A serious question. Who did crean have to get on his knees for to get that easy of schedule at the beginning of B1G play?? They are at the top of the conference because of it...
IUs easy schedule
- Thread starter Flyinhawaiian98
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I can't tell you how much I wish you were right..... but I would bet anything you want that there aren't 8 losses in that schedule!!
We had a pretty easy schedule last year, so I won't complain about IU's schedule this year. What I will complain about is that we don't have a home/away game with every team in the B1G like it used to be. We just have too many teams to do that now and that sucks and will unfortunately always lead to unbalanced schedules.
Our schedule hasn't been that tough to date either. Not as easy as theirs but I will give them props for taking care of business to date. I don't think they'll hold up when they start having to play the better teams but remember that on any given night they can light it up and beat anyone or struggle and lose to most any decent team.
With so many teams, the unbalanced conference schedules have the potential to cause a pretty sizable imbalance in the strength of said schedules. As you said, last year Purdue had an easier row to hoe than this year. I actually tried to search for a site that would show me just B1G conference SOS for the past few years to see if Purdue is more regularly closer to one end of the scale than others, but couldn't find anything. Anybody know of a site that shows this?
Purdue's this season hasn't really been that difficult and really only Iowa in January is a team they should have struggled with. In February, Purdue will play MSU, Maryland (x2), IU, Michigan, and Northwestern. That means in February, Purdue is more than likely playing the other top 3-4 teams in the conference besides themselves. I would say our first half of the schedule is pretty easy as its packed with Nebraska, Minnesota, Illinois, PSU, Rutgers, and an injury riddled Michigan team. I wouldn't really classify that as much different than that of IU's IMO.
At Illinois is always tough. They will win plenty off games at home. Michigan is plenty good without Levert (see Maryland). At Wisconsin is tough. They've lost 4 league games by 6 or less. We beat them far easier than My and IU for instance. I think we've played a tough stretch (minus PSU).
The "easy" schedule for last year is a misnomer. From ESPN RPI:
Conference SOS:
MSU - 7th
Nebraska - 13
Northwestern - 20
Indiana - 24
Michigan - 28
Penn State - 29
Rutgers - 30
Purdue - 31
Iowa - 36
Minnesota - 43
Ohio State - 47
Wisconsin - 66
Maryland - 69
Illinois - 71
Purdue's schedule was middle of the pack and significantly more difficult than B1G leaders Wisconsin and Maryland.
Just to be clear, I was talking about conference-only SOS. I'm pretty sure what you posted was the entire season (because I found that too).
Ah, gotcha. I was on that page the other day and I didn't think it was showing what I was wanting because the page kept resetting every time I tried to use the filter and sort options.
Looking at it again, I'm still not 100% certain it's showing what I wanted. "CFSS" is still a sorting of ALL teams and ranking them based on their relative CFSS. But the rankings themselves are still global numbers. For example: Purdue had the 31st hardest CFSS whereas Creighton had the 32nd hardest. If you were to remove all other conferences from the equation, the order that you posted above would still be correct, but I'm questioning whether the SOS numbers themselves would be changed. As it would then be a calculation of SOS relative to only these 14 teams and not factoring in the other 337. And that is what I was hunting.
I would actually kind of enjoy that and I am guessing that most B1G teams would end up being in the top 30 of the RPI and SOS. It could mean a paradigm shift in the college basketball world. A conference could easily shift to 15-16 teams and only play within your conference and make the conference regular season title a lot more challenging AND important.
While I love your idea. It isn't going to ever happen. No way coaches are going to "risk" their season on that many tough games. They need the cupcakes to pad the record.
Now, if it was mandated by the NCAA that every conference had to do that, that might work. Not going to happen, but as a fan of college basketball give me as many 'meaningful" games as possible!
It's less about that than it is about giving up home game revenue. Purdue has 19 home games this year. If the B1G went to a round robin schedule, that number would be reduced to a maximum of 16 as the NCAA currently has a 29 game limit unless you play in an exempt tournament, which doesn't help the need for home dates. You'd also probably never see home and homes with other non-conference power five teams for that reason as well.
Ya, but there might also be more sellouts if we played conference games at Mackey before Christmas break.
I don't know... it's an interesting idea. I do find it strange that 40% (or more) of the basketball season is non-conference, whereas in football it's about to be reduced to 25%.
I don't know... it's an interesting idea. I do find it strange that 40% (or more) of the basketball season is non-conference, whereas in football it's about to be reduced to 25%.
That's somewhat skewed since they were the best teams & couldn't play themselves.
I wouldn't say skewed. I'd say reality. Wisconsin benefited greatly from not having to play Wisconsin (although I think they could've had them scouted pretty well).
Agree that the ad's and presidents would look at that. But the coaches don't care about that. They are focused on wins and losses and that plan would for sure mean more losses than what we currently have. For that reason the coaches would fight that idea tooth and nail.
Didn't know about the max 29 game rule or the 27 + a four game tourney rule for a maximum of 31 total. Not really sure where they came up with that exact number but I'm guessing it is to ensure teams aren't playing back to back games like they do in the NBA. If the NCAA increased that total to 35 without tourney's and possibly 33 with them, I think it could be an interesting discussion as it would allow teams in the B1G to have 8 non-conference games and a total of 18-22 homes games depending on non-conference schedules. It would also give more lower level D1 schools the chances for higher paydays for their departments.
When you only play MSU, Maryland, Wisky only once it is a pretty beneficial schedule. That is what PU had last year.....IU is similar to that this year.
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