rlh04d wrote:Why do you need home and hoome games with top 25 programs?
WSU can't even get home and home games with top 25 programs. Neutral site with Memphis is about the best we're doing at the moment.
Bradley isn't even close to being a top 25 team, so I don't understand why you'd want to play a top 25 program. What's the point of getting crushed by a team on the road significantly better than your team? If the issue is SOS, schedule teams hovering around the 100 mark home/home. Those are teams that would improve the SOS and offer a realitsic shot at a victory.
Maybe you have more of a shot at being on TV against a K-State, but again, the chance for victory is remote, so I don't see how the loss on TV helps much.
I don't buy the "whoring" argument, but I do believe in scheduling intelligently. Schedule teams that offer a realistic chance at victory ... if you think the team has a realistic shot at beating a top team on the road, then sure, take the buy game and go win it. But if you're taking a buy game for a 5% chance at a victory, and then you're still scheduling 250+ RPI teams, all you're doing is scheduling a loss and making sure the RPI benefit is irrelevant. Look at what WSU's doing: rather than taking buy games on the road to get top opponents, they're stacking the schedule with solid teams with realistic shots at the tournament. WSU actually has a realistic shot at winning road buy games, unlike the rest of the MVC, but isn't taking them, and is instead taking teams that most MVC teams CAN schedule. Probably not as buy games as some of ours have been, but they could still be scheduled home/home.
WSU didn't have a single marquee nonconference opponent last year, but still ended up with the #28 noncon SOS and wins over four tournament teams, and of the other teams, #1 CUSA, #2 Sun Belt, #3 Colonial, #1 Southern, and only one flat out bad team (Tennessee State).
That's the blueprint for MVC teams to follow, not buy games against teams they can't beat. Schedule teams that are consistently in the top 100-200 RPI range. Try to get a few top 100 home/home games against smaller teams, and buy really small teams that tend to sit around 200.
Neutral site games with top 25 teams aren't easy either. I very much doubt the Maui Invitational would return our phone call. So the only way to get chances at top 25 opponents is a buy game. Why do I want to play them? Because this is a program in need of a splash, and those games provide that opportunity. And the SOS benefit. Even with a loss the SOS is helped considerably, and that has standings tiebreaker implications.
I am jealous of other MVC programs signing VCU to home and homes but I don't think our failure to put them on the schedule is due to lack of effort on our ADs part. As for money, we have the second highest budget in the conference by a wide margin, so again all signs point to recent performance as the culprit. We did just announce we're bringing Robert Morris (125 RPI last year) in for a buy game which I assume cost a little more. It's certainly important to get more of that.
