ESPN Bubble Watch

[kdwrightuwyo]

Part of our low rpi problem is finding teams that will travel to Wyoming. Yeah, we could play a tougher schedule, but at this point, they would all be away games. Coach Shyatt has mentioned it several times, coaches do not want to bring their teams into Laramie. We want to schedule home and home games. But right now even 2 for 1 games in Laramie are tough to schedule. Teams are afraid of losses to Wyoming in Laramie.

 

[joshvanklomp]

Part of our low rpi problem is finding teams that will travel to Wyoming. Yeah, we could play a tougher schedule, but at this point, they would all be away games. Coach Shyatt has mentioned it several times, coaches do not want to bring their teams into Laramie. We want to schedule home and home games. But right now even 2 for 1 games in Laramie are tough to schedule. Teams are afraid of losses to Wyoming in Laramie.

Bingo.

 

[Wyokie]

This team needs to...beat Boise to have a prayer of an at-large bid.

We already swept Boise this year. The joys of an 11 team conference. We are guaranteed easy wins by getting San Jose twice, but we lose out on tourney clinching opportunities.

I seriously hope commissioner Thompson regrets letting BYU leave and not letting them stay for all non-football sports like they wanted too. Things could be so different...

Are you kidding? FUCK BYU! They were leaving the conference high and dry no matter what because they are "too good" for the MWC. Fuckers made their move for THEMSELVES leaving everyone else in the MWC in a tight spot. Take this crap and peddle it somewhere else please cause it stinks like rotten shit.
FUCK BYU and the imaginary holy horse they rode in on!!! :finger: :finger: :finger:
I miss their presence like I miss the plague.

Same here and you all should know how much I hate them!!!! :tickedoff: :tickedoff:

 

[NowherePoke]

Part of our low rpi problem is finding teams that will travel to Wyoming. Yeah, we could play a tougher schedule, but at this point, they would all be away games. Coach Shyatt has mentioned it several times, coaches do not want to bring their teams into Laramie. We want to schedule home and home games. But right now even 2 for 1 games in Laramie are tough to schedule. Teams are afraid of losses to Wyoming in Laramie.

Look at CSU's schedule. Their OOC SOS projects to 92 (versus 318 for the Pokes).

Is there any game on their schedule that we couldn't schedule?

The only power conference team on their schedule is CU.

They did two important things:

1. Played a neutral court tourney. We aren't going to play in Maui like SDSU anytime soon, but we could play in the Alaska tournament (or one of the minor events in Florida or The Caribbean since we recruit FL so heavily).

2. Scheduled better teams from the lesser conferences. They played Montana, we played Montana St. They played Charleston Southern, we played FAMU. There is a little bad luck with Cal not being very good, but it was clear to everyone the situation that Montana St would be in this year. Teams like Mercer and Georgia State, particularly the latter, were expected to be very solid squads. Now, there is risk with that kind of schedule, as those teams might actually beat you.


My speculation is that Shyatt was not really sure what would happen with Nance (after all, most of the schedule would have been complete in the spring). As a result, he didn't stretch on the schedule, hoping that the team and Nance would round into form in time for conference play and would have a shot at building an at large resume in conference play as long as they didn't call on their face in OOC. I think the plan was derailed by a combination of weaker than expected performance from some OOC opponents (CU, Cal, NMSU, and DU) and the compete face plant that the MWC pulled. By all rights, we should be a one bid league as the 12th rated league. Awful OOC by Nevada and Fresno and the anchor that is SJSU. I won't do the research now, but those have to be 3 of the 5 worst OOC performances by a MWC team in the last 10 years and they all occurred in the same season.

 

[cali2wyo]

This team needs to...beat Boise to have a prayer of an at-large bid.

We already swept Boise this year. The joys of an 11 team conference. We are guaranteed easy wins by getting San Jose twice, but we lose out on tourney clinching opportunities.

I seriously hope commissioner Thompson regrets letting BYU leave and not letting them stay for all non-football sports like they wanted too. Things could be so different...

Are you kidding? FUCK BYU! They were leaving the conference high and dry no matter what because they are "too good" for the MWC. Fuckers made their move for THEMSELVES leaving everyone else in the MWC in a tight spot. Take this crap and peddle it somewhere else please cause it stinks like rotten shit.
FUCK BYU and the imaginary holy horse they rode in on!!! :finger: :finger: :finger:
I miss their presence like I miss the plague.

I hate them too, but you're dumber than their holy fans if you think our basketball conference is stronger with San Jose state in their place.

 

[Cosmic Cowboy]

I hate them too, but you're dumber than their holy fans if you think our basketball conference is stronger with San Jose state in their place.

BYU is the reason we have San Jose State in the fucking conference. They are backstabbers. Why keep a backstabber around? So they can put one more in your back on their way out???? Why help a backstabber out? FUCK BYU and their RPI! I could give a fuck that we threw those rats out. I miss Utah (a strong school I actually didn't mind) but they went onto bigger and better things. Our conference was a powerhouse basketball conference before the last big break for sure but hey I guess it's even more reason for me to hate football

I'd rather we go play whatever powerhouses we can on the road always then help BYU out in any way, shape, or form.

 

[BeaverPoke]

I hate them too, but you're dumber than their holy fans if you think our basketball conference is stronger with San Jose state in their place.

BYU is the reason we have San Jose State in the fucking conference. They are backstabbers. Why keep a backstabber around? So they can put one more in your back on their way out???? Why help a backstabber out? FUCK BYU and their RPI! I could give a fuck that we threw those rats out. I miss Utah (a strong school I actually didn't mind) but they went onto bigger and better things. Our conference was a powerhouse basketball conference before the last big break for sure but hey I guess it's even more reason for me to hate football

I'd rather we go play whatever powerhouses we can on the road always then help BYU out in any way, shape, or form.

Exactly. I don't give a fuck about going out on the road.

We are doing the exact same thing that we are blaming the big schools for doing.
"They won't come play us".
THEN LET'S GO PLAY THEM!

Let's go to Kansas and Kansas State in the same season. Let's go to Zaga and Washington or Oregon or Oregon State.

We went and played Cal. We should be playing Cal and Stanford. We should be making an effort to play multiple teams on the road.

If we were playing Kansas and Kansas State then a bunch of Montana level teams (NOT Montana State) then added in a PNW road trip with a couple teams, the program would be in good shape.
We wouldn't lose all those games. We could go pump up our RPI. We could go pump up our SOS. We could go pump up our perception, get ranked, get recruits attention. THEN when conference play started we wouldn't shit our pants against San Jose State.

 

[TSpoke]

Part of our low rpi problem is finding teams that will travel to Wyoming. Yeah, we could play a tougher schedule, but at this point, they would all be away games. Coach Shyatt has mentioned it several times, coaches do not want to bring their teams into Laramie. We want to schedule home and home games. But right now even 2 for 1 games in Laramie are tough to schedule. Teams are afraid of losses to Wyoming in Laramie.

Look at CSU's schedule. Their OOC SOS projects to 92 (versus 318 for the Pokes).

Is there any game on their schedule that we couldn't schedule?

The only power conference team on their schedule is CU.

They did two important things:

1. Played a neutral court tourney. We aren't going to play in Maui like SDSU anytime soon, but we could play in the Alaska tournament (or one of the minor events in Florida or The Caribbean since we recruit FL so heavily).

2. Scheduled better teams from the lesser conferences. They played Montana, we played Montana St. They played Charleston Southern, we played FAMU. There is a little bad luck with Cal not being very good, but it was clear to everyone the situation that Montana St would be in this year. Teams like Mercer and Georgia State, particularly the latter, were expected to be very solid squads. Now, there is risk with that kind of schedule, as those teams might actually beat you.


My speculation is that Shyatt was not really sure what would happen with Nance (after all, most of the schedule would have been complete in the spring). As a result, he didn't stretch on the schedule, hoping that the team and Nance would round into form in time for conference play and would have a shot at building an at large resume in conference play as long as they didn't call on their face in OOC. I think the plan was derailed by a combination of weaker than expected performance from some OOC opponents (CU, Cal, NMSU, and DU) and the compete face plant that the MWC pulled. By all rights, we should be a one bid league as the 12th rated league. Awful OOC by Nevada and Fresno and the anchor that is SJSU. I won't do the research now, but those have to be 3 of the 5 worst OOC performances by a MWC team in the last 10 years and they all occurred in the same season.

