These next three games....

Both head coaches are guilty of padding their win totals by beating the whims of football and basketball. Hey I bet you anything if we keep Fran around for another twenty years he will climb right up that latter of most wins for an Iowa basketball coach.

FANatical-motivated or characterized by an EXTREME, UNCRITICAL ENTHUSIASM or zeal.
 
Robowe said:
Duke beat Princeton (RPI #246) 101-50 last night. But they only led by 13 (39-26 at half). I am sure Coach K saw no value in that game. :)
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There are other kinds of value for coaches and teams besides "competitive resume building games that the fans want to see". Teams are still working on things, players are testing things they worked on all off season, and coaches are solidifying their rotations.

Remember at the beginning of last season when Ahmad Wagner started and brady ellingson played 25+ minutes and Fran brought Garza off the bench? Or the year before that when Christian Williams started the season at point guard and Bohannon came off the bench? It helps to see things in live games against other opponents...regardless of the competition
 
ssckelley said:
My whole complaint was not scheduling cupcakes, it's the quality of them. Just don't schedule the worst of the worst. These next 3 opponents will lose well over 20 games this year. There is very little to be gained playing these terrible teams.
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This.

UNI at 180 is a cupcake.
There's no need to schedule any team in the 200+.

Ever


But Barta says he can't schedule a 187 in-state cupcake cuz #winningchampionships
 
mopkins said:
Never said that. My point is that if every Power 5 school schedules 4-7 cupcake non-conference games every single year...doesn't it stand to reason that every Power 5 coach sees benefit in them? Even if you and I don't?

They get paid to do this stuff for a living...we don't. I'm going to assume Mike Krzyzewski knows more about college basketball than I do, so when he schedules home games against Eastern Michigan, Stetson, and Hartford...he probably knows what he's doing.

Do you understand?
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I don't think you understand the point I was making even though I've clarified it a number of times. I don't give a crap about scheduling these games, it's the quality of these "cupcake" games. Scheduling last place teams from crappy low major conferences does very little for the team and can actually hurt their chances to get into the NCAA Tournament. After the win last night Iowa's RPI went down because Western Carolina has a horrible record and it will go down 2 more times after they play Savannah State and Bryant.

Duke does a decent job scheduling these types of games. Playing a 4-7 Hartford, a team that is projected to finish .500, is much better than playing Western Carolina whose projected record is 5-25 or Bryant who is projected to finish 7-22. BTW, that Hartford team beat Bryant last Wednesday by 17 points on Bryants home court.
 
Robowe said:
Duke beat Princeton (RPI #246) 101-50 last night. But they only led by 13 (39-26 at half). I am sure Coach K saw no value in that game. :)
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At least after beating Princeton their RPI rank did not drop. Duke remained the same while Iowa dropped 6 spots. Big difference between playing a team that is 4-5 versus a team that is 2-10. Granted these RPI rankings right now should be taken with a grain of salt as it's still early in the season but at the end of the year playing 3 teams in a row that are projected to lose over 20+ games will make a difference.
 
DDThompson said:
This.

UNI at 180 is a cupcake.
There's no need to schedule any team in the 200+.

Ever


But Barta says he can't schedule a 187 in-state cupcake cuz #winningchampionships
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That's not the reason. He won't agree to a home and home, theres no doubt Iowa would keep them on schedule if it was always at carver
 
ssckelley said:
At least after beating Princeton their RPI rank did not drop. Duke remained the same while Iowa dropped 6 spots. Big difference between playing a team that is 4-5 versus a team that is 2-10. Granted these RPI rankings right now should be taken with a grain of salt as it's still early in the season but at the end of the year playing 3 teams in a row that are projected to lose over 20+ games will make a difference.
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The committee in March doesnt use Rpi anymore, so maybe stop worrying about this...
 
QuadCityHawkeye said:
Iowa's SOS is going to take a massive hit. Western Carolina is 309 in Ken Pom, Savannah State is 344, and Bryant is 338.

Iowa would be better off losing to a top 150 team once than any of these wins. This is why losing that Wisconsin game hurts so much. These next three games are worthless for the NCAA tournament and they can't afford losses like Wisconsin because the margin of error is very slim. Hell even a top 200 Kem Pom would do. Anything 300 or under is just worthless for your tournament hopes unless you are going to win 10-11 conference games and Iowa already sits at 0-2 there. Plus these games all in a row do nothing to get you ready for conference play.
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Completely disagree. A loss to a RPI 150 team would be considered a really bad loss which is worse than 3 wins vs RPI 300. SOS will get get better as the BIG regular season gets into full swing.
 
lightning1 said:
Let us know when they schedule all 3 in a row. I'll wait. Even if it takes 30 years.
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NC State started their season with 5 cupcakes. Average margin of victory for them in those games was 40 points.

Southern Miss played Rust, Milsaps, South Alabama and William Carey all in a row.

SMU this year is more of a team that is a cupcake. Loss to Lipscomb and Southern Miss.

