Opponents Non Conference Schedule

[HC]

If this reporter is accurate looks like CSU will get a home game against Ohio State, http://ohiostate.247sports.com/Bolt/OSU-Basketball-Schedule-Coming-Into-Focus-29343469

[motowntitan]

Detroit released it's non-con schedule:

http://www.detroittitans.com/schedule.aspx?path=mbball

Highlights include:
2 first round games in Legends Classic (Mich, Villanova, VCU, Oregon) - I think playing two of those teams.
2 sub regional Legends Classic  (Bucknell, Detroit, Florida Atlantic and Toledo)
South Florida @ Detroit
Wichita State @ Detroit
@ Central Florida
@ Rhode Island
@ Arizona State
Oral Roberts @ Detroit
Maybe Belmont game?

Lowlights- Rochester College (non-exhibition); South Alabama (11-20 last year); Bowling Green (12-20 last year)

[LaPorteAveApostle]

That's pretty great, UDM--we'd be happy to have something that looks like that.

I can only hope WH totals everyone's "points" again this year.

[vu72]

Very attractive non schedule titan.  Now, win a bunch of those!

[wh]

Unless someone knows differently, to my knowledge the HL still hasn't established its own OOC scheduling parameters. Until it does I'll continue to use the A-10's scoring system.

[valpopal]

Greg Kampe informs about the following out-of-conference schedule for Oakland: Away - MSU, Arizona, Maryland, Clemson, Iowa State, Pitt, Morehead State, Eastern Michigan; Home - Western Michigan, Western Carolina, Chicago State, Georgia State, Toledo, and 2 non d-1's

[historyman]

Greg Kampe informs about the following out-of-conference schedule for Oakland: Away - MSU, Arizona, Maryland, Clemson, Iowa State, Pitt, Morehead State, Eastern Michigan; Home - Western Michigan, Western Carolina, Chicago State, Georgia State, Toledo, and 2 non d-1's

For a program that said they were going to cut back on their non-conference power teams scheduling it doesn't seem like Kampe can resist when the big boys come calling. The pay days must be huge. This coming season's non-conference scheduling for Oakland seems slightly, if at all, easier than last season.

[valporun]

Are any of the top non-conference away games neutral court/arena tournaments, or are most of them pay days on the home courts of these schools?

[Big D]

Unless someone knows differently, to my knowledge the HL still hasn't established its own OOC scheduling parameters. Until it does I'll continue to use the A-10's scoring system.

You are comparing apples to oranges the way you are applying the A-10's scoring system to the HL.  The A-10 does not allow it's members to schedule non-D1 games unless they have no control of it (ex: having to play a non-D1 team that is part of a MTE) and they are not allowed to play buy games on the road vs. BCS schools.   Almost all of the BCS teams HL members are playing are buy games on the road.  Historically, home teams win 71% of games played.  The A-10 is smart enough to know that it isn't worth playing BCS teams unless they get return games even if it is a 2 for 1. 

[wh]

In the recent past every HL team has been scheduling a comparable number of non D-1 teams.  So, although this may be apples to oranges from the A-10, its still apples to apples within the Horizon.  The only HL team where the A-10 point system doesn't have any meaning is Oakland, who as you indicate sells their soul annually for 30 pieces of silver.  At a minimum it should shine a light on those HL teams that assemble weak D-1 schedules (and do the league a disservice in the process). 

[Big D]

WH,
If you look at the A-10 and MVC's scheduling guidelines, they have a few similarities in common that greatly affect each team's RPI and their conference's RPI.  They try to play an all D1 schedule.  They don't want their teams to play buy games on the road.  They want their teams to play >50% of their OOC games at home.  They do that because they know that you always have a better chance at winning at home than you do on the road and only D1 teams count into the RPI equation.  RPI and conference RPI is all about winning percentages.  SOS is really blown out of proportion by fans.  It's all about winning games against D1 teams that are calculated into your RPI.

