New OOC game - Central Arkansas at Pitt (Dec 6) - OUCH
- Thread starter Jeff_Hauser
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Games like this surely don't generate much excitement among fans. They also aren't particularly fun to watch. But unfortunately, this is pretty much par for the course for almost all top conference teams. These are the kinds of games that fill out schedules.
I suppose the good news for Pitt fans this year is that we'll get a good Purdue team at home and have Gonzaga and Davidson at neutral court. We also have solid mid-major games with Eastern Washington and Kent State.
Other than a handful, this is pretty much the norm for just about every team in College Hoops now.
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Not really. Like I said, this is pretty much the norm, just as playing D I-AA teams is in College Football. The "good games" are played in event such as the ones Pitt is playing with Purdue, Gonzaga and Davidson.
Since these are the kinds of games that we all see on TV, it's easy to get the impression that everyone plays a whole bunch of great games but us. But it's simply not the case. The OOC games we see on TV are everyone else's Purdues, Gonzagas and Davidsons.
But what we aren't seeing is that everyone else is playing sub 200 RPI games to fill out their schedule. It's really not embarrassing for Pitt alone. It's the norm. Perhaps one might find the norm to be embarrassing. That's understandable, of course.
I'm interested to see how the OOC slate shapes up over the next several years under Barnes/Dixon. Should be interesting to follow with Barnes' significant selection committee experience.
Interesting point.
However, knowing the success we've had with our seeing over the last several years, it's possible that Barnes won't suggest too many tweaks.
Yeah, but now seeding may be the least of our problems.
No doubt.
But you are moving the bar now, aren't ya!
Of course. You're easy to mess with. That's why I do it.
Touche!
'Cept at the end of most days, I'm still feeling good and positive ... you?
Empty seats in conference games ( there's always empty seats in the OOC games ) due to lack of ticket demand might make the powers to be to attempt to strengthen the OOC portion of their schedule to make the entire package more attractive. I have no luv for WVU ,but it's a sure sell out and and inexpensive travel road trip ( h&h series )
About my life, very positive. PITT hoops, I cannot feel positive right now. I would feel delusional.
I am pretty sure the committee ignores the scrub games ALL high D1 schools play, unless they lose of course.
I actually like these kinds of opponent games (as long as we don't play more than a few of them). I enjoy seeing Pitt blowing out an opponent by 25++ points. I certainly prefer such games more than I would seeing a close (or not so close) loss to a strong opponent. I am not one of those fans (spoiled fans maybe?) who appear to want an OOC schedule that is as strong as (or nearly so) as the conference schedule. IMHO, they are like people with a "death wish." If Pitt played the schedule they think they would like Pitt would never smell the NCAA tourney even when they have a team that goes 10-8 in conference since they would probably wind up 18-14 (8-6 in that tough OOC schedule they wish for) and headed at best for an NIT bid.
A good team doesn't need 10-12 easy games to pad its record . The first four/five games are ok ,but play somebody the paying customer might enjoy after that. If you can't beat decent teams in the OOC schedule how far are going in the tournament anyway.
If EVERY team plays 9-10 schlub games, Pitt puts itself in a disadvantage playing a lot more. Teams have scheduled themselves OUT of the tourney by scheduling TOO many hard games, losing a few, and having a record that didn't cut it at the end. Too much is made of this on this site, when EVERY school does this.
If your goal is to simply make the tourney thats fine ,but an sweet 16/elite 8/ final 4 team shouldn't be afraid of playing a couple of good mid- majors . I'm not advocating 12/13 tough games but 2/3 isn't asking much and if you can't beat them and it cost you a bid your not good enough anyway.
Of course the committee does. The problem is that the RPI doesn't. And that's a game we could win by 100 points and our RPI will still drop. At the end of the season the committee may not pay any attention to that game, but if we are near the bubble and that game makes our RPI 50 instead of 40 the committee will be paying attention to that.
Way, way, way more teams have scheduled themselves out of the tourney by scheduling TOO many easy games, winning all of them, and then having a record that the committee laughed at in the end.
I mean seriously, are we arguing that Pitt plays too many tough non-conference games and not nearly enough games against teams in the bottom ten of the NCAA? Good lord.
The funny thing is that you are looking at this exactly backwards. The committee doesn't look at wins over teams like Central Arkansas, but the hurt your RPI even if you win (and they would destroy it if you somehow managed to lose to a team like that) and the committee does look at that. On the other hand if you loss a game to a top team the committee doesn't hold that against you. After all, they are a top team, by definition they've beaten lots of other teams, some of whom are also pretty good. And the kicker is that it is possible that losing to a team like that can actually help you RPI, which the committee does see. And even if it doesn't help your RPI it also doesn't really hurt it either.
Playing crappy teams literally never helps. Playing a really good team literally almost never hurts, and when it does it's only a wee little bit. I'm not sure why this is such a hard concept for people to understand.
What does hurt is scheduling games with PRI's below 220 or even 250.
For a while, Dixon had been doing a pretty good job scheduling teams with RPI's 150-220.
As we've correctly pointed out, most major conference teams are only scheduling 3-4 really good games. But Dixon would help his cause a great deal more if he tried to stay away from these very low end RPI.