Wisconsin is in a three game stretch of Savannah St (who they beat by 41), Grambling St and Western Kentucky.

And every one of the teams you mentioned have multiple cupcakes scheduled with some semi-tough games sprinkled into their schedule.
 
mopkins said:
I think Fran disagrees with you since he controls a lot of the scheduling. So Fran must see some sort of benefit, and Fran's opinion is one of the only ones that matter.
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The coach has some influence in who is played. But ultimately, it's the athletic director who schedules the games, sometimes up to a decade in advance in football but only a year or two in advance in basketball. In 2012, LSU had scheduled football games in 2027 (as ludicrous as that sounds).
 
smitharooney said:
Iowa already plays in a tough conference . There is zero benefit to scheduling a full slate of tough non conference opponents. You do well in the big ten you usually go dancing . This isn’t rocket science
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You also missed the who point of the thread. I don't think there is anyone here saying they need to schedule a "full slate of tough non conference opponents". It certainly wasn't my original point and I'm the one who started the thread.

The point was, when scheduling these cupcakes don't schedule the ones that end up losing over 20 games and are are ranked 300+ in the RPI. Instead schedule the ones that at least win a few games and have a chance to finish .500 or better. Does that make sense?
 
ssckelley said:
It's still part of the new NET that they use.
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Iowa's NET ranking actually went up 1 spot after beating Western Carolina. The RPI's opponent winning percentage and opponent's opponent winning percentage do not appear to be a part of the formula. Simply win games efficiently and you will be rewarded. Bonus points for road wins and slightly smaller bonus for neutral court wins like the RPI had.
 
Knight78 said:
NC State started their season with 5 cupcakes. Average margin of victory for them in those games was 40 points.

Wisconsin is in a three game stretch of Savannah St (who they beat by 41), Grambling St and Western Kentucky.

And every one of the teams you mentioned have multiple cupcakes scheduled with some semi-tough games sprinkled into their schedule.
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I'm throwing out Southern Miss and SMU, those are mid majors. NC State, yeah, their first 6 games were against some terrible competition and they have 2 more on their schedule.

But looking at the 3 game stretch Wisconsin is playing, you're right, they are playing 3 cupcakes in a row but the worst of them is the Savannah State a team that Iowa also will be playing. The other 2 are Grambling State and Western Kentucky, I wouldn't consider WKU a cupcake as they are considered to be a mid major. They were a bubble team for the NCAA tournament last year and reached the semi finals of the NIT. They are projected to finish above .500 and they almost beat Wisconsin last year, losing by just 1 point. The other team is Grambling State, they are one of the better teams in the SWAC and won the conference regular season title last year. They are projected to be one of the top teams in the SWAC again this year.

Wisconsin is doing exactly what I'd like to see Iowa do.
 
Knight78 said:
NC State started their season with 5 cupcakes. Average margin of victory for them in those games was 40 points.

Southern Miss played Rust, Milsaps, South Alabama and William Carey all in a row.

SMU this year is more of a team that is a cupcake. Loss to Lipscomb and Southern Miss.

Wisconsin is in a three game stretch of Savannah St (who they beat by 41), Grambling St and Western Kentucky.

And every one of the teams you mentioned have multiple cupcakes scheduled with some semi-tough games sprinkled into their schedule.
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That's 4 out of the 9 teams you named. You got less than half right. Maybe you should talk to Gutless Gary. He'll give you a 7 figure salary with a .44 win %. I've seen him do it.
 
smitharooney said:
Iowa already plays in a tough conference . There is zero benefit to scheduling a full slate of tough non conference opponents. You do well in the big ten you usually go dancing . This isn’t rocket science
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Exactly right. The non-con is about balance. You play some tough games and some cupcakes. I would much rather come out of the non-con 11-2 than 8-5 or 9-4, especially given the brutal B10 schedule coming up.
 
DDThompson said:
This.

UNI at 180 is a cupcake.
There's no need to schedule any team in the 200+.

Ever


But Barta says he can't schedule a 187 in-state cupcake cuz #winningchampionships
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UNI just got beat at home by double digits to Grand Canyon so they're trending for 200+, maybe 250+.
 
Jason Rann said:
Exactly right. The non-con is about balance. You play some tough games and some cupcakes. I would much rather come out of the non-con 11-2 than 8-5 or 9-4, especially given the brutal B10 schedule coming up.
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Agreed but Iowa only plays 11 non conference games. It would be nice as fans to play more teams in the 150 to 200 RPI range. That being said I'm sure those teams expect a bigger payout for coming to Carver. I'd guess that the ticket revenue for a 150 RPI team isn't going to be a whole lot better than a 300 RPI team. So if you have to pay twice as much to bring a slightly better team to Carver, it doesn't make a ton of sense. Now of course if that win vs a 150 RPI team is the difference between making the tourney or not then you absolutely need to fork out the extra money to get that team to Carver as making the NCAA tourney would make up for the difference cost wise.

The bottom line though is with more conference games Iowa will make the tourney most seasons if they have an above .500 conference record.
 
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