RPI is 25% your winning percentage, 50% your opponent's winning percentage, and 25% your opponent's opponent's winning percentage.  So 25% is how you do and 75% is based on how your opponents do.  The MVC and A-10 have figured out that 2/3 of that 75% number is made up of conference games.  So everyone in the conference needs to have a pretty darn good OOC record if the conference and each individual member is going to have a good RPI.   Oakland's 3-10 OOC record and UIC's 3-9 OOC record were anchors to the HL last year. 

The HL finished ranked 14th last year as a conference.  We had the 13th rated SOS, but we finished with an OOC record of 51-60 vs. D1 teams.  The 6 conferences that finished directly in front of the HL all played weaker schedules than us, but had higher winning percentages, resulting in them finishing rated higher than us.

Conference RPI, D1 OOC record, SOS
8 American Athletic Conference 88-35 , 26 
9 West Coast Conference 71-41 , 15 
10 Mountain West Conference 76-46 , 16 
11 Missouri Valley Conference 64-49, 20
12 Mid American Conference 72-59 , 19 
13 Conference USA 105-97 , 22
14 Horizon League  51-60 , 13

Every team in the HL needs to start playing an all D1 schedule.  We could have had 16-18 more D1 victories to add into the equation if we all would have played a few low majors at home and picked up an easy W instead of beating up on D2 and NAIA teams that didn't count into the equation. 
 
Every team in the HL needs to start scheduling games against teams they can beat.  If you can beat BCS schools great, but if you can't you at least need to be scheduling and winning games that can help the rest of the conference.   I have said in the past and I will repeat it here again, I don't like the way my team scheduled last year.  The HL needs to come up with a true scheduling model to prevent teams from scheduling like my team did or the way Oakland continues to schedule.   If we want to take the next step as a conference we need to find a happy medium that makes sense for the conference.

[wh]

All good points.  If only the HL would implement its own scheduling policy, we could put this whole discussion to bed.

[LaPorteAveApostle]

Historically, home teams win 71% of games played.

I didn't think that seemed right...it IS one of the highest in sport, but it's a few points lower, depending on whom you ask.

They report that the sport with the most extreme home-field advantage is Major League Soccer in the United States, where between 2002 and 2009, home teams won 69.1 percent of the time.

Nearly as lopsided is NCAA men's basketball, where home teams won 68.8 percent of the contests between 1947 and 2009. In college football, between 1869 and 2009, the home team had a winning percentage of 63 percent.

http://news.discovery.com/human/why-does-home-field-advantage-matter-131004.htm

The midpoint of the current 349 home court winning percentages is 67.48%

That's median, not mean.
http://rpiratings.com/homecourtrec.php

FUN FACT:  we're 135 in the country, winning over 70.3% of the time.

The road winning percentage in major men's college basketball is .340

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB123612655303924107
Later in the same article

One old theory is that this figure is skewed by all the games early in the year where the prominent schools invite weak opponents to their arenas, only to flog them. But even if one discards that portion of the season and counts only intraconference play, the resulting .380 road-winning figure is still below every other major U.S. team sport.

[a3uge]

WH,
If you look at the A-10 and MVC's scheduling guidelines, they have a few similarities in common that greatly affect each team's RPI and their conference's RPI.  They try to play an all D1 schedule.  They don't want their teams to play buy games on the road.  They want their teams to play >50% of their OOC games at home.  They do that because they know that you always have a better chance at winning at home than you do on the road and only D1 teams count into the RPI equation.  RPI and conference RPI is all about winning percentages.  SOS is really blown out of proportion by fans.  It's all about winning games against D1 teams that are calculated into your RPI.

RPI is 25% your winning percentage, 50% your opponent's winning percentage, and 25% your opponent's opponent's winning percentage.  So 25% is how you do and 75% is based on how your opponents do.  The MVC and A-10 have figured out that 2/3 of that 75% number is made up of conference games.  So everyone in the conference needs to have a pretty darn good OOC record if the conference and each individual member is going to have a good RPI.   Oakland's 3-10 OOC record and UIC's 3-9 OOC record were anchors to the HL last year. 

