Conference

[oklahomamick]

What's the head to head between HL and Summit? 

I know we beat our only summit league opponent, IPFW. 

[crusaderjoe]

Possibile conference realignments are an ongoing subject of discussion so I looked back and found our conversations from last March.

I think we reasonably could compete for the MVC championship next season if we were in the MVC. It isn't out of the realm of possibility for this team to be ranked next season. We return everybody but Vashil, that is a big loss but only a single player.

With this team, this year, the MVC could have been in pursuit of us. All of the conference members would already be be watching our games and waiting for their chances. That doesn't mean that we would have emerged as the regular or the tournament champs but we would now be in the top mix of every conversation. So lets not slip up at ISU or here with MSU.

Has anybody been watching the Conference-USA free-fall? They have a lower OOC winning % than the Horizon and are rated 4 or 5 slots weaker by everybody. How long will UAB, Western Kentucky, UTEP and some of the others tolerate this? Are they an organization that might splinter or explode? If so might this create some opportunities?

How long?  For as long as the football money continues to roll in.

[wh]

What's the head to head between HL and Summit? 

I know we beat our only summit league opponent, IPFW. 

Now that statsheet.com has been taken offline, I'm not aware of another site that tracks things like this. In fact, if anyone knows of another good stats website, would you kindly post it?  Thanks!

[talksalot]

The HL site does have each team's results on page two of their stat's page

to answer the question... we are 3-3

Cleveland State - Lost to South Dakota State 77-66
Detroit - Lost at Oral Roberts 100-95
UIC - Lost at Western Illinois 84-57

Milwaukee - Beat Denver 71-58
Valpo - Beat IPFW 78-64
Wright State - Beat South Dakota 77-69

Youngstown State - not played anyone
Green Bay - not played anyone
No Kentucky - not played anyone
Oakland - not played anyone

From the Summit side:
IUPUI - not played any HL team
Nebr-Omaha - not played any HL team
North Dakota State - not played any HL team
===================================

Against MAC Schools... we are 3-9

Cleveland State:  Lost to Akron, Toledo, Kent State
Green Bay:  Beat Akron, Lost to Toledo
Milwaukee:  Beat Central Michigan
Oakland:  Beat Eastern Michigan
Valpo:  Lost to Ball State
Wright State:  Lost at Northern Illinois
Youngstown State:  Lost to Kent State, Toledo, Bowling Green
============================
Against MVC:...so far...
Oakland - lost to Southern Illinois
UIC - Lost to Drake

[agibson]

What's the head to head between HL and Summit? 

I know we beat our only summit league opponent, IPFW. 

Now that statsheet.com has been taken offline, I'm not aware of another site that tracks things like this. In fact, if anyone knows of another good stats website, would you kindly post it?  Thanks!

For generic statistical purposes, I'm not sure.  bbstate.com looks pretty good, but is behind a pretty strict paywall (and, did they get rid of their rankings? or are they just behind the paywall now?).

For the specific question of HL records, the league does keep track of this stuff. They publish it in the weekly releases
http://hln.s3.amazonaws.com/sports/releases/2/release.pdf
(page 5 in this release, from last week)

For the summit, the league has 6 scheduled games, 3-2 so far.

SUMMIT (6/3-2)
Nov. 13 Wright State 77, South Dakota 69
Nov. 13 Milwaukee 71, Denver 58
Nov. 13 Valparaiso 78, IPFW 64
Nov. 17 Western Illinois 84, UIC 57
Nov. 28 Oral Roberts 100, Detroit 95
Dec. 17 South Dakota at Milwaukee

(Funny to see Chicago State in the WAC! And UMKC for that matter.)

[agibson]

And, from John's post, I see that the weekly release is a bit out of sync, missing the Nov 25 SD State vs. CSU game.  It was part of a tournament, maybe the opponent wasn't known in advance?

[talksalot]

or the embarrassment of that loss was too much for the HLN folks... 

yes, it was at the Riviera Mayan Division of the Cancun Challenge game two...Rider played Houston Baptist in the other round-2 game.

[agibson]

or the embarrassment of that loss was too much for the HLN folks... 

