What we have learned from not being selected is that building a tournament resume is an art and we must learn from the mistakes we made this year. Looking over our schedule we had several huge mistakes:
mistake #1 - limit the number of 300+ rpi teams that you play to a maximum of one. Looking at the chart above, it is pretty easy to deduce that Alcorn St, Texas Pan American, Longwood, Maryland Eastern Shore and Cal State Bakersfield would finish below 300 in the rpi standings.
mistake #2 - don't play "traditional" non-tourney teams on the road ever. There is no reason to play teams like San Francisco or Harvard on the road, it is hard to win away from home, so you need to limit your exposure to losses.
mistake #3 - no marquee names on the schedule. The road to the tourney starts and ends in the east and marquee games need to be loaded up from that region, but they must absolutely top 50 teams.
Here should be our schedule guide until the selection committee changes the structure of how teams are selected. We are looking to schedule 14 games every year out of conference with 16 conference games for a total of 30 games (before the conference tourney)
3 away games versus top-tier east talent. Go through the ACC/Big East and play as many away games with the top teams that you can schedule without asking them for a home game in return
2/3 tournament games. Get in the best tournament you can find where you will play at least 3 games versus top 150 rpi talent
1 conference exchange game. This will be similar to the Big 12/Pac 12 setup we have now. It will be interesting to see what happens next year with the Big 12 having less conference members.
1 cupcake - find a 300 or higher rpi team to come to your house every year without a return game
1 local game - it seems we are tied to CSU so we will continue the home/away series with them
4/5 teams that usually finish 150 to 250 in rpi that will play you only at home. This is where the rubber meets the road, we are going to have to find teams that we can pay an appearance fee to play in our court without requesting and appearance on their court. If we absolutely must play at their place, we need to do a 2 for 1 or if possible 3 for 1.
The plan for this out of conference schedule is to finish at least 8-5 at worst. We can afford to lose to the 3 top 50 rpi teams a tournament game and even afford to lose to CSU or the conference exchange game on the road, but we absolutely need to win versus the 5 or 6 top 150 rpi teams that we play at home.
At that point we should have 8-5 or 9-4 record with a top 50 rpi, with a very good strength of schedule and a great out of conference record going into conference play. We will need to finish a minimum of 10-8 with 2 conference tourney wins or 11-7 with one conference tourney win and an NCAA selection. We will have 9 conference home games every year, so we need to win a minimum of one or two on the road.
Last edited:
