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MVC Insider: Valley's plans to beef up schedules

Lyndal Scranton, News-Leader 7:43 p.m. CDT September 30, 2014

Want a reality check? The college basketball season begins six weeks from Friday. Six weeks.

Of course, for Missouri Valley Conference followers, basketball never seems far away. But the immediacy sinks in further when realizing that Division I teams will begin official preseason practice on Friday.

From then until brackets are filled in mid-March, we'll hear about the Valley's pursuit of multiple NCAA Tournament bids and how much better the league is than a year ago when Wichita State soared to an unbeaten regular season. The rest of the league could only see the NCAA party with a telescope.

The Valley seems poised to become a multiple-bid league again. Northern Iowa has all its key components back, Missouri State regains all-league guard Marcus Marshall from a knee injury and Evansville looks like an up-and-coming program.

Thirty-six of a possible 50 starters return, along with six of the top 10 individual scorers.

But in one of the most important areas — nonconference scheduling — the Valley is lacking. The league fell to 19th last season in nonconference strength of schedule after ranking fourth the year before when Creighton and Wichita State earned NCAA berths.

Creighton, of course, fled for the new-look Big East and was replaced by Loyola. The league also took a hit with the demise of the Valley-Mountain West Challenge along with the BracketBusters.

On paper, the scheduling doesn't appear any better this season with far more bottom-50 opponents than top-50 foes. Scheduling is not easy, but somehow it has to improve.

That could begin to happen a year from now when the Valley implements a three-tiered approach to nonconference scheduling. Details are yet to be publicly released, but the basics are this:

Athletic directors and head coaches will convene and place schools in three groups — those expected to contend for an NCAA Tournament at-large bid, those who figure to be .500 or better but not necessarily NCAA caliber and those in rebuild mode.

Tier one schools will be expected to play a minimum of three teams with a top-50 RPI average from a multi-year period. Teams from tiers two and three will have less-stringent scheduling expectations, but looked upon to pile up wins, thus helping the overall RPI profile of the league.

Playing in "MTE" (multi-team tournaments) will be an expectation for all teams. Those are the best opportunities to face high-RPI teams on neutral floors.

Missouri State won't likely face a top-50 team this November at the Great Alaska Shootout. AD Kyle Moats said earlier this fall that next year the Bears are going to Puerto Rico for its MTE, a tourney that should net at least one top-50 opponent.

As for the near term, this season's nonconference scheduling can be broken into three areas:

The good

Wichita State easily has the strongest non-league schedule, an average RPI of 103.8 (according to last season's data at warrennolan.com). The Shockers picked up a key game with Memphis (No. 30 RPI) in Sioux Falls, S.D., as part of ESPN's 24 Hours of Basketball. It's a 1 p.m. start. Detroit (234) is the lone opponent with a plus-200 RPI.

Northern Iowa checks in with a solid 148.5 average, avoiding any opponent 250 or worse and four top-100 opponents. Illinois State comes in at 153.8, helped by a home game with VCU (No. 19).

The bad

These schools don't have terrible nonconference schedules, but will find it hard to build strong at-large NCAA cases. Drake (165 opponents' RPI average), Evansville (167.6), Missouri State (177.5), Bradley (191.4) and Indiana State (194.7) at the very least should go 8-4 pre-Valley.

The ugly

Southern Illinois (227.6) plays eight teams who finished 250 or worse a year ago. Loyola (230.7) has a buy game at Michigan State and no other top-100 opponents. The Ramblers clearly are no Creighton, but the Valley needs them — and others — to step it up.

News-Leader sports reporter Lyndal Scranton covers Missouri State and the Missouri Valley Conference for the News-Leader. Contact him at Lscranton@news-leader.com, by phone at 417-837-1346 or join the fun on Twitter @LscrantonNL

Hopefully this is successful at increasing the perception of the Valley.

Every school not named Wichita State or UNI is going to be lobbying to be placed in the tier 3 group.

Is there anyway that WSU can be exempt from this little program?

I really don't want the Valley wasting the time of anyone in our staff, coaches or otherwise. For that matter, UNI as well. They may fit into different categories, but over the last 10 years have scheduled so that no other Valley team can complain about them.

Here's an idea, actively try to schedule teams who do not have RPI-averages of 250+. If your end of the year SOS does not reach a certain value, then you should lose your cut of the NCAA/postseason $$ the conference receives. Teams that schedule well or make those money-earning tournaments, should get the cuts that the crap teams are forfeiting. I don't see how a tiered system works to solve the problem unless you have to be in Tier 1 or 2 in order to earn a particular seed the MVC tourney (but that'd be pretty lame and no one would ever go for it).

I don't expect much to come from this since there is no enforcement mechanism. I suppose it sounds proactive but that's about it.

AndShock wrote:Every school not named Wichita State or UNI is going to be lobbying to be placed in the tier 3 group.

I'll be really disappointed in MSU if that is the case next year. In 15/16 we should have a junior/senior laden team and expectations should be really high.

Most Bears fans were really disappointed in our OOC schedule THIS year. I think this is a really good plan as long as Elgin puts some teeth in it.

glm38 wrote:

AndShock wrote:Every school not named Wichita State or UNI is going to be lobbying to be placed in the tier 3 group.

I'll be really disappointed in MSU if that is the case next year. In 15/16 we should have a junior/senior laden team and expectations should be really high.

Most Bears fans were really disappointed in our OOC schedule THIS year. I think this is a really good plan as long as Elgin puts some teeth in it.

Hi you must be new around here. Welcome to the MVC, where the commissioner changes nothing and the SOS doesn't matter!

This is really strange. So the coaches and ADs are going to get together and basically decide which programs are going to be crappy enough to not have to schedule tough? Talk about some awkward conversations.

unipanther99 wrote:This is really strange. So the coaches and ADs are going to get together and basically decide which programs are going to be crappy enough to not have to schedule tough? Talk about some awkward conversations.

Hinson will be selling his team for last place every year.