The ACC problem

[SteelBowl70]

An all time expansion low of 26% teams making it in and now the 3rd place team (2 years in a row) and 4th place team aren’t selected. This happens even though the conference has the 4th highest NET and best tourney record the last 2 years (21-10) With Miami and Pitt last year alone winning more games than the entire MWC’s 8 bids garnered over the last 2.

The conference will be further watered down with the addition of the 3 teams whose NET this year was 65, 113 and 128.

Given that UNC and Duke are basically givens every year, this will leave 16 teams competing for a few bids? Is that the future of ACC basketball? How does a school like Pitt combat that? It’s obvious that just relying on the brand name and conference SOS doesn’t work. Pitt this year is proof of that.

 

[Vader_Storm]

An all time expansion low of 26% teams making it in and now the 3rd place team (2 years in a row) and 4th place teams aren’t selected. This happens even though the conference has the 4th highest NET and best tourney record the last years (21-10).

The conference will be further watered down with the addition of the 3 teams whose NET this year was 65, 113 and 128.

Given that UNC and Duke are basically givens every year, this will leave 16 teams competing for a few bids? Is that the future of ACC basketball? How does a school combat that?

Play better and schedule better in the non conference schedule. That's all that appears to matter now a days, an 11 game non conference schedule in November. I said this last year, very few Q4 games if any.

I would play a bunch of neutral site games.


For Jeff Capel, since our team is never ready out of the gate in November and we always have a boatload of injuries and suspensions early in the season, start scheduling non conference games in January and February.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

Play better and schedule better in the non conference schedule. That's all that appears to matter now a days, an 11 game non conference schedule in November. I said this last year, very few Q4 games if any.

I would play a bunch of neutral site games.


For Jeff Capel, since our team is never ready out of the gate in November and we always have a boatload of injuries and suspensions early in the season, start scheduling non conference games in January and February.

Agree with some of this. The non-con is probably more important than the conference schedule.

Play the 1st 2 games of the season vs ACC teams. These are essentially warm-up games for the ever so crucial non-conference season. This should ready the teams. Then play 1-2 cupcakes before the holiday tournaments and SEC Challenge. Then play 2 more ACC games in early December then more good OOC oppents or cupcakes if you must.

But here's what I'd do in Feb. I'd take 1-2 weeks off from ACC play and have a scheduling agreement with conferences like the CAA, SoCon, MAC, Sun Belt, etc to play these "cupcake games" but match up CAA 1 vs ACC 5, CAA 2 vs ACC 6, etc so it gives both conferences a chance for those teams to pick up resume wins. And a team like Pitt plays Drexel who maybe has a NET of 120 instead of a MEAC team. Maybe ACC 1 plays CAA 6 or 7 because it doesnt really matter.

One thing is for sure, the ACC has to be really creative

 

[Vader_Storm]

Agree with some of this. The non-con is probably more important than the conference schedule.

Play the 1st 2 games of the season vs ACC teams. These are essentially warm-up games for the ever so crucial non-conference season. This should ready the teams. Then play 1-2 cupcakes before the holiday tournaments and SEC Challenge. Then play 2 more ACC games in early December then more good OOC oppents or cupcakes if you must.

But here's what I'd do in Feb. I'd take 1-2 weeks off from ACC play and have a scheduling agreement with conferences like the CAA, SoCon, MAC, Sun Belt, etc to play these "cupcake games" but match up CAA 1 vs ACC 5, CAA 2 vs ACC 6, etc so it gives both conferences a chance for those teams to pick up resume wins. And a team like Pitt plays Drexel who maybe has a NET of 120 instead of a MEAC team. Maybe ACC 1 plays CAA 6 or 7 because it doesnt really matter.

One thing is for sure, the ACC has to be really creative

The non conference schedule is more important and its beyond ridiculous. I mean, Jeff Goodman sent out a tweet last night quoting all bubble teams and the non conference strength of schedule. That's it. That was the purpose of the tweet. To show how hard the non conference schedule SOS the night before Selection Sunday.



This bullshit narrative keeps getting pushed. Look, I am going to say this in a nice way. Jeff Capel and Pitt have shit the bed every year in the non conference schedule and have damaged this league because of it. Wake Forest killed the league this year because the NCAA would not let Efton Reid play in the non conference schedule.