In other words, Canisus and Oakland are far superior opponents to Marist and Illinois Chicago.
As far as fans are concerned, they all stink, but that's not really the point.
He used to be very good at staying away from this kind of game. Which is why this game being on our schedule makes even less sense. He knows better than most what a game like that is going to do to our RPI. It might be at least a little understandable if this was a game we were getting "stuck with" because of the "tournament" that we are playing in, although we should make it a part of any deal to play in one of these events that we don't get stuck with a game like this one. However that doesn't appear to be the case because it appears that the home games of the "tournament" are Eastern Washington, Western Carolina and Morehead State.
In short, this game being scheduled is completely inexplicable.
What hurts the most is it doesn't matter if you win by 10 or win by 30... but the hit that your RPI takes for that low RPI team is gonna be significant and that is what the NCAA committee looks at come selection Sunday.
The only thing I can think of.... is there just wasn't anyone else available. Remember that Barnes was an early summer hire and Dixon was off pursuing those grad transfers so maybe they got behind on scheduling those games and they could not find anyone that was not already full or was not a schedule mismatch.
But, of course, there have been games like this in previous seasons.... teams ranking down near the absolute bottom.
So, whatever, lets just hope there is not more than one of these.
Because you're not entirely correct. I wasn't speaking specifically about THIS opponent and their merits. I am saying, literally, ALL teams schedule 8-10 scrub games. Every, single, solitary, team. Not sure why THAT is so hard to understand. It would not benefit Pitt at all to be the one team in the nation that schedules 8 hard games, loses 5, and misses the tournament because we lost too many games. I agree that the worst of the worst D1 teams has a negative impact. But playing "good" teams in lousy conferences is beneficial, and what Dixon used to master. Not sure why we added this bottom feeder though. That being said, in the very low conferences, teams ebb and flow all the time, so they could finish higher in their conference than last season. Nonetheless, in no way am I claiming that this specific team is worth scheduling. I was more addressing the emotional cripples that fall apart at ever low major we schedule as if only Pitt does so. When every, single, solitary, team, in, the, world, does, it.
OK, so Pitt pays a team like this between 50K-100K to come in. We also spend, I dont know 10K-20K to staff the Pete and turn the lights on. I know there are a few people on this board who still don't believe this, but I'm telling you Pitt LOSES money on these games. Pitt is better off just leaving this game off the schedule entirely. A win will not help our RPI and if it wasnt on the schedule, our season ticket "value" would not decrease. Nobody is going to make a decison on whether to buy season tickets based on the Central Arkansas game. It would have been better to go to Fayetteville to play Arkansas while hosting them next year.
To be honest, I would rather Pitt walk over to CMU to play them in their gym rather than opening the Pete for a game like this.
Pitt is one of the only major college teams to not play a true OOC home and home. Why is this?
So far though, this is the only really bad RPI game on the schedule.
We've got 2 more games to be announced. If they are both 220 RPI or better (and hopefully, one in the 100-150 range), we'll be OK as far as RPI is concerned.
Having said this, I suspect that neither of the last 2 will fit this bill.
Yea, the schedule looks fairly OK for RPI manipulating purposes, but if I'm Dixon or Barnes, I honestly would have not scheduled a low D1 team like Central Arkansas. We even have to pay them to come in. I would have just scheduled a regular season game against Pitt-Johnstown or some local D2 team......or not scheduled the game at all as it can only hurt us.
Trust YOU??? Econ??? As you sit at your company computer "poaching" web time to post ridiculous nonsense about Pitt revenues?? No one here would trust you with a penny.
I thought non-Div. 1 teams were only OK for exhibitions?? So they wouldn't count for anything. Chaminade, I think??
No, you can schedule non-D1 teams any time. The Mountain West made big news doing this and manipulating their RPIs that way and getting a bunch of teams in. The games dont count in your RPI so if we beat Carnegie Mellon at the buzzer, that will be much better for our NCAA chances than beating Central Arkansas by 70. Gotta love the RPI.
="DT_PITT, post: 230823
"What does hurt is scheduling games with PRI's below 220 or even 250."
Yeah. Pitt should never have signed up for this dumb game. They should get back to playing Robert Morris again.
They finished last year with an RPI of 153 or so. It would also be good for the city. RMU has beat Duquesne the past 5 seasons. Last year by more than Pitt even did (17).
"What does hurt is scheduling games with PRI's below 220 or even 250."
Yeah. Pitt should never have signed up for this dumb game. They should get back to playing Robert Morris again.
They finished last year with an RPI of 153 or so. It would also be good for the city. RMU has beat Duquesne the past 5 seasons. Last year by more than Pitt even did (17).
Do you know why Pitt and RMU won't play? The only thing I can think of is that Pitt doesn't want to pay RMU the "going rate" for a game like that and want them to take a hometown discount to bus over since it helps their program more.
Clearly, RMU would love to play Pitt but there's a hiccup somewhere and believe me its not that they just cant get their schedules to work. Either RMU wants a home game in there somewhere (which is doubtful) or they are asking for too much money to come in.
When RMU gets their new arena built, I would love to see Pitt sign up for a 4 for 1 deal. It would be great for local basketball and a cool venue to see Pitt in.
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