How our non-conf opponents have done

[Knicks411]

I was thinking about doing this last night; a lot of times the non conf opponents are only evaluated on the perception of the team at the time we played them; and frequently teams can look a lot different in late Feb than they did when we played them in November or December. I know the season isn't over yet, but it's pretty close; I wanted to look at the teams we played in November and December and see what they have done for the season. I know I read a lot of comments about how our non conference schedule wasn't really that bad how Stanford would win the Pac-12, and how most of the teams we faced would finish in the top 4 or top half (can't remember which) and I wanted to see how that turned out. Just going to go in order here:

1) Fordham- They finished 1-15 (last) in the A-10 last year. They were projected for a similar finish this year. They're currently 2-10, good for second to last in the A-10.
2) Manhattan- Having themselves a decent year in the MAAC. They were 3-15, second from the bottom last year. They are currently looking like a lock to finish at least 4th. They were 221st in the Pomeroy rankings when we played them, they are now 106th. Nice surprise.
3) Albany- Currently 8-7 in the America East, they are in a battle for 4th with Hartford. They were 237th in the Pomeroy rankings when we played them, they are currently 199th.
4) Colgate- They are pretty awful. 2-10, second to last in the Patriot league. They were 271st in Pomeroy when we played them, currently 313th.
5) Virginia Tech- After being the quintessential bubble team the last 3-4 years, they have been much worse this year. They're 4-9 in conference, and are pretty much locked into 9th place at best. They were 40th when we played them, currently 82nd.
6) Stanford- They are currently 7th in the Pac-12, half a game behind UCLA for 6th; that's as high as they can go. They are one of the teams that made me think of doing this, as I said before there were a lot of people thinking they were going to win the league after we played them. Instead, they are 7th in one of the weaker BCS leagues in a while. They were 38th at the time of the game, are now 60th.
7) Eastern Michigan- I am not sure if this is a pattern, but the MAC west is much weaker than the MAC east it seems. Eastern Michigan is leading the MAC west with a 6-6 record. 5 of the 6 teams in the east have a better record. They have moved up from 303rd to 265th since we played them.
8) I think Florida is basically playing about as well as could've been expected. They haven't shown themselves to be a challenger to Kentucky, but they still have a shot at them at home. They're going to finish second in the league. They were 9th when we played them; currently 13th.
9) Marshall- I think they have been a bit of a disappointment. There was hope they could challenge for the C-USA crown; they are 7-5, 2 games out of first; currently sitting in 5th. 72nd when we played them, 70th right now.
10) GW is one spot ahead of Fordham in the A-10. 126th when we played them; 170th right now.
11) NC State- Currently 7-6 in the conference. (How much better would they look if they had held onto that lead against Duke?) They are tied for 5th in the league, and are fighting for an NCAA tournament spot. They have moved up from 68 to 57 since we played.
12) Bucknell- As expected, they are leading the Patriot league at 10-2. Have moved up from 124th to 103rd.
13) Tulane- Was undefeated when we played them, but had played I believe the second worst schedule in the NCAA. They are currently 3-9, second last in the C-USA. Despite all that, they have only fallenf rom 114 to 141st; probably because they weren't any good in the first place.

I'm not 100% sure what the point of this was, but I was bored. I think most of the teams we thought were going to be decent have regressed or stayed roughly the same. (NC state, like I said, had a chance to change this). I don't think we have had a lot real surprised to the upside, with the exception of Manhattan.

 

['72 Orange]

Interesting analysis. Horrible memories about years past when we were on the bubble, and would wring our hands about our bad luck that some of our early season "marquee" wins lost their luster over the course of the season. It's nice that we control our destiny to get a #1 seed.

 

[Knicks411]

Interesting analysis. Horrible memories about years past when we were on the bubble, and would wring our hands about our bad luck that some of our early season "marquee" wins lost their luster over the course of the season. It's nice that we control our destiny to get a #1 seed.

Yes, was also thinking about this. When you are winning the league and in the race for a top seed this stuff doesn't matter much.

 

[TinyManInside]

I got blasted back in November for saying that we beat two garbage teams in NYC.