I've not checked in with the Summit this season, but some of the directional Dakota type schools have had good seasons, right? Wouldn't _have_ to be an embarrassing loss.

[vu72]

or the embarrassment of that loss was too much for the HLN folks... 

I've not checked in with the Summit this season, but some of the directional Dakota type schools have had good seasons, right? Wouldn't _have_ to be an embarrassing loss.

Right now I would think the Summit would be feeling embarrassed if they lost to a Horizon team.  In the Sagarin's, The Horizon is raked 19th while the summit is 16th.  They have two teams with losing D1 records, Omaha at 3-4 and IUPUI at 2-6.  IUPUI is their lowest ranked team at 233, while the Horizon has two in the 300's. NKU at 306 and UIC at 336!  Without Valpo (ranked 42nd today), the Horizon would be god awful.

[a3uge]

One of the biggest issues with the Horizon has been its OOC scheduling. Simply put, teams in the Horizon are over-scheduling. Oral Roberts has the lowest SOS in the Summit at 115. The Horizon has 4 teams lower than that - Valpo (48), Detroit (13), CSU (10), and NKU (110). The Horizon is 5th in projected OOC SOS. The Summit is 31st. The MAC is at 27th. I can't advocate having horrific schedules like the MAC last year (as the ceiling seed will always be a 12), but there's way too many teams finishing below .500 in the Horizon. Oakland finished below .500 last year, and they were a top 5 team in the league last year. That's just completely unacceptable.

The other big issue with the Horizon has been coaching talent, as WH alluded to. Howard Moore and Jerry Slocum have been dragging the Horizon down for years. Fortunately, Moore is gone, but YSU still is content with having a horrible basketball team. NKU probably has the most promising coach (outside of Bryce Drew), but Brannen is a couple years out from making them respectable. Maybe Darner will be a good coach with UWGB, but they're in rebuilding mode right now. The rest of the league has some pretty stagnant coaching without much tournament experience.

[justducky]

One of the biggest issues with the Horizon has been its OOC scheduling. Simply put, teams in the Horizon are over-scheduling.

Yeeees but, Oakland's over-scheduling might yet pay some dividends. They look to just now look be rounding into shape and will add Martez Walker shortly at semester break. If Kampe can control this bunch off the floor and Felder can control them on it then look out because they could still do some OOC damage.

Ok I will agree that YSU should not be finishing out their OOC schedule with games at Michigan, Notre Dame, and Purdue so I propose we swap with them for 3 of our remaining non-conference contests. I mean surely it was some kind of honest mistake that led those 3 schools to pick a bottom 35 preseason team over a willing preseason top 35 alternative!

UIC does look awful, and NKU as well, but some of the others could shortly start turning things around. At least that is my hope.

[a3uge]

One of the biggest issues with the Horizon has been its OOC scheduling. Simply put, teams in the Horizon are over-scheduling.

Yeeees but, Oakland's over-scheduling might yet pay some dividends. They look to just now look be rounding into shape and will add Martez Walker shortly at semester break. If Kampe can control this bunch off the floor and Felder can control them on it then look out because they could still do some OOC damage.

Ok I will agree that YSU should not be finishing out their OOC schedule with games at Michigan, Notre Dame, and Purdue so I propose we swap with them for 3 of our remaining non-conference contests. I mean surely it was some kind of honest mistake that led those 3 schools to pick a bottom 35 preseason team over a willing preseason top 35 alternative!

UIC does look awful, and NKU as well, but some of the others could shortly start turning things around. At least that is my hope.

Oakland was down with under 10 min to go against Binghamton tonight. They don't have a win against teams that are above .500 so I think it remains to be seen if they're rounding into shape.

[justducky]

Oakland was down with under 10 min to go against Binghamton tonight.

Yes I watched it too and what I fear from Oakland is when they decided to take control of the game it was quickly over.

They don't have a win against teams that are above .500 so I think it remains to be seen if they're rounding into shape.

