Would the "UConn doesn't play a tough schedule" crowd please hush up...

[triaddukefan]

I'm curious, if you "like" the above post does that mean you agree with the poster or that you're happy that "I'm (He's) outta' here for good this time" ?

I agreed that the "shut up" was a bit too harsh... but then again.. he did say please

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

Like a lot of BY posters, they ignore the current realities of a pack of rising teams and just think that the once decent old-time programs like Kansas State, Penn State, Purdue, Auburn, Florida, USC, etc. mean something when they're on a team's schedule. They don't, but now teams like USF, ECU, Tulane, Temple, and Green Bay have moved ahead of the faded programs, and UConn is having a lot to do with that.

Seems like an open and shut up case to me.

USF rose a number of years back, to say otherwise is insulting to Jose Fernandez. Green Bay has been its own excellent self since Kevin Borseth was there the first time. Temple is a bit inconsistent, but has certainly been respectable since the time Dawn was there and Tanya has continued that success with some ups and downs. Tulane has had good years on and off and it remains to be seen where they are trending; ECU likewise although less history of success I believe.

Conversely, Kansas State was never any better than these schools in my memory - they will probably tick up under Jeff Mittie. Penn State had one off year and should trend up based on what they had lost coming into the season. I expect Purdue to improve, doubt Auburn will, Florida has been a so-so team for years, they weren't very good even in the late years of Carol Ross and USC (the "real" USC) is anyone's guess. I suspect it depends on recruiting, but they haven't been really good in years and years.

I made a point about scheduling major conference teams because there are something like 65 of them, of which maybe 10 are dreadful and another 15 not very good but there are still 40 pretty good teams. Conversely, there are only about 10 to 15 really decent teams (and some of them a lot better than others) that are on a par with those 40 teams in the rest of WBB. Sad, but true. Conferences full of them. Most of the potentially decent ones are in the A10, AAC or Big East, plus a bunch of singletons. And sometimes it is hard to know because they shine mostly against still weaker competition and their peers. Few play (and beat) top 25 teams.

 

[DobbsRover2]

USF rose a number of years back, to say otherwise is insulting to Jose Fernandez. Green Bay has been its own excellent self since Kevin Borseth was there the first time. Temple is a bit inconsistent, but has certainly been respectable since the time Dawn was there and Tanya has continued that success with some ups and downs. Tulane has had good years on and off and it remains to be seen where they are trending; ECU likewise although less history of success I believe.

Conversely, Kansas State was never any better than these schools in my memory - they will probably tick up under Jeff Mittie. Penn State had one off year and should trend up based on what they had lost coming into the season. I expect Purdue to improve, doubt Auburn will, Florida has been a so-so team for years, they weren't very good even in the late years of Carol Ross and USC (the "real" USC) is anyone's guess. I suspect it depends on recruiting, but they haven't been really good in years and years.

I made a point about scheduling major conference teams because there are something like 65 of them, of which maybe 10 are dreadful and another 15 not very good but there are still 40 pretty good teams. Conversely, there are only about 10 to 15 really decent teams (and some of them a lot better than others) that are on a par with those 40 teams in the rest of WBB. Sad, but true. Conferences full of them. Most of the potentially decent ones are in the A10, AAC or Big East, plus a bunch of singletons. And sometimes it is hard to know because they shine mostly against still weaker competition and their peers. Few play (and beat) top 25 teams.

Yeah, I know I'm dating myself, but KSU got up among the top 10 a little more than a decade ago when they had Ohlde and Wecker. But it was a long time ago, and now I'll hush up on that point. Would be nice if each of the P5 teams could make a point to schedule 3 or 4 of the "at least decent" P5 teams OOC along with some mid major, but the financial strain will always be cited as a deterrent even though the experience can only pay some dividends in March.

