Marcus: Pitino says he'll look at scheduling not as tough of a schedule

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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I'm not sure exactly what to make of this. We played in a non-conference tournament (which I assume we'll always do), we played in the BT/ACC Tournament (which I assume we'll always do) and we played on the road at Richmond (which we won, and should presumably always win that type of game). The rest of the schedule was junk.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Pitino said moving forward he'll look at scheduling and possibly not having to play such a strong schedule to make NCAAs. <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Gophers&src=hash">#Gophers</a></p>— Marcus R. Fuller (@GophersNow) <a href="https://twitter.com/GophersNow/statuses/445628272055820288">March 17, 2014</a></blockquote>
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Go Gophers!!
 

he's just trying to send a message to NCAA. We we're towards the top in non conference SOS and didn't make it. Although, if you take away the Maui Invitational and schedule a couple Richmond type teams, I think we would've been on the right side of the bubble.
 

I love it. He's playing the political game. It was a joke that we weren't even "considered" for one of the final spots given our SOS and RPI.
 

Man, I thought our non-conference schedule was perfect from an NCAA selection stand point. Not many RPI killers, and loads of wins to be had. We were set up pretty well going into the B1G season, we just didn't take care of business. I hope that is just some posturing or coach speak.
 

Gold Vision said:
Man, I thought our non-conference schedule was perfect from an NCAA selection stand point. Not many RPI killers, and loads of wins to be had. We were set up pretty well going into the B1G season, we just didn't take care of business. I hope that is just some posturing or coach speak.
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If you replace Syracuse and Arkansas with easy wins, we probably get in to the tournament. I don't think we should stop playing the primetime non-conference tourneys, but it is definitely something to think about. Usually the committee encourages strong schedules, they went away from that this year.
 


SMU would probably argue that the committee does look at SOS.
 


So many announcers are defending SMU.... pathetic.

Our schedule for non-conference is perfect as it is. Just win one more Big Ten game and we're in every year at 9-9.
 

Translation?

We aren't going to pursue any decent home-and-homes anytime soon.
 



yea the committee basically said that only your conference record matters UNLESS you lose games in the non con OR you beat top level teams. Beating teams like FSU and Richmond don't matter.
 

They could play some of these mid-majors who get their RPIs up to 30-40 by winning 25+ games, despite a SOS of 100+.
 

MadtownGopher said:
I love it. He's playing the political game. It was a joke that we weren't even "considered" for one of the final spots given our SOS and RPI.
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I hope you are right and that is truly the motivation. If this is serious and we are trying to figure out a way to move up five or six spots overall in the pecking order, we have the wrong guy for the job. I hope the goal is to not to just be part of that "last four in" conversation every year. I suspect you are right Madtown.
 




It would be helpful if we knew the full context of the quote.
 

golfing18now said:
I hope you are right and that is truly the motivation. If this is serious and we are trying to figure out a way to move up five or six spots overall in the pecking order, we have the wrong guy for the job. I hope the goal is to not to just be part of that "last four in" conversation every year. I suspect you are right Madtown.
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It's not just that. It's also a matter of how much of a wringer do you want to put your team through, especially if they're worn out by the time you're halfway through the conference schedule? If doing so doesn't help in the NCAA selection process, what's the point?
 

We need to dump the powerhouses like Illinois and Northwestern.
 

Bad Gopher said:
It's not just that. It's also a matter of how much of a wringer do you want to put your team through, especially if they're worn out by the time you're halfway through the conference schedule? If doing so doesn't help in the NCAA selection process, what's the point?
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Would you classify this year's schedule as a "wringer? Certainly is during the conference schedule.

For me, SOS or no-SOS, this didn't feel like a tournament team. They beat nobody away from home. I don't think they have a legitimate gripe this year.
 



Maybe we should play the same type of conference schedule, and then get a winning record in conference next year. I'm with SS on this one, I want to see a few home-and-homes with really quality competition.

Perhaps our problem was that our tough SOS was based on schedule a lot of pretty good teams out-of-conference rather than a few really good ones. I didn't feel like we were particularly battle-tested entering the B1G season, and we definitely let a few close ones slip away at the end.
 

playing a weaker non-conference isn't going to help if you can't beat what would be cosnidered quality teans any place other than your home court.
 


golfing18now said:
Would you classify this year's schedule as a "wringer? Certainly is during the conference schedule.

For me, SOS or no-SOS, this didn't feel like a tournament team. They beat nobody away from home. I don't think they have a legitimate gripe this year.
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Different people are going to look at this differently, but here's what I think. I don't feel like a top-10 strength of schedule was a good fit for this particular team: relatively inexperienced, especially at this level; weak at the power positions, so they took a beating and exerted a lot of energy. By the time they got through half the conference schedule, they were sucking some proverbial wind, and then they lost their best player for a stretch. For this team, it was a wringer. For another team it wouldn't have been such a meat grinder.
 

I'm with Madtown in that this is all PR aimed at the committee for leaving us out.

If Pitino really wanted a weak schedule he wouldn't have scheduled UL next year even with his dad as coach and he wouldn't push for us to be in the tournaments we are.
 


<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/GopherHole">@GopherHole</a> Pitino was just frustrated about their SOS not meaning as much as he expected. He knows recruits want to play in big games.</p>— Marcus R. Fuller (@GophersNow) <a href="https://twitter.com/GophersNow/statuses/446026221768282112">March 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
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Go Gophers!!
 

Bad Gopher said:
Different people are going to look at this differently, but here's what I think. I don't feel like a top-10 strength of schedule was a good fit for this particular team: relatively inexperienced, especially at this level; weak at the power positions, so they took a beating and exerted a lot of energy. By the time they got through half the conference schedule, they were sucking some proverbial wind, and then they lost their best player for a stretch. For this team, it was a wringer. For another team it wouldn't have been such a meat grinder.
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That's fair. Although I would say that they pretty much get an off-month in December with the opponents that they schedule. Hard to evaluate energy, etc. but they did look gassed at the end.

I'm generally one of the schedule apologists on this site. I just don't like this particular comment, but more from the "woe is me" angle than what I think it would lead to in the future in terms of scheduling.
 

Yep, just politics. His end goal is probably to get them to appreciate SOS more next season when we'll have another 10 or 15 SOS.
 

I thought their SOS was rated a little higher than it actually was, sure they beat FSU and Richmond but they also lost to Syracuse in a tough game then crapped the bed against Arkansas taking another quality opponent off the schedule, the B1G schedule makes the SOS what it is and there is nothing you can do to change that. The Illinois game at home and Wisconsin in the quarterfinal of the B1G tournament were big opportunities that went south, bottom line is you have to produce and they didn't, the non conference SOS didn't really have anything to do with it.
 

People forget the quality mid major games when analyzing our non-conference SOS. Teams like Costal Carolina that people bitch and moan about that actually end up being great games because the team goes on to win their conference and get into the dance. Those types of games really help your SOS, scheduling those types of mid majors was Esposito's specialty.
 

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