OOC schedule Woes

[MrTitleist]

I don't think you have to be "invited" to a neutral court tournament as much as you have to "put yourself out there for it." I'm sure the exact dealings are unknown but we've never heard much from the AD about actually trying to get into one of these things, which I think you have to do. I have a hard time believing a tournament would turn down Wyoming as we've been a solid RPI top 100 team the last few years.

Didn't we play in some Bahamas Invite last year or the year before? Seems like kind of recently.

 

[joshvanklomp]

Four of our OOC games (FAMU, Stetson, NMSU, UNC) were actually part of a "tournament."

 

[TSpoke]

Four of our OOC games (FAMU, Stetson, NMSU, UNC) were actually part of a "tournament."

Yeah they were part of some weird tournament.

As far as neutral site tourney's Im not sure why anyone is suprised we haven't gone to any lately. Why would we be invited with our recent string of first or second round CBI runs. CSU went to the Great Alaskan Shootout but they have had more recent success including tournament appearances. We haven't.

 

[stymeman]

maybe we'd get better OOC teams if we had the Casper Shootout again, lol, just kidding and dreamin

 

[BeaverPoke]

Four of our OOC games (FAMU, Stetson, NMSU, UNC) were actually part of a "tournament."

Yeah they were, but like I said in another thread a while back, that's not really the tournament I am talking about.

Just getting 4 teams to agree to play eachother in OOC play and labeling it a tournament doesn't really make it a tournament.

I want a real one.

 

[BeaverPoke]

Four of our OOC games (FAMU, Stetson, NMSU, UNC) were actually part of a "tournament."

Yeah they were part of some weird tournament.

As far as neutral site tourney's Im not sure why anyone is suprised we haven't gone to any lately. Why would we be invited with our recent string of first or second round CBI runs. CSU went to the Great Alaskan Shootout but they have had more recent success including tournament appearances. We haven't.

Exactly.

I think if we make a great run starting with that SJSU win, win out regular season, win MWC Tourney, and pull off a Sweet 16 we could be invited to some decent tourneys next year.

I would love to get to a real tourney.

But even then we don't need to have great results to get to a real tourney. The Beavers played some solid teams this year in a tourney. And they have been terrible lately.

They played Oral Roberts in Corvallis, went to Vegas and played Oklahoma State and Auburn.


It's not like it's impossible to get an OOC schedule worth a shit.

 

[NowherePoke]

we did try to schedule up it's just too bad, NMSU and Denver and Colo fell flat this year! NO ONE wants to come to Laramie and that's our big issue

NMSU will still win the WAC, but they did have some injury issues that impacted their OOC performance. Cal did as well for that matter. However, think about this, we still lost to CAL and barely beat NMSU without Nephawe at home. If those two teams were both at full strength it would have helped our SOS, but not sure we would be any better off as we might have lost to NMSU.

One other note, think about the three teams you mention. You know who else played all 3? CSU. CSU also plays in the MWC. Yet, their schedule will still end up much stronger than ours (although pretty weak, if they lose a couple more games it would not surprise me at all to see them left out with a RPI in the 40's). They also didn't play anybody as good as SMU in their OOC. They just avoided the obvious bad games.

Keep in mind, we aren't talking about ways to improve our middle of the road OOC schedule. We are talking about one of the absolute weakest OOC schedules in the nation.

 

[BeaverPoke]

we did try to schedule up it's just too bad, NMSU and Denver and Colo fell flat this year! NO ONE wants to come to Laramie and that's our big issue

NMSU will still win the WAC, but they did have some injury issues that impacted their OOC performance. Cal did as well for that matter. However, think about this, we still lost to CAL and barely beat NMSU without Nephawe at home. If those two teams were both at full strength it would have helped our SOS, but not sure we would be any better off as we might have lost to NMSU.

One other note, think about the three teams you mention. You know who else played all 3? CSU. CSU also plays in the MWC. Yet, their schedule will still end up much stronger than ours (although pretty weak, if they lose a couple more games it would not surprise me at all to see them left out with a RPI in the 40's). They also didn't play anybody as good as SMU in their OOC. They just avoided the obvious bad games.

Keep in mind, we aren't talking about ways to improve our middle of the road OOC schedule. We are talking about one of the absolute weakest OOC schedules in the nation.

So if CSU has a comparable OOC schedule, but instead of having TERRIBLE teams like we do for a handful, they have more respectable teams, why can't we trade in our TERRIBLE teams for a solid road trip or tourney? Not only catch CSU in terms of OOC SOS but then pass them and get into the Top 100?

 

[NowherePoke]

I should rephrase a little. The schedule isn't probably as crappy as it's rating is turning out to be, but it's by no means the schedule of a team aspiring for an at large, which was the goal this year. There was simply no margin for error on the schedule.

+1

This is really the point. My comment when the schedule came out was that it was a NIT schedule, not an at-large type schedule. Now, has it turned out much weaker than I thought? Yes, I expected much more from CU, DU, and NMSU (at least in the OOC). Also, I could not have imagined just how weak the MWC is, which is a huge drag on potential MWC bubble teams right now.

I don't think it is an awful schedule and I really liked the addition of NMSU.

However, the committee tells us every single year that SOS, particularly OOC SOS which is within the schools control, is very important. RPI matters, but the teams that get left out with high RPI's almost invariably have weak SOS numbers. We can't bitch and moan about the criteria when we know it years in advance and it never changes. The RPI is very simple and hasn't been modified in a long time (since they weighted the road wins) and the committee criteria and focus has been clearly communicated.

Is it difficult to meet that criteria at Wyoming? Yes, it is. That's why we only expect to make the tournament on an occasional basis. I don't have a problem with most of Shyatt's schedules. I feel like for most of the years he has been here there have been legitimate reasons to schedule down and try to build up a winning culture and I think it worked. However, this was the year with 4 senior starters to try to schedule up and we didn't do it. We also didn't schedule very smart as I have noted elsewhere, particularly the Montana State games. One of the 2 or 3 worst teams in the Western U.S. (and this was not a surprise, they were in a giant roster hole after the departure of Huse, everyone knew they would suck) and we played them twice.

 

[Cowboy Junky]

The ooc schedule is a random crap shoot and we have no margin for errror. Two seasons ago we we're top 25 in RPI when we started 14-0. We lost Martinez and dumped all of our RPI into the conference. That, and the lack of having SJSU in the league led our league to four bids in the dance.

What's killing us more than anything is SJSU. We need to kick their ass to the curb and replace them with Wichita State. Leave them in for football and replace two games against a team with 330 RPI with two games against a team with 16 RPI.

We have little control over getting ooc teams to Laramie. We have to go on the road for teams with good RPI's ooc. We do have control over league games. It's too bad we added SJSU. Hopefully the league will come to it's senses and kick them out for everything but football.

Wichita makes this a four bid league again.