The HL finished ranked 14th last year as a conference.  We had the 13th rated SOS, but we finished with an OOC record of 51-60 vs. D1 teams.  The 6 conferences that finished directly in front of the HL all played weaker schedules than us, but had higher winning percentages, resulting in them finishing rated higher than us.

Conference RPI, D1 OOC record, SOS
8 American Athletic Conference 88-35 , 26 
9 West Coast Conference 71-41 , 15 
10 Mountain West Conference 76-46 , 16 
11 Missouri Valley Conference 64-49, 20
12 Mid American Conference 72-59 , 19 
13 Conference USA 105-97 , 22
14 Horizon League  51-60 , 13

Every team in the HL needs to start playing an all D1 schedule.  We could have had 16-18 more D1 victories to add into the equation if we all would have played a few low majors at home and picked up an easy W instead of beating up on D2 and NAIA teams that didn't count into the equation. 
 
Every team in the HL needs to start scheduling games against teams they can beat.  If you can beat BCS schools great, but if you can't you at least need to be scheduling and winning games that can help the rest of the conference.   I have said in the past and I will repeat it here again, I don't like the way my team scheduled last year.  The HL needs to come up with a true scheduling model to prevent teams from scheduling like my team did or the way Oakland continues to schedule.   If we want to take the next step as a conference we need to find a happy medium that makes sense for the conference.

Broken record, over and over again. Scheduling teams like North Carolina A&T is actually worse for your RPI than not scheduling anyone (or a D2 team). Beating horrible teams actually worsens your RPI. Losing to BCS teams actually improves your RPI. Scheduling D2 teams is better than scheduling MEAC and NEC teams.

[wh]

WH,
If you look at the A-10 and MVC's scheduling guidelines, they have a few similarities in common that greatly affect each team's RPI and their conference's RPI.  They try to play an all D1 schedule.  They don't want their teams to play buy games on the road.  They want their teams to play >50% of their OOC games at home.  They do that because they know that you always have a better chance at winning at home than you do on the road and only D1 teams count into the RPI equation.  RPI and conference RPI is all about winning percentages.  SOS is really blown out of proportion by fans.  It's all about winning games against D1 teams that are calculated into your RPI.

RPI is 25% your winning percentage, 50% your opponent's winning percentage, and 25% your opponent's opponent's winning percentage.  So 25% is how you do and 75% is based on how your opponents do.  The MVC and A-10 have figured out that 2/3 of that 75% number is made up of conference games.  So everyone in the conference needs to have a pretty darn good OOC record if the conference and each individual member is going to have a good RPI.   Oakland's 3-10 OOC record and UIC's 3-9 OOC record were anchors to the HL last year. 

The HL finished ranked 14th last year as a conference.  We had the 13th rated SOS, but we finished with an OOC record of 51-60 vs. D1 teams.  The 6 conferences that finished directly in front of the HL all played weaker schedules than us, but had higher winning percentages, resulting in them finishing rated higher than us.

Conference RPI, D1 OOC record, SOS
8 American Athletic Conference 88-35 , 26 
9 West Coast Conference 71-41 , 15 
10 Mountain West Conference 76-46 , 16 
11 Missouri Valley Conference 64-49, 20
12 Mid American Conference 72-59 , 19 
13 Conference USA 105-97 , 22
14 Horizon League  51-60 , 13

Every team in the HL needs to start playing an all D1 schedule.  We could have had 16-18 more D1 victories to add into the equation if we all would have played a few low majors at home and picked up an easy W instead of beating up on D2 and NAIA teams that didn't count into the equation. 
 
Every team in the HL needs to start scheduling games against teams they can beat.  If you can beat BCS schools great, but if you can't you at least need to be scheduling and winning games that can help the rest of the conference.   I have said in the past and I will repeat it here again, I don't like the way my team scheduled last year.  The HL needs to come up with a true scheduling model to prevent teams from scheduling like my team did or the way Oakland continues to schedule.   If we want to take the next step as a conference we need to find a happy medium that makes sense for the conference.