I think this board has had this discussion many times. The problem wit hour schedule was some teams that were supposed to be good haven't heald up their part of the bargin so far and the cupcakes we scheduled turned out to be a some of the worst teams in college basketball. Thats bad luck. Looking at the schedule before the season it looked ot be one of the better ones since Shyatt got here. It was scheduled up more so than years past or at least it looked like it. Compare ours to CSU's, at the top I would say ours was better, the middle was the same with many of the same teams but the bottom ours was worse. In reality I don't think there is much difference between a 200 RPI school and a 350 rpi school but according to the RPI there is as big of difference between that than there is between the 1 and 150 school. So its bad luck that our cupcakes turned out to be soooo bad.
As far as in season tourney's I imagine you have to be invited to them. I doubt we have been. Why would we be invited. We haven't done crap the last few years. I really doubt we turned down an invite to the Great Alaskan Shootout or something similar. We may have but I really doubt it.
This coaching staff knows how to put out a OOC schedule to manipulate RPI. If you look at our OOC RPI from 2 and 3(2011-12, 2012-13) ago we had top 10ish OOC RPI's.
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/rpi/_/year/2012/sort/RPI/groupId/44
Sure the one year we went undefeated through that but in Shyatts first year we didn't and had a Non conference RPI of 11. I felt this years schedule was better than both those but it didn't turn out that way. I want to paly some better teams but I think the coaches know what they are doing for scheduling but this year ran into some bad luck.

 

[WYCowboy]

This team needs to...beat Boise to have a prayer of an at-large bid.

We already swept Boise this year. The joys of an 11 team conference. We are guaranteed easy wins by getting San Jose twice, but we lose out on tourney clinching opportunities.

I seriously hope commissioner Thompson regrets letting BYU leave and not letting them stay for all non-football sports like they wanted too. Things could be so different...

Are you kidding? FUCK BYU! They were leaving the conference high and dry no matter what because they are "too good" for the MWC. Fuckers made their move for THEMSELVES leaving everyone else in the MWC in a tight spot. Take this crap and peddle it somewhere else please cause it stinks like rotten shit.
FUCK BYU and the imaginary holy horse they rode in on!!! :finger: :finger: :finger:
I miss their presence like I miss the plague.

I hate them too, but you're dumber than their holy fans if you think our basketball conference is stronger with San Jose state in their place.

And you have a blindfold and earplugs on if you think we would be better off having anything to do with those cheating, lying, thieving, murdering, racist, backstabbing bastards.

 

[cali2wyo]

This team needs to...beat Boise to have a prayer of an at-large bid.

We already swept Boise this year. The joys of an 11 team conference. We are guaranteed easy wins by getting San Jose twice, but we lose out on tourney clinching opportunities.

I seriously hope commissioner Thompson regrets letting BYU leave and not letting them stay for all non-football sports like they wanted too. Things could be so different...

Are you kidding? FUCK BYU! They were leaving the conference high and dry no matter what because they are "too good" for the MWC. Fuckers made their move for THEMSELVES leaving everyone else in the MWC in a tight spot. Take this crap and peddle it somewhere else please cause it stinks like rotten shit.
FUCK BYU and the imaginary holy horse they rode in on!!! :finger: :finger: :finger:
I miss their presence like I miss the plague.

I hate them too, but you're dumber than their holy fans if you think our basketball conference is stronger with San Jose state in their place.

And you have a blindfold and earplugs on if you think we would be better off having anything to do with those cheating, lying, thieving, murdering, racist, backstabbing bastards.

Save your breath trying to convince me. You and I view their administration, athletics, and fans the same way. But seriously? Playing against a team that needs football players to fill their roster, considers 500 people a big crowd, has the ugliest court in the country, and turns the heat off in their arena during winter break to save money is better than having a legitimate contender with a large and supportive (and hypocritical, all around douches) fan base with a 20,000 seat arena?
Do I hate them and want them to fall off the face of the earth? We all feel the same way, fuck you BYU. Would the conference be better with them in place of the spartans? Something tells me if we sweep byu instead of San Jose we wouldn't be this stressed about getting in the tourney or only having a one bid league.

 

[NowherePoke]

Part of our low rpi problem is finding teams that will travel to Wyoming. Yeah, we could play a tougher schedule, but at this point, they would all be away games. Coach Shyatt has mentioned it several times, coaches do not want to bring their teams into Laramie. We want to schedule home and home games. But right now even 2 for 1 games in Laramie are tough to schedule. Teams are afraid of losses to Wyoming in Laramie.

