look at it". Your NET isn't going to be boosted by losing, never mind getting blown out. But if the NET indeed factors in the opponent's level and game location when evaluating a team's performance - then a good performance against a better team (or even, a less successful performance against a better team) on their court is a better outcome for the NET than playing a cupcake at home.