Scheduling

This is an article from the South Bend Tribune regarding Notre Dame scheduling practices. Basically, IU, Purdue, Mich State, etc. are not happy that ND is unwilling to play them pre-season. I feel like the following statement, from the senior ass. athletic director i charge of basketball scheduling, pretty much sums up a lot of what is wrong with scheduling in college athletics:

"There's a fine line between being in the NIT and being in the NCAA," said Heisler. "You have to be conscious of what you're doing.

Here is a link to the article if you are interested. But it just annoys me that you have guys like Tom Izzo and Matt Painter, who are willing to go play everyone, and then teams that are looking at finishing .500 in there conference so they don't play anyone pre-conference in order to rack up wins and get to the magical 20 win mark. I understand it, but it makes me vommitt.

The whole scheduling thing makes me puke, too... it has come down to the NCAA tourney and the mighty dollar.

What is the answer to fix this? Back off some of the financial incentives for the tourney? Adjust the criteria for selecting teams? I dunno.

But I dont like it.

It's one thing to not want to travel all over and play tough teams (like GU does in the pre-season), but to not even play your geographic neighbors?! That's not right.

Right, I forgot to post the link to the article. If you want to read it:

http://southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070503/CollSports02/705030397/0/NDSports

it just annoys me that you have guys like Tom Izzo and Matt Painter, who are willing to go play everyone, and then teams that are looking at finishing .500 in there conference so they don't play anyone pre-conference in order to rack up wins and get to the magical 20 win mark. I understand it, but it makes me vommitt.

Nuthin' new there. Back when John Thompson sr. was at Georgetown and Lefty Drisell was at Maryland, they wouldn' play each other for the same reason, even though the schools were only 8 miles apart. It was shame, because It would have resulted in rockin' games.

Want to stop it? All you need to do is tweak the RPI weights to favor playing strong teams away. They did that a bit the last time the RPI formula was changed, but not enough.

The big schools with the big arenas wouldn't stand for it, though. Too much lost revenue. They make much more money racking up wins at home against the mid-majors they truck in for the occasion and saving the hard away games for the conference season and the tourney.

Even the mid majors probably prefer it the way it is. They get a bigger paycheck to fund their programs. Wanna bet UP made more money at Notre Dame than they did in 3 games at home?