The ACC commissioner need to get all ACC players eligible on day 1 and ready to go out of the gate. And Jeff Capel needs to play more games later in the year than earlier, because we are never ready to go in November.

And the Q4 cupcakes need to be over.

 

[Pitt2009]

How about Louisville starts to win again? That will help the ACC’s metrics and reputation.

 

[Vader_Storm]

The non conference schedule is more important and its beyond ridiculous. I mean, Jeff Goodman sent out a tweet last night quoting all bubble teams and the non conference strength of schedule. That's it. That was the purpose of the tweet. To show how hard the non conference schedule SOS the night before Selection Sunday.



This bullshit narrative keeps getting pushed. Look, I am going to say this in a nice way. Jeff Capel and Pitt have shit the bed every year in the non conference schedule and have damaged this league because of it. Wake Forest killed the league this year because the NCAA would not let Efton Reid play in the non conference schedule.

The ACC commissioner need to get all ACC players eligible on day 1 and ready to go out of the gate. And Jeff Capel needs to play more games later in the year than earlier, because we are never ready to go in November.

And the Q4 cupcakes need to be over.

Ill add 1 more thing to this.

Try to schedule a preseason top 5 or top 10 at worst team on the road with no return game. Even if its an almost certain loss, the fact that 1 dumb game will really improve the non conference SOS is worth it over a team that is ranked 350th in the non conference sos.

 

[SteelBowl70]

How about Louisville starts to win again? That will help the ACC’s metrics and reputation.

yeah but that doesn’t address the NC SOS issue. Pitt played 11 conference Q3-Q4 games last year and only 5 this year. Pitt’s overall SOS is better than last year and certainly in line with other teams that will be selected. The NC SOS is a weapon the committee uses and not to defend against it is asking for trouble.

plus adding 3 mediocre basketball programs is going to further water down the league brand.

 

[Vader_Storm]

yeah but that doesn’t address the NC SOS issue. Pitt played 11 conference Q3-Q4 games last year and only 5 this year. Pitt’s overall SOS is better than last year and certainly in line with other teams that will be selected. The NC SOS is a weapon the committee uses and not to defend against it is asking for trouble.

The issue is the bad teams weighing it down.


North Carolina A&T-341
Jacksonville-300
South Carolina St.- 298
Canisius-258
Binghamton-273
Florida Gulf Coast- 238

That is way too much garbage in an 11 game non conference schedule.

Replace those 5 doormats with teams in the 100-200 range with 1 preseason top 5 team on the road to juice the numbers.

 

[TheSpecialSauce]

yeah but that doesn’t address the NC SOS issue. Pitt played 11 conference Q3-Q4 games last year and only 5 this year. Pitt’s overall SOS is better than last year and certainly in line with other teams that will be selected. The NC SOS is a weapon the committee uses and not to defend against it is asking for trouble.

plus adding 3 mediocre basketball programs is going to further water down the league brand.

You’d expect Louisville to return to being a good team.

We need the new ACC additions to stay within the 160 of the NET.

Limit the number of obvious Quad 4 games.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

The non conference schedule is more important and its beyond ridiculous. I mean, Jeff Goodman sent out a tweet last night quoting all bubble teams and the non conference strength of schedule. That's it. That was the purpose of the tweet. To show how hard the non conference schedule SOS the night before Selection Sunday.



This bullshit narrative keeps getting pushed. Look, I am going to say this in a nice way. Jeff Capel and Pitt have shit the bed every year in the non conference schedule and have damaged this league because of it. Wake Forest killed the league this year because the NCAA would not let Efton Reid play in the non conference schedule.

The ACC commissioner need to get all ACC players eligible on day 1 and ready to go out of the gate. And Jeff Capel needs to play more games later in the year than earlier, because we are never ready to go in November.

And the Q4 cupcakes need to be over.

