6 tournament teams again this year

[Hall2012]

Right now, it's important for all Big East teams to play strong non-conference schedules because the league as a whole is still in the process of proving itself. You can see that from the preseason polls. Last year we started with 1 ranked team and finished with finished with 3, as well as a few other teams in and out a various points. This year, we started with 2 and we're up to 4 right now. Once people start believing in this league to the point where we're getting 3 and 4 teams in the preseason polls, scheduling a strong OOC schedule loses some importance. We obviously don't want to schedule crap, but when teams know they'll get at least 6-8 opportunities for high quality top 25 wins in conference play, it makes more sense to build the OOC schedule with quantity of wins in mind over quality. A Big East team that hits that 20 win plateau, including at least a pair over ranked conference opponents should generally be in pretty good shape.

I think by and large OOC schedules have improved greatly the last 5 years nation wide. You're going to pretty much yearly have the exempt tourney with at least 2 if not 3 good games. Gavitt games for most everyone. Rivalry games. I think worst case the OOC SOS should be around 200.

Right and I'm just saying that when Big East schools in general are given better starting position in the polls, our bubble teams shouldn't need to go crazy with their OOC schedules. After their exempt tourney and Gavitt games, mostly loading up on RPI 100-150 opponents should leave them in pretty good shape entering conference play.

[BEwannabe]

so here is your blind (don't cheat) test of expected year end rpi's
which conference gets 6 bids?
conf A - 28,29,32,44,45,51
conf B - 21,34,56,57,70,77
conf C - 6, 9,26,47,58,81
conf D - 5, 7,22,27,50,89

lots of bubble teams in my estimation

[DudeAnon]

so here is your blind (don't cheat) test of expected year end rpi's
which conference gets 6 bids?
conf A - 28,29,32,44,45,51
conf B - 21,34,56,57,70,77
conf C - 6, 9,26,47,58,81
conf D - 5, 7,22,27,50,89

lots of bubble teams in my estimation

Yikes, predicting RPI's 20 games from now? Can't think of a more unreliable metric.

But ignoring your stupid metric, we are probably send 5 tourney teams. Nova, X, Butler, PC and 1 of (MU, GU, SH). And that is a guess, as is every other prediction at this point of the season.

[BEwannabe]

so here is your blind (don't cheat) test of expected year end rpi's
which conference gets 6 bids?
conf A - 28,29,32,44,45,51 (Pac12)
conf B - 21,34,56,57,70,77 (A10)
conf C - 6, 9,26,47,58,81 (BigEast)
conf D - 5, 7,22,27,50,89 (B1G)

lots of bubble teams in my estimation

[ChestRockwell85]

stever, that Villanova 2012-2013 team you talk about had wins over #5 Louisville, #3 Syracuse, #17 Marquette, and #5 Georgetown. I love the new Big East, but you just don't have the opportunity to take out as many top ranked teams to improve your tournament chances like you did in the old Big East. Don't get me wrong, 40% of our conference is ranked in the Top 20 right now, we are obviously a strong conference, but again, in 2012-2013, Villanova took out 3 DIFFERENT Big East teams who were all ranked in the Top 5 at the time Villanova beat them. You just don't see that in the new Big East as of right now so you really need to have a strong out of conference schedule and most likely you need to have a few good wins within that out of conference schedule to really help your chances.

[stever20]

stever, that Villanova 2012-2013 team you talk about had wins over #5 Louisville, #3 Syracuse, #17 Marquette, and #5 Georgetown. I love the new Big East, but you just don't have the opportunity to take out as many top ranked teams to improve your tournament chances like you did in the old Big East. Don't get me wrong, 40% of our conference is ranked in the Top 20 right now, we are obviously a strong conference, but again, in 2012-2013, Villanova took out 3 DIFFERENT Big East teams who were all ranked in the Top 5 at the time Villanova beat them. You just don't see that in the new Big East as of right now.

right. my point with that Nova team though was that even with that, if they had the Marquette schedule this year, they would have been very precarious. They had a good OOC schedule that year. Also they were 10-8 in conference play. That helps out a lot as well.

[Westbrook#36]

right. my point with that Nova team though was that even with that, ... They had a good OOC schedule that year. Also they were 10-8 in conference play. That helps out a lot as well.

Really??? No we didn't. This from the guy who's been raking Nova over the coals for a "poor" ooc schedule the last 3 seasons. Hate to break to you stever, our ooc schedule in 12-13 sucked in comparison our last 3 years'. In 12-13 our best games were Purdue(unranked), Alabama(unranked), and Vanderbilt(unranked), no comparison what so ever to our ooc since then. We didn't need a strong ooc in that BE, conference play took care of that. Just more proof of you moving goalposts or playing both sides of the fence whenever it best suits your agenda, that being whatever portrays the BE in the most negative light.

Edit: Just to be sure I just looked it up.

Nova's out of conference strength of schedule ranking for the years' in question are as follows:

12-13 (#167)
13-14 (#66)
14-15 (#71)
15-16 (#14)

Here's the link http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/rpi/_/sort/RPI

[stever20]

right. my point with that Nova team though was that even with that, ... They had a good OOC schedule that year. Also they were 10-8 in conference play. That helps out a lot as well.

Really??? No we didn't. This from the guy who's been raking Nova over the coals for a "poor" ooc schedule the last 3 seasons. Hate to break to you stever, our ooc schedule in 12-13 sucked in comparison our last 3 years'. In 12-13 our best games were Purdue(unranked), Alabama(unranked), and Vanderbilt(unranked), no comparison what so ever to our ooc since then. We didn't need a strong ooc in that BE, conference play took care of that. Just more proof of you moving goalposts or playing both sides of the fence whenever it best suits your agenda, that being whatever portrays the BE in the most negative light.

But then you had Big 5 games with Temple(#42), La Salle(#41), and even St Joe's (#69)- I know easy to forget those. of the 12 D1 OOC games, 7 were in the top 130. OOC SOS was #106 overall. Also, I wasn't comparing Nova's SOS then to Nova's SOS now, I'm comparing it to the garbage that Marquette has this year. 230 spots better. Marquette has 9 opponents right now in the 200 or worse range. LSU should get out of that- but none of the other 8 will. There's no comparison. If Nova had Marquettes schedule this year in 2013- they would have struggled to make the tourney.

[stever20]

You don't need a strong SOS, but you can't be like Marquette/Creighton/Seton Hall and dial up cupcake st.

sorry but there's no excuse for:
Marquette 335 with 2 losses already
Creighton 283 with 3 losses already and projected 4th
Seton Hall 271 with 2 losses already, and tough game left with Wichita where they are only a 60% chance of winning

That's my point. You can't be putrid OOC and you really can't be putrid OOC and lose games.

Also would say that the Big East circa 2016 is a LOT different than Big East was in 2013.

[marquette]

Alright stever, we may be a little over-enthusiastic but how did all those numbers you forced on us work last year? I believe at one point you had us at 3 bids, no?