 

[UcMiami]

Knightsbridge - I think you overstate the quality in the P5 a bit:
ACC (15)- Top end: ND, FlSt, LV, Duke, UNC; Mediocrity: Syracuse, Miami, Pittsburgh, GT, VA, NCSt; Bad: BC, WF, VaT, Clem
Big10 (14) - Top end: MD, IA, Ohio; Mediocrity: Rutgers, Northwestern, Minn, Nabraska, Mich; Bad: Mich St, Ill, WI, Ind, Perdue, PSU (?)
Big12 (10) Top end: Baylor, OK; Mediocrity: TX, OkSt, IASt, TCU, WV; Bad: KSSt, KS, TT
Pac12 (12) Top end: Stan, Cal; Mediocrity: OrSt, AZSt, WA; Bad: UCLA, WaSt, USC, CO, OR, AZ, UT
SEC (14) Top end: TN, SC, TxAM, KY; Medicrity: MsSt, LSU; Bad: Missouri, Ole Miss, UGA, AR, Vandy, FL, Auburn, AL.

I make that 16 top end teams, 21 mediocre teams, and 26 Bad teams. Now people can and will quibble with my definitions and a few teams had a better year this last year than where I placed them and a few had a worse year, but I was trying to think of a sort of two/three year average as opposed to just what this past year showed.

Looking at the rest of the basketball universe obviously Uconn is a top team and I am not sure there is another in the rest of the conferences, but the 'mediocrity' is probably something like this: Albany, USF, Temple, GWU, Dayton, FGCU, DePaul, Villanova, StJohns, Seton Hall (?), Liberty, JMU, WKy, MTSU, SoMS (?), GB, Princeton, Quin, Marist, WichSt, Chattanooga, ETenn(?), SDSU, ArSt-LR, ArSt (?), Gonz, SD (?) That works out to 26 teams and you could add a few or drop a few out.

Interesting to me in looking at the NCAAs - 32 teams are conference champs which leaves 32 teams getting in on merit. The P5 automatically get the rest of their top end teams in so 11 auto-bids go to P5 elite teams. And of the non-P5 conference champs something like 11 each year are 'bad' teams in conferences that would be excluded if the auto-bids didn't exist. So the pool of mediocre teams that get at-large bids is made up of 21 mediocre P5 teams and the 27 top end/mediocre non-P5 teams that didn't get auto-bids or about 16 teams. All this is a long way of getting to the break down of this years 21 mediocre at large bids was:
16 of the mediocre 21 P5 teams got in = 76%
5 of the 16 mediocre non-P5 teams got in = 31%

Some disparity is justified but this lopsided result is more the result of SOS and the 'brain dead' RPI that are both heavily weighted toward P5 teams. I think you see the results in the NCAA tournament most years where a lot of the 'inferior' other conference teams play P5 elite teams more competitively than many of their at large bid mediocre teams consistently did.

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

Knightsbridge - I think you overstate the quality in the P5 a bit:
ACC (15)- Top end: ND, FlSt, LV, Duke, UNC; Mediocrity: Syracuse, Miami, Pittsburgh, GT, VA, NCSt; Bad: BC, WF, VaT, Clem
Big10 (14) - Top end: MD, IA, Ohio; Mediocrity: Rutgers, Northwestern, Minn, Nabraska, Mich; Bad: Mich St, Ill, WI, Ind, Perdue, PSU (?)
Big12 (10) Top end: Baylor, OK; Mediocrity: TX, OkSt, IASt, TCU, WV; Bad: KSSt, KS, TT
Pac12 (12) Top end: Stan, Cal; Mediocrity: OrSt, AZSt, WA; Bad: UCLA, WaSt, USC, CO, OR, AZ, UT
SEC (14) Top end: TN, SC, TxAM, KY; Medicrity: MsSt, LSU; Bad: Missouri, Ole Miss, UGA, AR, Vandy, FL, Auburn, AL.

Looking at the rest of the basketball universe obviously Uconn is a top team and I am not sure there is another in the rest of the conferences, but the 'mediocrity' is probably something like this: Albany, USF, Temple, GWU, Dayton, FGCU, DePaul, Villanova, StJohns, Seton Hall (?), Liberty, JMU, WKy, MTSU, SoMS (?), GB, Princeton, Quin, Marist, WichSt, Chattanooga, ETenn(?), SDSU, ArSt-LR, ArSt (?), Gonz, SD (?) That works out to 26 teams and you could add a few or drop a few out.