Broken record, over and over again. Scheduling teams like North Carolina A&T is actually worse for your RPI than not scheduling anyone (or a D2 team). Beating horrible teams actually worsens your RPI. Losing to BCS teams actually improves your RPI. Scheduling D2 teams is better than scheduling MEAC and NEC teams.

a3uge,

Take a look at the following article by Kirk Wessler, Executive Sports Editor of the Peoria Journal Star. It validates many of Big D's points: 

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20140707/Sports/140709371

The only inconsistency I see is that Big D said that the MVC tries to play an all D-1 schedule, whereas Wessler indicates that they are trending away from that.  Even then, like Big D, Wessler contends that playing non D-1's represents a lost opportunity for more OOC wins for the conference.  In every other respect, Big D's and Wessler's contentions pretty much mirror each other. 

[a3uge]

WH,
If you look at the A-10 and MVC's scheduling guidelines, they have a few similarities in common that greatly affect each team's RPI and their conference's RPI.  They try to play an all D1 schedule.  They don't want their teams to play buy games on the road.  They want their teams to play >50% of their OOC games at home.  They do that because they know that you always have a better chance at winning at home than you do on the road and only D1 teams count into the RPI equation.  RPI and conference RPI is all about winning percentages.  SOS is really blown out of proportion by fans.  It's all about winning games against D1 teams that are calculated into your RPI.

RPI is 25% your winning percentage, 50% your opponent's winning percentage, and 25% your opponent's opponent's winning percentage.  So 25% is how you do and 75% is based on how your opponents do.  The MVC and A-10 have figured out that 2/3 of that 75% number is made up of conference games.  So everyone in the conference needs to have a pretty darn good OOC record if the conference and each individual member is going to have a good RPI.   Oakland's 3-10 OOC record and UIC's 3-9 OOC record were anchors to the HL last year. 

The HL finished ranked 14th last year as a conference.  We had the 13th rated SOS, but we finished with an OOC record of 51-60 vs. D1 teams.  The 6 conferences that finished directly in front of the HL all played weaker schedules than us, but had higher winning percentages, resulting in them finishing rated higher than us.

Conference RPI, D1 OOC record, SOS
8 American Athletic Conference 88-35 , 26 
9 West Coast Conference 71-41 , 15 
10 Mountain West Conference 76-46 , 16 
11 Missouri Valley Conference 64-49, 20
12 Mid American Conference 72-59 , 19 
13 Conference USA 105-97 , 22
14 Horizon League  51-60 , 13

Every team in the HL needs to start playing an all D1 schedule.  We could have had 16-18 more D1 victories to add into the equation if we all would have played a few low majors at home and picked up an easy W instead of beating up on D2 and NAIA teams that didn't count into the equation. 
 
Every team in the HL needs to start scheduling games against teams they can beat.  If you can beat BCS schools great, but if you can't you at least need to be scheduling and winning games that can help the rest of the conference.   I have said in the past and I will repeat it here again, I don't like the way my team scheduled last year.  The HL needs to come up with a true scheduling model to prevent teams from scheduling like my team did or the way Oakland continues to schedule.   If we want to take the next step as a conference we need to find a happy medium that makes sense for the conference.

Broken record, over and over again. Scheduling teams like North Carolina A&T is actually worse for your RPI than not scheduling anyone (or a D2 team). Beating horrible teams actually worsens your RPI. Losing to BCS teams actually improves your RPI. Scheduling D2 teams is better than scheduling MEAC and NEC teams.

a3uge,

Take a look at the following article by Kirk Wessler, Executive Sports Editor of the Peoria Journal Star. It validates many of Big D's points: 

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20140707/Sports/140709371

The only inconsistency I see is that Big D said that the MVC tries to play an all D-1 schedule, whereas Wessler indicates that they are trending away from that.  Even then, like Big D, Wessler contends that playing non D-1's represents a lost opportunity for more OOC wins for the conference.  In every other respect, Big D's and Wessler's contentions pretty much mirror each other.