I think the big test will be if Oklahoma gets in by going only 4-12 in Quad 1. If so, that basically means that its ok to suck in Quad 1 as long as you have a strong schedule and don't lose games you shouldn't. The ACC needs to schedule more Q1/2 games in the non-con and also stop scheduling low majors. Mid-majors are ok. Not HBCU's and Patriot League teams and teams like that

 

[SteelBowl70]

Look at blue on Dayton’s team sheet as an example

Dayton Flyers NET - Nitty Gritty Report & Team Sheet 2024 Men's College Basketball | WarrenNolan.com

NET - Nitty Gritty Report & Team Sheet for Dayton Flyers 2024 Men's College Basketball. This Is a Duplication of the report used by the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee to Determine At-Large Teams in the national championship tournament with quadrants

www.warrennolan.com

compared to the blue here

Pittsburgh Panthers NET - Nitty Gritty Report & Team Sheet 2024 Men's College Basketball | WarrenNolan.com

NET - Nitty Gritty Report & Team Sheet for Pittsburgh Panthers 2024 Men's College Basketball. This Is a Duplication of the report used by the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee to Determine At-Large Teams in the national championship tournament with quadrants

www.warrennolan.com

Pitt’s overall schedule is harder but pundits don‘t mention that. Even though the blue is only 1/3 of your schedule, it matters more than your conference record.

 

[Tiger Paul Lives]

And in a year or two they will start telling us that the OOC schedule really doesn't matter that much. The new criteria will be this or that. It always seems to be a moving target every few years.

 

[NCPitt]

There is a major fallacy in wishing the conference bottom gets better and playing a tougher non-conference schedule for teams like Pitt. It will result in more losses. Being in the middle of a better conference does not improve the chances of getting into the tournament. Pitt's schedule was fine had it won 2-3 more games.

These kinds of "wishes" are like those who rooted for NCS to beat UVA on Friday. They hoped it eliminated UVA. Instead, it elevated NCS. Be careful what you wish for.

 

[4Mark_Marty]

The non conference schedule is more important and its beyond ridiculous. I mean, Jeff Goodman sent out a tweet last night quoting all bubble teams and the non conference strength of schedule. That's it. That was the purpose of the tweet. To show how hard the non conference schedule SOS the night before Selection Sunday.



This bullshit narrative keeps getting pushed. Look, I am going to say this in a nice way. Jeff Capel and Pitt have shit the bed every year in the non conference schedule and have damaged this league because of it. Wake Forest killed the league this year because the NCAA would not let Efton Reid play in the non conference schedule.

The ACC commissioner need to get all ACC players eligible on day 1 and ready to go out of the gate. And Jeff Capel needs to play more games later in the year than earlier, because we are never ready to go in November.

And the Q4 cupcakes need to be over.

Jim Phillips is a bum

 

[TD_6082]

There is a major fallacy in wishing the conference bottom gets better and playing a tougher non-conference schedule for teams like Pitt. It will result in more losses. Being in the middle of a better conference does not improve the chances of getting into the tournament. Pitt's schedule was fine had it won 2-3 more games.

These kinds of "wishes" are like those who rooted for NCS to beat UVA on Friday. They hoped it eliminated UVA. Instead, it elevated NCS. Be careful what you wish for.

True.

At the same time, conference members can't be out there losing games to Chattanooga, Liscomb, Citadel, Western Carolina, DePaul, Arkansas State, Mizzou, and UMass-Lowell.

 

[SteelBowl70]

True.

At the same time, conference members can't be out there losing games to Chattanooga, Liscomb, Citadel, Western Carolina, DePaul, Arkansas State, Mizzou, and UMass-Lowell.

Again it’s the 4th rated NET conference and much better than last year. The issue for Pitt this year is the emphasis on their NC SOS. Their SOS is better than year and fine overall as our all their metrics.

Missouri was in Lunardi early brackets and beat Minnesota. They turned stink later just as Pitt turned very good with Lowe recovering from his nerve injury and the freshman maturing. As Bilas says. The value of a game needs to be measured when it was played.

Bottom line is schedule tougher OOC next year.

 

[DC_Area_Panther]

Bigger problem, IMHO, in all of this is teams needing to play too many conference games. The limit should be 16 or 17 in conference for all conferences. It is too hard to schedule enough good OOC games when you can only play 11 OOC games total vs having 14 or 15 games.

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

Bigger problem, IMHO, in all of this is teams needing to play too many conference games. The limit should be 16 or 17 in conference for all conferences. It is too hard to schedule enough good OOC games when you can only play 11 OOC games total vs having 14 or 15 games.

Yeah, it's just too tough.

Hey, by the way, Purdue non-conference SOS, 9. North Carolina, 26. Tennessee, 16. Marquette, 17. Arizona, 13. Alabama, 18. Texas A&M, 21. San Diego State, 15. Wisconsin, 25. Gonzaga, 19. Utah, 28.