Look at CSU's schedule. Their OOC SOS projects to 92 (versus 318 for the Pokes).

Is there any game on their schedule that we couldn't schedule?

The only power conference team on their schedule is CU.

They did two important things:

1. Played a neutral court tourney. We aren't going to play in Maui like SDSU anytime soon, but we could play in the Alaska tournament (or one of the minor events in Florida or The Caribbean since we recruit FL so heavily).

2. Scheduled better teams from the lesser conferences. They played Montana, we played Montana St. They played Charleston Southern, we played FAMU. There is a little bad luck with Cal not being very good, but it was clear to everyone the situation that Montana St would be in this year. Teams like Mercer and Georgia State, particularly the latter, were expected to be very solid squads. Now, there is risk with that kind of schedule, as those teams might actually beat you.


My speculation is that Shyatt was not really sure what would happen with Nance (after all, most of the schedule would have been complete in the spring). As a result, he didn't stretch on the schedule, hoping that the team and Nance would round into form in time for conference play and would have a shot at building an at large resume in conference play as long as they didn't call on their face in OOC. I think the plan was derailed by a combination of weaker than expected performance from some OOC opponents (CU, Cal, NMSU, and DU) and the compete face plant that the MWC pulled. By all rights, we should be a one bid league as the 12th rated league. Awful OOC by Nevada and Fresno and the anchor that is SJSU. I won't do the research now, but those have to be 3 of the 5 worst OOC performances by a MWC team in the last 10 years and they all occurred in the same season.

I think this board has had this discussion many times. The problem wit hour schedule was some teams that were supposed to be good haven't heald up their part of the bargin so far and the cupcakes we scheduled turned out to be a some of the worst teams in college basketball. Thats bad luck. Looking at the schedule before the season it looked ot be one of the better ones since Shyatt got here. It was scheduled up more so than years past or at least it looked like it. Compare ours to CSU's, at the top I would say ours was better, the middle was the same with many of the same teams but the bottom ours was worse. In reality I don't think there is much difference between a 200 RPI school and a 350 rpi school but according to the RPI there is as big of difference between that than there is between the 1 and 150 school. So its bad luck that our cupcakes turned out to be soooo bad.
As far as in season tourney's I imagine you have to be invited to them. I doubt we have been. Why would we be invited. We haven't done crap the last few years. I really doubt we turned down an invite to the Great Alaskan Shootout or something similar. We may have but I really doubt it.
This coaching staff knows how to put out a OOC schedule to manipulate RPI. If you look at our OOC RPI from 2 and 3(2011-12, 2012-13) ago we had top 10ish OOC RPI's.
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/rpi/_/year/2012/sort/RPI/groupId/44
Sure the one year we went undefeated through that but in Shyatts first year we didn't and had a Non conference RPI of 11. I felt this years schedule was better than both those but it didn't turn out that way. I want to paly some better teams but I think the coaches know what they are doing for scheduling but this year ran into some bad luck.

I guess what I am saying, is that it isn't all bad luck. Some of the teams, CU/CAL/DU/NMSU, are worse than expected, but if you look at CSU they played 3 of those 4 teams as well. It isn't luck that Montana is better than Montana St. MSU was picked at the bottom of the Big Sky. Everybody knew they were in a tough roster spot with a new coach. FAMU and Stetson were both picked near the bottom of their league. Contrast that with teams like Mercer, Georgia St., and Charleston Southern. It's not luck that those teams are better than the teams on our schedule, they were all supposed to be. Most of our cupcakes are performing exactly as they were predicted to in the offseason.

On the luck side, some of our more respectable opponents haven't held up their end of the deal and there isn't much we can do about that. Also, the MWC's terrible performance isn't anything we have control over. It's not really an exaggeration to say that having SJSU in the league could cost the MWC a tourney bid this year.

I posted when the schedule came out that it was a NIT schedule (http://www.wyonation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=11076" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false. It has certainly turned out much worse than I anticipated, but if it was clear to me that it was not the type of schedule that allowed for an at-large bid, than it was certainly apparent to our coaching staff.

 

[TSpoke]

Part of our low rpi problem is finding teams that will travel to Wyoming. Yeah, we could play a tougher schedule, but at this point, they would all be away games. Coach Shyatt has mentioned it several times, coaches do not want to bring their teams into Laramie. We want to schedule home and home games. But right now even 2 for 1 games in Laramie are tough to schedule. Teams are afraid of losses to Wyoming in Laramie.