"Palm says playing a low-DI opponent will negatively affect a team's RPI rank by only 5-10 spots, and he argues that's of negligible importance when the NCAA tournament committee compares teams."

The article even states that scheduling very low D1 teams negatively impact your RPI. Jerry Palm goes on to recommend scheduling the best team that your team can beat. Duh. But its not like when Valpo is scheduling they're deciding, hmm, should we schedule Belmont, or should we schedule Greendale Community College? They do have the power, however, to replace a crappy NC A&T team with a D2 team, because this will negatively impact RPI even if its a win, and cause a big RPI hit and absolute embarrassment in a loss. There's simply very little gain from playing a 300 RPI team (a team that will end with a horrible W/L percentage).

Last year Valpo finished at .500 in the regular season and Oakland finished 11-20. Oakland had a better RPI. Now Oakland no chance of breaking into the top 100 RPI, but if we're simply talking about RPI, the majority of the calculation is essentially SOS. Wright State's strategy of scheduling crappy teams like NC A&T instead of D2 teams didn't work out so well. They finished the regular season 18-14 and teams with below .500 RPIs like Long Beach State and High Point finished with better RPIs.

I will say that there's probably no secret formula to magically fix the conference through scheduling. Wright State was projected top 2 in conference and had a disappointing season. The projected top 2 teams should at least finish top 100 RPI. If you're a decent team, you should be able to beat NC A&T with your bench players. Green Bay should have been able to beat a .500 level in conference team at home. And of course Valpo should be able to properly box out at the end of the game instead of watching the opportunity to beat a round-of-32 team go down the drain. Also, how is Jerry Slocum still a D1 head coach?

These sort of things are far more outrageous than the composition of a teams schedule. Eventually it just comes down to winning the games you're supposed to, not necessarily scheduling the games you're supposed to.

[Big D]

Broken record, over and over again. Scheduling teams like North Carolina A&T is actually worse for your RPI than not scheduling anyone (or a D2 team). Beating horrible teams actually worsens your RPI. Losing to BCS teams actually improves your RPI. Scheduling D2 teams is better than scheduling MEAC and NEC teams.

That simply is not true especially if you apply the effect it has across the whole conference if everyone does it.  If every team in the HL played 10 OOC games vs. the 10 worst D1 teams and went 10-0 vs. them everyone in the HL would have a high RPI and the conference would have a high RPI.   RPI is 25% your winning percentage, 50% your opponent's winning percentage, and 25% your opponent's opponent's winning percentage.  So 25% would be your 10-0 record.  Out of the middle 50%, 2/3 of that would be the rest of the HL's winning %.  Only 1/3 of that would be those 10 bottom feeders you beat.  Out of the final 25%, 2/3 once again is made of the HL and 1/3 would be those 10 bottom feeders. 

Look at the American Athletic Conference last year.  They finished as the 8th rated conference last year and got 4 teams into the NCAAs.  They had an 88-35 OOC record vs. a very poor OOC schedule that was ranked 26th overall.  Because everyone in that conference did so well in their OOC schedule they all finished with high RPIs and even a high overall SOS because the games they played in conference raised their individual SOS.   

RPI, Overall record,  overall SOS,  OOC SOS
20  Louisville    29-5,  79  , 149
21  Cincinnati  27-6  , 68 ,  95
22  Connecticut  26-8 , 32 , 78
36  Memphis  22-9  ,  41 , 55 
55 South. Methodist   23-9 , 113 ,  295
143 Houston 17-16  120 ,  342
177  Temple  9-22,  44   ,  45
197  Rutgers  11-21  , 64   , 131
218  UCF  11-18  , 112 ,  344
230  South Florida  12-20  , 137  , 322

I'm not advocating everyone in the HL schedule the 10 worst D1 teams they can play to pick up wins.  I was using that example to try to prove the math.  As I mentioned in my last post, everyone needs to play as many D1 games as they can and schedule teams they have a reasonable chance at beating.  More D1 wins helps your team and it helps everyone else in the conference too.   