Maybe but with that many new talents it could take some time. Kampe is also playing a deeper than normal bench before Walker even suits up. My biggest fear is that everything for them will finally come perfectly together just in time for the Horizon League season but add no significant victories from OOC. That would be very Kampe-like and would reward the rest of the HL with the worst of both worlds.

[oklahomamick]

WSU lost to Xavier by 35.

[wh]

WSU lost to Xavier by 35.

The bottom half of the league is now 3-25 against D-1 opponents. Has it ever been this bad?

[VULB#62]

Watched on FS1 and for the first 5 minutes thought WSU was gonna be a real problem for us in terms of match ups.  BUT....  They wound up not being able to spit in the ocean all game. Their best guard had 4 fouls in the first half.  Xavier was legit. Excellent crowd in Cinncy for a midweek game too.

[oklahomamick]

Does anyone know if Oregon or Oregon St. paid us to play them?  Xavier paid WSU last night $90K.  Everyone knows about Oakland and prostitution ways.......Looking at our schedule, I don't think we are getting a pay day anywhere??? 

[SanityLost17]

Lewis and Grady transfer out of CSU...  They would have been REALLY good this year.
Paris Bass with a 7 game suspension... Probably costs at least a few wins for them.
Wardle taking another job in the off season...  I think their new coach is going to be really good, but the 1st year in a new system is always hard. 
I think we take care of Ball State if we are fully healthy...
Adding NKU in a complete rebuilding year instead of waiting until they proved they could have success.   

Things happen.  Just need to do the best we can and hope next year will be better.  NKU and UIC have good recruiting classes coming in.  CSU is usually pretty consistent and should be better next year.  The top teams from this year should still be pretty successful next year.  I think WSU is pretty young this year?  Hopefully this is more of an anomaly and not a downward trend.  We shall see. 

[oklahomamick]

This shows conference wins and loses against rpi teams. 

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/bracketology/conference/breakdown/2015/HORIZ/horizon-league

[agibson]

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/bracketology/conference/breakdown/2015/HORIZ/horizon-league

Nice summary.  On a related noted, somebody passed me a link to an ESPN page showing Valpo's "team sheet".  Something similar to the team sheets Whelliston's site (bbstate.com) used to have available, maybe still does behind the paywall, that replicated the sheets used in the NCAA selection process.

Focusing on wins and losses against the top X RPI, the A-B RPI, etc.

Anybody know the link path at ESPN to get to those?  Their redesigned website somewhat befuddles me.

[ValpoHoops]

Full ESPN RPI Rankings (Click a team for their "team sheet"): http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/rpi


Direct link to Valpo team sheet: http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/rpi/_/teamId/2674

[agibson]

Full ESPN RPI Rankings (Click a team for their "team sheet"): http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/rpi


Direct link to Valpo team sheet: http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/rpi/_/teamId/2674

Thanks!  And I see now that it is linked from their "rankings" page.

Some of it looks a little unfamiliar.  Maybe the RPI ranges they show are more top-heavy than the NCAA version?

I don't remember scoring margin, and this "Non-Conf. RPI" seems confusing (maybe that's just the first term, your W/L, in the non-conf? otherwise how can it be 72 when our RPI is 2?).

But a nice format, in any case.

bbstate's version might still sometimes be available at
http://bbstate.com/teams/VALP/sheet

but the whole site seems to be down at the moment.

[IndyValpo]

http://www.kansas.com/sports/college/wichita-state/article48764335.html

Interesting article on Wichita State

[oklahomamick]

http://www.kansas.com/sports/college/wichita-state/article48764335.html Interesting article on Wichita State

From the above article:

When Bardo looks at his university, he sees more in common with former MVC members suchs  as Louisville, Memphis, Houston and Cincinnati than he does with Indiana State and Northern Iowa.  When he looks at his city, he sees a situation much different from Terre Haute and or Cedar Falls. 

Maybe he sees more in common with cities like Milwaukee, Cleveland, Detroit, Green Bay, Dayton.  Come on over! 

[VULB#62]

Based on UWM's and Oakland's recent successes going into January, it looks to me that there will be a battle among VU and those guys for the HL regular season title. The tourney is another story being in Detroit.

Am I being too cautious?