Crappy non-conference schedules are, for the most part, a choice. Whether you play 16 or 18 or 20 conference games has nothing at all to do with that. It's only tough to schedule good OOC games if you don't want to schedule good OOC games.

 

[NCanton Panther]

The issue is the bad teams weighing it down.


North Carolina A&T-341
Jacksonville-300
South Carolina St.- 298
Canisius-258
Binghamton-273
Florida Gulf Coast- 238

That is way too much garbage in an 11 game non conference schedule.

Replace those 5 doormats with teams in the 100-200 range with 1 preseason top 5 team on the road to juice the numbers.

I have no problem with it if the committee emphasizes the NC schedule. That’s the one thing schools can mostly control so it’s a good thing to penalize schools that schedule mostly cupcakes.

Only thing in Pitt’s defense this year is that you can’t foresee how bad some otherwise decent schools will be, as in Mizzou, WVU and OSU. Of course, no excuse for Pitt to make things worse by losing to one of them.

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

Only thing in Pitt’s defense this year is that you can’t foresee how bad some otherwise decent schools will be, as in Mizzou, WVU and OSU.

You can make that argument for Missouri and West Virginia, but anyone who was expecting an Oregon State team that went 11-20, 5-15 last year to be even decent was most likely an Oregon State fanboy. The fact of the matter is that Oregon State was actually probably a little better this year than they were last year.

 

[Gep Dawg]

Pitt needs to add one game against the A10, AAC, and Big East every year with at least one on the road. That alone would improve our non conference schedule dramtically regardless of who it is and if we win.

 

[Parkview57]

A10

Ooh the boogeyman!

 

[CrazyPaco]

Bigger problem, IMHO, in all of this is teams needing to play too many conference games. The limit should be 16 or 17 in conference for all conferences. It is too hard to schedule enough good OOC games when you can only play 11 OOC games total vs having 14 or 15 games.

That's all for network $.

So either you give back money for having less conference games to sell to the networks, or you open up your schedule. All the major conferences have been doing the same thing...adding more conference games.

The biggest problem with the ACC is the $ gap with the B10 and SEC. So what do you do then? They for sure aren't rolling back the # of conference games.

 

[CentPaPittFan]

You can make that argument for Missouri and West Virginia, but anyone who was expecting an Oregon State team that went 11-20, 5-15 last year to be even decent was most likely an Oregon State fanboy. The fact of the matter is that Oregon State was actually probably a little better this year than they were last year.

That was a tourney game and not scheduled as an independent game.

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

That was a tourney game and not scheduled as an independent game.

And the Missouri game was too. And so was the Florida game. The point is, they tell you ahead of time who else is in these events. So we knew long before the season started that we were very likely to be playing Oregon State. Just like we knew we were probably going to be playing either Florida or Baylor, but unless there was an upset we probably wouldn't be playing both.

But if you want to throw out the games that we "didn't schedule" then OK. We scheduled West Virginia and, ah, well, I guess Purdue Fort Wayne? And Florida Gulf Coast?

 

[CentPaPittFan]

And the Missouri game was too. And so was the Florida game. The point is, they tell you ahead of time who else is in these events. So we knew long before the season started that we were very likely to be playing Oregon State. Just like we knew we were probably going to be playing either Florida or Baylor, but unless there was an upset we probably wouldn't be playing both.

But if you want to throw out the games that we "didn't schedule" then OK. We scheduled West Virginia and, ah, well, I guess Purdue Fort Wayne? And Florida Gulf Coast?

missouri not part of a tourney, and set up by the leagues I guess.
do the teams get to pick opponents in a tourney?

the others, , yea poor

 

[TheSpecialSauce]

Yeah, it's just too tough.

Hey, by the way, Purdue non-conference SOS, 9. North Carolina, 26. Tennessee, 16. Marquette, 17. Arizona, 13. Alabama, 18. Texas A&M, 21. San Diego State, 15. Wisconsin, 25. Gonzaga, 19. Utah, 28.

Crappy non-conference schedules are, for the most part, a choice. Whether you play 16 or 18 or 20 conference games has nothing at all to do with that. It's only tough to schedule good OOC games if you don't want to schedule good OOC games.