[Pathfinder]

The article even states that scheduling very low D1 teams negatively impact your RPI.

But here's the key part from a conference standpoint:
"'You're probably better off with a non-DI for your own sake, but if you are in a conference, you're doing a disservice to the members. You're taking a win away from the record, which carries over to everyone.'"
[/size]
[/size]Yes, an individual team will do better getting pounded by Kentucky on the road than beating a MEAC club at home (especially because the RPI awards a big bonus for road games - but only in determining a team's own W-L %, not for opponents' W-L), but it harms everyone else in the conference. If Oakland goes 3-10 against their killer non-conference schedule, they may have a higher RPI than going 8-5 against weaker competition, but in all 16 of their conference games they'll be dragging down the RPI of their conference opponent. So the league as a whole will benefit if everyone schedules winnable games. Yes, you need some good wins. You can't play all MEAC and SWAC teams with the occasional Summit squad thrown in. You need to schedule good mid-majors and try to get some high majors on the schedule (At one time the A-10 required their teams to participate in exempt tournaments, and that's usually a good way to get some high majors on the schedule, in some cases on neutral courts.) But Oakland's SOS does nothing to help the league unless they start winning those games.
[/size]
[/size]I don't know how the Crusaders' final schedule will look, but I really like the first 5 games we know (or probably know) of: Murray State, Drake and Portland are respectable mid-majors on a neutral floor; assuming Eastern Kentucky as a bracket busters return, the Colonels are another good major, on the road. All 4 games are winnable. The 5th is New Mexico, a power team but one that is beatable in the ARC.

[valpopal]

Greg Kampe commenting on his team's non-conference schedule:

"I always think you play as hard of a schedule as you can because it makes you better," Kampe said. "One of the things I thought last year was that we needed to back down (our schedule) a little bit this year because the Horizon League is a lot tougher. It is harder to get wins in the Horizon League than it was in the Summit. I felt having gone through that last year, I thought we should back the schedule down, but I really didn't do it. I don't know why I didn't do it. I want this type of schedule and the players want this type of schedule. The administrators didn't really want to back the schedule down either. They like that we are recognized as a team that will play anyone, anywhere. Also, we make money doing it, which helps."

Full article: http://www.theoaklandpress.com/sports/20140806/oakland-men-facing-another-tough-schedule-in-2014-15

[LaPorteAveApostle]

Translation:  Changing your habits is hard, n' stuff.

[Pathfinder]

Translation: It's the money.

[valpo64]

It's the $$ for sure and the opportunity for King Kampe to say look at what I do...no lack of ego with him!

[VULB#62]

Also good that he gets a pass by the OU administration for all those losses.

[Big D]

The HL really needs to come out with a scheduling mandate and hold schools accountable.  If all 9 HL teams scheduled as irresponsibly as Oakland, we would be ranked between 25-30 as a conference instead of being ranked between 11-14 regularly.   YSU promised the HL they would put more of their funding into basketball prior to their invite to the HL.  They never followed through.  Oakland promised to tone down their scheduling and now they are backing out of that agreement.  I'm sick of this BS from new members.  We don't need members that aren't willing to do what is in the best interest of the entire conference.  The HL needs to establish a league wide scheduling policy.  Don't follow our scheduling policy 1 year, you get a pass.  Second offense results in you loosing your share of the HL's NCAA tournament money.  3rd offense and you aren't eligible for the league tournament that year.  4th offense and the HL can choose to kick you out of the conference.   

[LaPorteAveApostle]

I actually don't disagree with Big D for once.

In fact, I pretty much agree (although I may not go all the way with him on this sentence: "We don't need members that aren't willing to do what is in the best interest of the entire conference", as I think schools deserve some kind of autonomy even within a conference.  Not an ND-like amount, mind you.).  I think this is a pretty great idea.  All right, fine, I'll say it:  I agree with Big D.

I...I'm gonna go lie down for a bit.