Look at CSU's schedule. Their OOC SOS projects to 92 (versus 318 for the Pokes).

Is there any game on their schedule that we couldn't schedule?

The only power conference team on their schedule is CU.

They did two important things:

1. Played a neutral court tourney. We aren't going to play in Maui like SDSU anytime soon, but we could play in the Alaska tournament (or one of the minor events in Florida or The Caribbean since we recruit FL so heavily).

2. Scheduled better teams from the lesser conferences. They played Montana, we played Montana St. They played Charleston Southern, we played FAMU. There is a little bad luck with Cal not being very good, but it was clear to everyone the situation that Montana St would be in this year. Teams like Mercer and Georgia State, particularly the latter, were expected to be very solid squads. Now, there is risk with that kind of schedule, as those teams might actually beat you.


My speculation is that Shyatt was not really sure what would happen with Nance (after all, most of the schedule would have been complete in the spring). As a result, he didn't stretch on the schedule, hoping that the team and Nance would round into form in time for conference play and would have a shot at building an at large resume in conference play as long as they didn't call on their face in OOC. I think the plan was derailed by a combination of weaker than expected performance from some OOC opponents (CU, Cal, NMSU, and DU) and the compete face plant that the MWC pulled. By all rights, we should be a one bid league as the 12th rated league. Awful OOC by Nevada and Fresno and the anchor that is SJSU. I won't do the research now, but those have to be 3 of the 5 worst OOC performances by a MWC team in the last 10 years and they all occurred in the same season.

I think this board has had this discussion many times. The problem wit hour schedule was some teams that were supposed to be good haven't heald up their part of the bargin so far and the cupcakes we scheduled turned out to be a some of the worst teams in college basketball. Thats bad luck. Looking at the schedule before the season it looked ot be one of the better ones since Shyatt got here. It was scheduled up more so than years past or at least it looked like it. Compare ours to CSU's, at the top I would say ours was better, the middle was the same with many of the same teams but the bottom ours was worse. In reality I don't think there is much difference between a 200 RPI school and a 350 rpi school but according to the RPI there is as big of difference between that than there is between the 1 and 150 school. So its bad luck that our cupcakes turned out to be soooo bad.
As far as in season tourney's I imagine you have to be invited to them. I doubt we have been. Why would we be invited. We haven't done crap the last few years. I really doubt we turned down an invite to the Great Alaskan Shootout or something similar. We may have but I really doubt it.
This coaching staff knows how to put out a OOC schedule to manipulate RPI. If you look at our OOC RPI from 2 and 3(2011-12, 2012-13) ago we had top 10ish OOC RPI's.
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/rpi/_/year/2012/sort/RPI/groupId/44
Sure the one year we went undefeated through that but in Shyatts first year we didn't and had a Non conference RPI of 11. I felt this years schedule was better than both those but it didn't turn out that way. I want to paly some better teams but I think the coaches know what they are doing for scheduling but this year ran into some bad luck.

I guess what I am saying, is that it isn't all bad luck. Some of the teams, CU/CAL/DU/NMSU, are worse than expected, but if you look at CSU they played 3 of those 4 teams as well. It isn't luck that Montana is better than Montana St. MSU was picked at the bottom of the Big Sky. Everybody knew they were in a tough roster spot with a new coach. FAMU and Stetson were both picked near the bottom of their league. Contrast that with teams like Mercer, Georgia St., and Charleston Southern. It's not luck that those teams are better than the teams on our schedule, they were all supposed to be. Most of our cupcakes are performing exactly as they were predicted to in the offseason.

On the luck side, some of our more respectable opponents haven't held up their end of the deal and there isn't much we can do about that. Also, the MWC's terrible performance isn't anything we have control over. It's not really an exaggeration to say that having SJSU in the league could cost the MWC a tourney bid this year.

I posted when the schedule came out that it was a NIT schedule (http://www.wyonation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=11076" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false. It has certainly turned out much worse than I anticipated, but if it was clear to me that it was not the type of schedule that allowed for an at-large bid, than it was certainly apparent to our coaching staff.