 

[IthacaMatt]

I got blasted back in November for saying that we beat two garbage teams in NYC.

Well, there was some hope that they would be competitive teams. Va Tech, I'm not sure why they were there. But you've got to get some decent teams for the pre-season match-ups at the Gardne.

 

[Jasoncuse]

Speaking of preseason tourneys, are we locked into one next year yet?

 

[NKR1978]

I got blasted back in November for saying that we beat two garbage teams in NYC.

Does it feel good to be proven right?

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk

 

[Upstate]

Interesting analysis. Horrible memories about years past when we were on the bubble, and would wring our hands about our bad luck that some of our early season "marquee" wins lost their luster over the course of the season. It's nice that we control our destiny to get a #1 seed.

I never want to be a bubble team ever again. It's the worst possible way to spend selection sunday, waiting to see if you'll even be in the tourney. I like the #1 overall seed much better.

 

[pfister1]

How does our OOC schedule and overall schedule fare so well in the rankings, doesn't look like it should when you look at the individual OOC opponents like that.

 

[cpatrocks]

who was the 2nd team we played? you didnt mention the team name above --- George Washington???

 

['72 Orange]

who was the 2nd team we played? you didnt mention the team name above --- George Washington???

I think it was Manhattan. I pieced that together from his final comment on the suprisigly upside results this year.

 

[Knicks411]

Ah, sorry guys, I don't know what happened there. Must've been deleted or something; yes opponent two was Manhattan. I'll edit the post.

 

[jncuse]

How does our OOC schedule and overall schedule fare so well in the rankings, doesn't look like it should when you look at the individual OOC opponents like that.

Playing two opponents ranked 100, is considerd a better schedule then playing a team ranked #5 and #300. But which one is more likely to result in a 1-1 record and is therefore harder for SU - the 5 and 300. But if your a bad team, the #5 and #300 schedule, is an easier one to get to 1-1. The OOC SOS is probably a better indicator for weaker teams that no one cares about.

You have to dig deeper then simple numbers, and top 50 numbers to determine one seeds - their just indicators for who to discuss.

Lunardi claims we are clear #1 overall seed right now, and I am not certain. Yes we have the best top 50 record, but alot of times, the the number one seeds are separated from two seeds based on what you did against other top seeds (say top two seed lines and top four seeds line). Kentucky has UNC and Kansas on their schedule. Simply put, we don't. Could we have beaten them -- possibly. But they are going to give the benefit of the doubt to the team that actually did.

At the end of the day, I just don't want to be 1-4 or 2-3 on the one seed line with Kentucky. We can beat Kentucky, but if I can choose one team to avoid as long as possible its them. And that will happen as long as we don't the bed down the stretch. One team will be #1 and the other will be #2.

 

[jncuse]

Thank you OP for the analysis. It was a good summary.

 

[Madbiker]

JB has done a nice job with the OOC schedule since making changes after not making the tourney field in '07 and '08 partially because of the "weak" non-conference. We have gotten most of the real low RPI dogs off the schedule except for Colgate (313) and E Mich (265) this year. And replaced them with more respectable "competition" with RPI in the 100-199 area. They're still build your confidence wins but they don't kill your RPI like 250-335 schools do.

 

[cpatrocks]

Playing two opponents ranked 100, is considerd a better schedule then playing a team ranked #5 and #300. But which one is more likely to result in a 1-1 record and is therefore harder for SU - the 5 and 300. But if your a bad team, the #5 and #300 schedule, is an easier one to get to 1-1. The OOC SOS is probably a better indicator for weaker teams that no one cares about.

You have to dig deeper then simple numbers, and top 50 numbers to determine one seeds - their just indicators for who to discuss.

Lunardi claims we are clear #1 overall seed right now, and I am not certain. Yes we have the best top 50 record, but alot of times, the the number one seeds are separated from two seeds based on what you did against other top seeds (say top two seed lines and top four seeds line). Kentucky has UNC and Kansas on their schedule. Simply put, we don't. Could we have beaten them -- possibly. But they are going to give the benefit of the doubt to the team that actually did.