I tend pretty much to agree with your P5 rankings, but I'm calling your "top" and "mediocre" as pretty good. I think accounting for current, last few years and trend around 40 respectable teams. Year by year there is shifting between your 3 categories, but I think you and I only disagree about maybe 5 teams, one way or the other.

I think the rest of the basketball universe is impacted by conference changes. Historically, I don't think Quin as you call them could compete against the 40 respectable P5 teams, and I'm not sure even now, but they have, IIRC, upgraded their conference which will help. Liberty, not so much although I think they may have changed conference, as well, not sure. A few of the others I think are still not quite there, they may be trending. I would say about 20 may be really able to move into a power conference and not become "bad".

 

[Henry]

View attachment 9133

The final coaches poll is out and UConn is obviously #1. Here are some thoughts:

1. UConn played 13 games against the top 25 teams.
2. UConn played the #2, #3 and #4 teams a total of four times. (ND twice)
3. UConn won those four games by a combined 76 points. That's an average of 19 pts/game.
4. Dayton finished #17 and USF was #24.
5. UConn's only loss, in overtime, was to #14, Stanford.
6. Notre Dame (#2), South Carolina (#3) and Maryland (#4) had a combined 9 losses.
7. Baylor (#5), Tennessee (#6) and Florida State (#7) had 15 combined losses.

UConn schedules anyone and everyone they can fit in, given the conference schedule they MUST play.
It would not have mattered if UConn had played every one of the other 24 teams in the poll. The results would have been the same. UConn #1....!!

Go Huskies..!!

Oh, I see. The other teams never win because they are either too tired or beat up from playing such tough schedules. That must be it. Yeah, right.

 

[cohenzone]

OC, IC, it's all the same. UConn can't play a tough schedule no matter what because they are beating up on everyone. UConn next year will play in the UConn Is In A League of Its Own Conference, (commonly called the UIIALOIOC for short) and play 30 intrasquad games, each sure to be a barnburner. There will then be a conference tournament to determine which UConn squad get the automatic bid the for the national UConn Intrasquad Championship. It has signed the largest TV contract in sports history for all games, including post season, in order to support the outcry for UConn to play a more demanding schedule and even lose a few. With one UConn team guaranteed to lose every game, Geno Auriemma will be shown for the lousy game coach that everyone suspects he is when sufficiently challenged.

 

[UcMiami]

Knightbridge - valid response. The thing is that the Mediocre rank covers quite a range of quality as well so the better teams there are much closer to the 'top end' and the worse, just a few wins above bad.

I also think that because of the use of SOS and RPI which most everyone would agree gives some advantage to the P5, the NCAA tournament ends up perpetuating this over-rating of the strength of the middle of P5 conferences by consistently over-ranking the P5 mediocre teams and under-ranking the mid-major teams. It doesn't effect the final four, but it does probably have a serious effect on second weekend and definitely on the second round. The obvious example from this year - Princeton and GB. If Princeton had gotten what really everyone else felt should have been a 6 seed or better, their second round game would not have been against a #1 seed, but against a 3 or 4 seed with a much better chance to pull an 'upset'. And if GB had gotten an eight seed or even remained as a nine seed, but not against a mid-major that had been grossly under-seeded they too would have had a much better chance of winning their first round game.

The opposite would happen as well - drop those mediocre P5 teams down one or two seed lines, and their first round games are suddenly much tougher, and the conference record maybe goes from 8-0 to 6-2 or from 5-2 to 4-3 or 3-4, and perceptions maybe change further.

 

[meyers7]

Setting the record straight: The UConn women do not have their own wing at the White House.

Although I do believe they have their own bench at the White House basketball court.

 

[meyers7]

I don't mind disagreement and I really enjoy argument but I don't like to be told to "shut up."Posts like the OPs "please shut up" don't belong here. They certainly don't encourage a civil discussion. They are a lot like the OP's "nobody gives a crap about what you have to say" post of a while back.

I've asked the Mods to change the headline to "hush up" from "shut up." I doubt that will fix your attitude toward me or my posts.

Dammmmnnnnnnnn, I was gonna reprimand you for not using STFU.

I quit the board for a while because of posts like this - and I'm outta' here for good this time.

Don't let the door hit you on your way out.

Question, how do you deal the Civil War atrocities if you are that sensitive?