While some of those teams were picked near the bottom of there conference that does not mean they were expected to be the absolute worst teams in D1 so you can say that is a suprise and bad luck. If they were 300 instead of 350 that would make a big difference in RPI but in reality is not much different of a team(just one of the issues with RPI). I think FAMU had a scandal that cost them a player or two that happened this fall probably after the game was decided on but before the season started. So thats bad luck. Southern was a tournament team the last several years but started this season horribly(have been playing better now but damage already done) Also if Montana already scheduled CSU they probably didn't want to play us too. No way to know that we didn't ask and MSU was a second choice.

I guess my question does this years schedule look better than this schedule:
vs
Western State

vs
Northern Colorado

@
Green Bay

vs
South Dakota

vs
Portland St

vs
Maryland-Eastern Shore

vs
Louisiana Tech

vs
Utah Valley

vs
Bradley

@
Colorado

vs
UC Irvine

vs
Sioux Falls

@
Denver

@
Idaho State

vs
Utah Valley

vs
Idaho State

I say this years schedule look much better yet this was our schedule in 11-12 and gave us a non-conference RPI of 11. My point is there is always some luck involved with non-conference schedules. So while this years schedule wasn't amazing I saw it as a step up over previous years but it didn't work out that way. Would I like to play some better teams and play in a tournament-for sure but we have to prove ourselves before we are getting invited to any.

 

[NowherePoke]

Part of our low rpi problem is finding teams that will travel to Wyoming. Yeah, we could play a tougher schedule, but at this point, they would all be away games. Coach Shyatt has mentioned it several times, coaches do not want to bring their teams into Laramie. We want to schedule home and home games. But right now even 2 for 1 games in Laramie are tough to schedule. Teams are afraid of losses to Wyoming in Laramie.

Look at CSU's schedule. Their OOC SOS projects to 92 (versus 318 for the Pokes).

Is there any game on their schedule that we couldn't schedule?

The only power conference team on their schedule is CU.

They did two important things:

1. Played a neutral court tourney. We aren't going to play in Maui like SDSU anytime soon, but we could play in the Alaska tournament (or one of the minor events in Florida or The Caribbean since we recruit FL so heavily).

2. Scheduled better teams from the lesser conferences. They played Montana, we played Montana St. They played Charleston Southern, we played FAMU. There is a little bad luck with Cal not being very good, but it was clear to everyone the situation that Montana St would be in this year. Teams like Mercer and Georgia State, particularly the latter, were expected to be very solid squads. Now, there is risk with that kind of schedule, as those teams might actually beat you.


My speculation is that Shyatt was not really sure what would happen with Nance (after all, most of the schedule would have been complete in the spring). As a result, he didn't stretch on the schedule, hoping that the team and Nance would round into form in time for conference play and would have a shot at building an at large resume in conference play as long as they didn't call on their face in OOC. I think the plan was derailed by a combination of weaker than expected performance from some OOC opponents (CU, Cal, NMSU, and DU) and the compete face plant that the MWC pulled. By all rights, we should be a one bid league as the 12th rated league. Awful OOC by Nevada and Fresno and the anchor that is SJSU. I won't do the research now, but those have to be 3 of the 5 worst OOC performances by a MWC team in the last 10 years and they all occurred in the same season.

I think this board has had this discussion many times. The problem wit hour schedule was some teams that were supposed to be good haven't heald up their part of the bargin so far and the cupcakes we scheduled turned out to be a some of the worst teams in college basketball. Thats bad luck. Looking at the schedule before the season it looked ot be one of the better ones since Shyatt got here. It was scheduled up more so than years past or at least it looked like it. Compare ours to CSU's, at the top I would say ours was better, the middle was the same with many of the same teams but the bottom ours was worse. In reality I don't think there is much difference between a 200 RPI school and a 350 rpi school but according to the RPI there is as big of difference between that than there is between the 1 and 150 school. So its bad luck that our cupcakes turned out to be soooo bad.
As far as in season tourney's I imagine you have to be invited to them. I doubt we have been. Why would we be invited. We haven't done crap the last few years. I really doubt we turned down an invite to the Great Alaskan Shootout or something similar. We may have but I really doubt it.
This coaching staff knows how to put out a OOC schedule to manipulate RPI. If you look at our OOC RPI from 2 and 3(2011-12, 2012-13) ago we had top 10ish OOC RPI's.
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/rpi/_/year/2012/sort/RPI/groupId/44
Sure the one year we went undefeated through that but in Shyatts first year we didn't and had a Non conference RPI of 11. I felt this years schedule was better than both those but it didn't turn out that way. I want to paly some better teams but I think the coaches know what they are doing for scheduling but this year ran into some bad luck.