At the end of the day, I just don't want to be 1-4 or 2-3 on the one seed line with Kentucky. We can beat Kentucky, but if I can choose one team to avoid as long as possible its them. And that will happen as long as we don't **** the bed down the stretch. One team will be #1 and the other will be #2.

right now SU and KU are 1 and 1a --- if we both hold serve, I can't see us playing KU unless we both make the finals.

 

[jncuse]

right now SU and KU are 1 and 1a --- if we both hold serve, I can't see us playing KU unless we both make the finals.

I think both teams can absorb one further loss and still clearly be 1-2.

 

[SWC75]

Great breakdown. Basically we didn't play many highly ranked teams but we avoided the dogs, as well.

 

[Knicks411]

Great breakdown. Basically we didn't play many highly ranked teams but we avoided the dogs, as well.

Yeah, and as someone pointed out above, I think this was clearly a concerted effort by JB or whoever he confers with in the AD's office on the schedule.

Definitely they have figured out a good way to game the RPI sos so to speak.

 

[OttoMets]

I got blasted back in November for saying that we beat two garbage teams in NYC.

Same. The "I told you so" game is kind of wack, but still. People here were talking about Stanford as a lock - lock - to win their league. I said they were an awful team with one of the worst BCS starters I've ever seen (#2, who was shaky as could be, and who we should've pressed against all night) who played well on a night that we played poorly. I truly think they'd finish below Providence and DePaul in our league.

 

[Knicks411]

Same. The "I told you so" game is kind of wack, but still. People here were talking about Stanford as a lock - lock - to win their league. I said they were an awful team with one of the worst BCS starters I've ever seen (#2, who was shaky as could be, and who we should've pressed against all night) who played well on a night that we played poorly. I truly think they'd finish below Providence and DePaul in our league.

Yeah, Stanford and Tulane were a couple of the big ones. Tulane was 11-0 or whatever, but they had the worst schedules in the country. Total paper tiger.

I feel like people were saying Stanford was going to win the league for no other reason than
A) They played us close
B) they played us, so of course they were underrated. It's kind of funny, I am pretty sure if Stanford had played Kentucky close, instead of the refrain being how Stanford was going to win the league, it would've been about how overrated UK was.

 

[OttoMets]

Yeah, Stanford and Tulane were a couple of the big ones. Tulane was 11-0 or whatever, but they had the worst schedules in the country. Total paper tiger.

I feel like people were saying Stanford was going to win the league for no other reason than
A) They played us close
B) they played us, so of course they were underrated. It's kind of funny, I am pretty sure if Stanford had played Kentucky close, instead of the refrain being how Stanford was going to win the league, it would've been about how overrated UK was.

People really wanted to think that Stanford was good. After all, without a spectacular final five minutes by Syracuse, they'd have given us our first loss. If that'd happened, who knows where we'd be right now.

 

[PoppyHart]

I got blasted back in November for saying that we beat two garbage teams in NYC.

I get blasted for saying our schedule is an embarrassment more often than not.

 

[moqui]

I get blasted for saying our schedule is an embarrassment more often than not.

and rightly so, if that was the term you used.

SU's schedule is weaker than it appears on paper, and the strong RPI is a function of knowing how to game the system; those points are correct . Could the schedule have been stronger? Certainly. . . . but it's not an embarrassment. Cincinnati's schedule, for example, is an embarrassment. Syracuse's scheduling was more like a shell game.

 

[PoppyHart]

and rightly so, if that was the term you used.

SU's schedule is weaker than it appears on paper, and the strong RPI is a function of knowing how to game the system; those points are correct . Could the schedule have been stronger? Certainly. . . . but it's not an embarrassment. Cincinnati's schedule, for example, is an embarrassment. Syracuse's scheduling was more like a shell game.

No doubt that Cincy and others play lousy schedules. But those are usually not the teams we aspire to compete against at the beginning of each year. Compared to the traditional powerhouses, we typically fall short (2008-09 being a notable exception) and the system gaming is nothing but lipstick on a pig. Fortunately for the last few years we have not needed any benefit of the doubt due to in-conference superiority.