The Holy Land of Hoops

We emphasize the value of being in a hoops-centric league.

He's selling something else to the gentlemen down South: http://www.foxsports.com/midwest/story/mike-tranghese-s-mandate-bolster-sec-s-basketball-profile-060216

Xudash wrote:We emphasize the value of being in a hoops-centric league.

He's selling something else to the gentlemen down South: http://www.foxsports.com/midwest/story/mike-tranghese-s-mandate-bolster-sec-s-basketball-profile-060216

The SEC has since tweaked its non-conference scheduling rules, saying everyone's opponents must have a three-year RPI average of 175 or better. That number will drop to 150 in the future.

We need to be doing something like this...

Jet915 wrote:

Xudash wrote:We emphasize the value of being in a hoops-centric league.

He's selling something else to the gentlemen down South: http://www.foxsports.com/midwest/story/mike-tranghese-s-mandate-bolster-sec-s-basketball-profile-060216

The SEC has since tweaked its non-conference scheduling rules, saying everyone's opponents must have a three-year RPI average of 175 or better. That number will drop to 150 in the future.

We need to be doing something like this...

This is the start to squeezing out the smaller schools. If all the power conferences start doing this the smaller schools will get less games from them and get less money. Though on the flip side the better of the smaller schools will get more of those games.

2016 Season.
Non-conference SOS:
Georgia - 5.
Kentucky - 6.
Florida - 8.
Texas A&M - 26.
Vanderbilt - 32.
Alabama - 38.
Auburn - 59.
Tennessee - 65.
Arkansas -103.
Missouri - 192.
LSU - 212.
South Carolina - 247.
Mississippi State - 234.
Ole Miss - 306.

Seems a big majority of SEC teams are scheduling well.
3 teams in the Top 10.
6 teams in the Top 50.
9 teams in the Top 175.

The fanbase is maybe a problem, except for a handful of schools. The SEC has had periods of great success. No reason why they can't turn it around, though they're kind of weak right now. Over the years, i never really had a problem with them. Kentucky is annoying, but i like them better than Duke, UNC and some others.

Tranghese's advice to them is good, but it's the exact opposite of what we're trying to sell. I think our case is much more appealing than the SEC's.

It would be interesting to see the A-10 overtake the SEC at some point. Then the conventional wisdom would help hoops-first conferences grow stronger.

It's certainly anecdotal, but I have a lot of Gator friends, and when Florida was winning back-to-back NC's under Donovan, virtually all of them were concerned about the Gators' spring game, as in spring football game. When you talk to a lot of SEC fans, they'll go on about how important football is and how superior SEC football is to football around the nation. They tend to shrug off basketball, as though it is a sport that belongs to pro fans and non-southern schools. Of course, the conversation is completely different if it happens to take place in Lexington, KY.

With all that noted, they're still very prideful, so they'll hop on the wagon if their team starts winning.

At the end of the day, they'll be a force to deal with moving forward. Even Florida. They're in the process of pumping millions into the O'Connell Center (http://rising.oconnellcenter.ufl.edu/site/).

Xudash wrote:It's certainly anecdotal, but I have a lot of Gator friends, and when Florida was winning back-to-back NC's under Donovan, virtually all of them were concerned about the Gators' spring game, as in spring football game. When you talk to a lot of SEC fans, they'll go on about how important football is and how superior SEC football is to football around the nation. They tend to shrug off basketball, as though it is a sport that belongs to pro fans and non-southern schools. Of course, the conversation is completely different if it happens to take place in Lexington, KY.

With all that noted, they're still very prideful, so they'll hop on the wagon if their team starts winning.

At the end of the day, they'll be a force to deal with moving forward. Even Florida. They're in the process of pumping millions into the O'Connell Center (http://rising.oconnellcenter.ufl.edu/site/).

Living in Georgia and working with a number of UGA alums, I can tell you that the most important day in the winter is signing day...as in football signing day. The fact that their basketball team is on an upward (albeit slowly) trajectory is meaningless to them. They know more about some 2018 class football recruit than they do about the 13 guys currently on the basketball roster.

The Missouri Valley conference instituted a similar rule about 15 or so years ago. I don't recall the specifics, but I believe there was a $50K fine to any school that did not have a schedule with a minimum number of teams about 150 RPI. That strategy resulted in a run of four or five years where the MVC received multiple bids and was consistently a top 6-10 rated conference. It culminated in getting four bids in 2005 or 2006 - and should have been 5, since that was the year that Missouri State got passed over despite having an RPI of 21 (the lowest RPI team to ever be left out of the tournament). But, the MVC dropped the rule right about that time, and the league slowly dropped in conf. rating and bid numbers as the resulting impact of playing lower RPI teams took hold. For a mid-major conference, I think its a great strategy to play the RPI numbers game to your advantage. I'm not sure it would be necessary for BE (although I wouldn't mind seeing it so CU would have to stop scheduling teams that are consistently sub250 RPI so I don't have to watch multiple games each year that are over by the under 12 media timeout of the first half). However, since the SEC is in many respects not much above a mid-major conference in terms of basketball, that strategy could have a positive impact on its overall conference RPI, IMO.

In the SEC, if a graduate transfer does not complete the graduate program, the player's school cannot enroll another athlete under the exception for three years. That happened at Missouri when Hawaii basketball transfer Keith Shamburger played in 2014-15 but didn't complete the grad program. Mizzou cannot accept another basketball graduate transfer for the next three year cycle. Interesting. Does the SEC have something right? Do other conferences have this same restrition?

According to the article I read, an NCAA study show that only 24% of the players who used the graduate transfer situation to move to another school graduated from the grad school program. 7% remained in school after their athletic eligibility expired, and 68% dropped out. So roughly 2/3 used the system to gain another year of eligibility and left without finishing grad school. If the athlete has no intention of finishing grad school, should there be a system in place to 'enroll' him as a student manager of sorts, eligible to play with no requirement to attend classes? Why not? He's not going to classes second semester anyway.

Xudash wrote:We emphasize the value of being in a hoops-centric league.

He's selling something else to the gentlemen down South: http://www.foxsports.com/midwest/story/mike-tranghese-s-mandate-bolster-sec-s-basketball-profile-060216

Yeah, not sure being affiliated with Tranghese is a valuable idea for the BE and PC any longer. He says all of the right things about PC and the BE, but he seems to say the right things to anyone who will cut him a check at this point.

How does it make sense for a BE school, or the BE itself, to pay a guy a consultancy fee when the guy is down at the SEC teaching them how to sell a football game as a basketball recruiting tool?

ChelseaFriar wrote:

Xudash wrote:We emphasize the value of being in a hoops-centric league.

He's selling something else to the gentlemen down South: http://www.foxsports.com/midwest/story/mike-tranghese-s-mandate-bolster-sec-s-basketball-profile-060216

Yeah, not sure being affiliated with Tranghese is a valuable idea for the BE and PC any longer. He says all of the right things about PC and the BE, but he seems to say the right things to anyone who will cut him a check at this point.

How does it make sense for a BE school, or the BE itself, to pay a guy a consultancy fee when the guy is down at the SEC teaching them how to sell a football game as a basketball recruiting tool?

My exact thought with this and the reason why I shared the article.