ESPN's Joe Lunardi told the Post Gazette
he had never seen a bubble team trying to squeak in to earn an at-large bid with a non-conference strength of schedule as low as Pitt’s 340. TCU got in with its non-conference strength of schedule at 357. So, I guess it happened.

 

[CentPaPittFan]

ESPN's Joe Lunardi told the Post Gazette
he had never seen a bubble team trying to squeak in to earn an at-large bid with a non-conference strength of schedule as low as Pitt’s 340. TCU got in with its non-conference strength of schedule at 357. So, I guess it happened.

there were teams in 2022 and 2023 that also had worse than 340

 

[Pitt-fan-in-Charlotte]

I remember that year FSU went basically 0 fer out of conference then decides to play near .500 in conference

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

missouri not part of a tourney, and set up by the leagues I guess.

It was a part of the ACC-SEC challenge, so we had nothing to do with scheduling that game. You could actually argue that when we agreed to play up in Brooklyn that we knew what we were getting into, but we were completely at the mercy of the conference and ESPN for the Missouri game.

 

[ChiefJusticeMarshall]

why don't the selection committee for football consider this??

 

[DC_Area_Panther]

You can make that argument for Missouri and West Virginia, but anyone who was expecting an Oregon State team that went 11-20, 5-15 last year to be even decent was most likely an Oregon State fanboy. The fact of the matter is that Oregon State was actually probably a little better this year than they were last year.

Oregon State was the luck of the draw in the Barclay Center tourney--not deliberately picked.

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

Oregon State was the luck of the draw in the Barclay Center tourney--not deliberately picked.

But we knew the other three teams were Oregon State, Florida and Baylor. Which meant that without any upsets were were going to play Oregon State and one of the other two. Either because we played Oregon State first, or because both us and Oregon State lost our first game so we would play second.

I mean you do remember that Florida was a decent favorite against us, and that they beat us by 15, right? And we know that Baylor is even better than Florida, so we would have had even less of a chance of winning our first game if it was against them, right?

 

[WillyDavis33]

How were we to know that WV would put up less fight than they are skipping a dental appointment!

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

How were we to know that WV would put up less fight than they are skipping a dental appointment!

We couldn't. But we also shouldn't just assume that the team that came in 9th out of 11 in their league the year before was going to obviously be a Final Four contender this year.

 

[4Mark_Marty]

That was a tourney game and not scheduled as an independent game.

Thank you!

 

[DC_Area_Panther]

An all time expansion low of 26% teams making it in and now the 3rd place team (2 years in a row) and 4th place team aren’t selected. This happens even though the conference has the 4th highest NET and best tourney record the last 2 years (21-10) With Miami and Pitt last year alone winning more games than the entire MWC’s 8 bids garnered over the last 2.

The conference will be further watered down with the addition of the 3 teams whose NET this year was 65, 113 and 128.

Given that UNC and Duke are basically givens every year, this will leave 16 teams competing for a few bids? Is that the future of ACC basketball? How does a school like Pitt combat that? It’s obvious that just relying on the brand name and conference SOS doesn’t work. Pitt this year is proof of that.

With the addition of the 3 new teams next year the ACC has the opportunity to play a balanced schedule. With 18 teams every team should play every opponent only once for a total of 17 games. That increases the OOC to 14 games so that a bigger than 2-game tourney can be added or second 2 game tourney played producing a more interesting OOC schedule.

This would be a win-win for the ACC, IMHO. Pitt would be able to add Duquesne, also.

 

[NCanton Panther]

You can make that argument for Missouri and West Virginia, but anyone who was expecting an Oregon State team that went 11-20, 5-15 last year to be even decent was most likely an Oregon State fanboy. The fact of the matter is that Oregon State was actually probably a little better this year than they were last year.

True, but I guess Pitt’s defense in the case of OSU is that they didn’t have control of that opponent directly, only indirectly by their choice of early season tournament.

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

True, but I guess Pitt’s defense in the case of OSU is that they didn’t have control of that opponent directly, only indirectly by their choice of early season tournament.

I agree, but if you know that you are probably going to be playing an Oregon State in your tournament, then you need to take that into account when you are putting together the rest of your schedule.

 

[NCanton Panther]

I agree, but if you know that you are probably going to be playing an Oregon State in your tournament, then you need to take that into account when you are putting together the rest of your schedule.

Sounds like we’re in agreement on this topic.