I guess what I am saying, is that it isn't all bad luck. Some of the teams, CU/CAL/DU/NMSU, are worse than expected, but if you look at CSU they played 3 of those 4 teams as well. It isn't luck that Montana is better than Montana St. MSU was picked at the bottom of the Big Sky. Everybody knew they were in a tough roster spot with a new coach. FAMU and Stetson were both picked near the bottom of their league. Contrast that with teams like Mercer, Georgia St., and Charleston Southern. It's not luck that those teams are better than the teams on our schedule, they were all supposed to be. Most of our cupcakes are performing exactly as they were predicted to in the offseason.

On the luck side, some of our more respectable opponents haven't held up their end of the deal and there isn't much we can do about that. Also, the MWC's terrible performance isn't anything we have control over. It's not really an exaggeration to say that having SJSU in the league could cost the MWC a tourney bid this year.

I posted when the schedule came out that it was a NIT schedule (http://www.wyonation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=11076" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false. It has certainly turned out much worse than I anticipated, but if it was clear to me that it was not the type of schedule that allowed for an at-large bid, than it was certainly apparent to our coaching staff.

While some of those teams were picked near the bottom of there conference that does not mean they were expected to be the absolute worst teams in D1 so you can say that is a suprise and bad luck. If they were 300 instead of 350 that would make a big difference in RPI but in reality is not much different of a team(just one of the issues with RPI). I think FAMU had a scandal that cost them a player or two that happened this fall probably after the game was decided on but before the season started. So thats bad luck. Southern was a tournament team the last several years but started this season horribly(have been playing better now but damage already done) Also if Montana already scheduled CSU they probably didn't want to play us too. No way to know that we didn't ask and MSU was a second choice.



I say this years schedule look much better yet this was our schedule in 11-12 and gave us a non-conference RPI of 11. My point is there is always some luck involved with non-conference schedules. So while this years schedule wasn't amazing I saw it as a step up over previous years but it didn't work out that way. Would I like to play some better teams and play in a tournament-for sure but we have to prove ourselves before we are getting invited to any.

Well, ultimately it doesn't matter but just a couple of additional points:

1. In terms of being the worst in D-1, actually yes, if you are picked at or near the bottom of the MEAC, Big Sky, and A-Sun you are expected to be a sub 300 RPI team (especially the MEAC).

2. Southern is fine. No problem scheduling them. The damage isn't already done because it is their entire season that is evaluated in our SOS. They will be a top tier SWAC team as usual. Now, there are always issues when scheduling SWAC teams as they play mostly bodybag games in the OOC, but if you schedule the top ones like Southern they aren't a big hit to the RPI. If you look at the expected impact for Southern to our RPI, it is slightly negative but actually better than DU.

3. In terms of Montana, I am not suggesting it is as simple as Montana vs. Montana St. There are a number of logistical questions that come into play with scheduling and there are probably very valid reasons why we don't play Montana (they might not have wanted to add another MWC team to their schedule which already included CSU and BSU, the dates might not have worked, etc.). However, I don't see any valid reason for scheduling Montana St. particularly two games in a year where they are in complete rebuild/blow it up mode. My general point was scheduling teams expected to win more games in their low major conferences instead of teams expected to lose a lot of games in their low major conferences. Maybe that means Eastern Washington, North Dakota State, etc. instead of MSU.

4. Non-Conference RPI - I know this sounds like a cop-out, but I really believe ESPN's numbers are incorrect for 11-12. If you look they show our Non-Conference SOS as being 290. If you look at BBState.com, they show our Non-Conference SOS for that year as being 287. Those are very close, but BBState.com shows a NCRPI of 34. That sounds more in line with reality to me. The more important point is that the Committee would absolutely look askance at a NCSOS of 287 or 290. Last year, SMU had a NCSOS of 303 and that was cited as a primary factor for their omission from the tourney. Obviously this year's projected 318 is worse, but the 11-12 schedule would have put us in a very difficult spot as well. Remember that team won 20 games but didn't even make the NIT. Now, at that time it made perfect sense to build an easy schedule and try to win some games to build momentum in the program. I defended the scheduling at the time for that reason. My concern is that our scheduling didn't mature as the program grew.