Some of our fans and Mick's biggest complaints are: our seeding and getting good out of conference games. My questions for thoughts and comments are this:

1) Do you think other schools don't want to schedule us due to the way we play?

I think Mick doesn't get games he would if he played a more open/faster game, I think out of conference coaches just don't want to play in our style of game if they don't have to.

2) Do you think the selection committee seeds us lower due to style of play?

Once again I think this is the case, I agree with Mick that TV drives the selection some. And guys that score in the 20's are more marketable than a bunch of guys that average 10 ppg, but hold teams in the 50's. some feel the AAC gives us a ceiling... but Gonzaga was a 1 seed this year.

While we don't have the P5 status, I see no reason we can't be a national contender on a somewhat consistent basis, I think the campus is a great fit for many basketball players, its a nice campus in an urban setting with a soon to be new arena. It's a much more fun lifestyle for many guys than being on a college campus town in the middle of nowhere.

(03-20-2017 09:26 AM)ucbrownsfan Wrote:  Some of our fans and Mick's biggest complaints are: our seeding and getting good out of conference games. My questions for thoughts and comments are this:

1) Do you think other schools don't want to schedule us due to the way we play?

I think Mick doesn't get games he would if he played a more open/faster game, I think out of conference coaches just don't want to play in our style of game if they don't have to.

2) Do you think the selection committee seeds us lower due to style of play?

Once again I think this is the case, I agree with Mick that TV drives the selection some. And guys that score in the 20's are more marketable than a bunch of guys that average 10 ppg, but hold teams in the 50's. some feel the AAC gives us a ceiling... but Gonzaga was a 1 seed this year.

While we don't have the P5 status, I see no reason we can't be a national contender on a somewhat consistent basis, I think the campus is a great fit for many basketball players, its a nice campus in an urban setting with a soon to be new arena. It's a much more fun lifestyle for many guys than being on a college campus town in the middle of nowhere.

1) Could certainly be a factor as UC is known to be very physical, tough, defensive minded team. Those teams aren't overly pleasing to play against.

2) No, Virginia has gotten a couple of 1 seeds in recent years and they play slower and more deliberate than anybody.

1) Teams don't want to play us due to style of play---

Sure there may be a team or two that don't want to play us because we grind, but I am not buying it on large scale. The bigger issue is the P5 schools are playing the scheduling game and winning.

2) Seeding issues are also a P5 thing. Its no coincidence that the majority of the guys making the selections are ADs in power conferences. Not playing in the P5+BE is going to cost you a seed line-- maybe more (See Wichita State and Dayton as well as us and SMU).

The networks make many non-conf games and they want the blue bloods, so they get them to play, so you aren't getting any of them to play you, even if you decided to just play them there. Hopefully the networks decide to get involved with UC next season as they see a top 20 team returning a good team with some nice additions.

Most P5 schools play 1, maybe 2 non-conference road games (Some still don't leave home) and 1 or 2 neutral sites in tourneys. So getting home and homes are hard (There are only so many to be had and some schools have rivals already built in and no room on their schedules) and UC needs to get their share of home games too, so you can't quite expect them to play many games where we don't get a return. We may have to to get them to play us. Plus we are a good team usually and a tough out, which could mean a potential loss and many P5s feel that they can't afford that loss, which wouldn't be considered a bad loss. But I do think many P5 schools feel that if they can minimize the number of non-P5 schools that get quality wins, it only makes their league better and they get credit for beating each other up (See the ACC who proved to be very over-rated).

OOC we have played Nebraska, ISU, Oklahoma, Butler, GW, VCU, Georgia, Pitt, SDSU, Ole Miss, RI, PSU,
New Mexico, etc., in recent years. Michigan backed out of a game this year.

Something related to this subject that kind of pisses me off... we had a great home-and-home series with Butler, a team that I would consider to be a peer and a potential regional rival. But in the process of complaining about the officiating, Mick mouths off about not scheduling any Big East teams in the future. Then, later on this season, he complains about both not being able to get quality home-and-homes with power conference schools and being underseeded in the tournament.

Mick can't have it both ways. To say you are going to avoid scheduling a power conference that probably has a lot of teams willing to schedule you, then complain that you can't get those types of games... infuriating.

(03-20-2017 10:43 AM)robertfoshizzle Wrote:  Something related to this subject that kind of pisses me off... we had a great home-and-home series with Butler, a team that I would consider to be a peer and a potential regional rival. But in the process of complaining about the officiating, Mick mouths off about not scheduling any Big East teams in the future. Then, later on this season, he complains about both not being able to get quality home-and-homes with power conference schools and being underseeded in the tournament.

Mick can't have it both ways. To say you are going to avoid scheduling a power conference that probably has a lot of teams willing to schedule you, then complain that you can't get those types of games... infuriating.

Yeah I cringed when I heard him in that post game interview. We do not have that luxury. In addition to playing Butler, I would think he would want to play schools like Marquette (Chicago/Milwaukee recruiting) and the schools on the east coast (St. John's, Providence, Georgetown, Seton Hall) for recruiting purposes.

We've scheduled fine as far as power teams. Had we won at Butler we may have been a 4 seed. That one game would have made a huge difference in our resume. You can protect yourself a little more with better buy games (we are doing a better job with this than we used to as well). Ultimately we also need the AAC to be stronger. It's been a 3-4 bid league. We need that.

(03-20-2017 09:26 AM)ucbrownsfan Wrote:  Some of our fans and Mick's biggest complaints are: our seeding and getting good out of conference games. My questions for thoughts and comments are this:

1) Do you think other schools don't want to schedule us due to the way we play?

I think Mick doesn't get games he would if he played a more open/faster game, I think out of conference coaches just don't want to play in our style of game if they don't have to.

2) Do you think the selection committee seeds us lower due to style of play?

Once again I think this is the case, I agree with Mick that TV drives the selection some. And guys that score in the 20's are more marketable than a bunch of guys that average 10 ppg, but hold teams in the 50's. some feel the AAC gives us a ceiling... but Gonzaga was a 1 seed this year.

While we don't have the P5 status, I see no reason we can't be a national contender on a somewhat consistent basis, I think the campus is a great fit for many basketball players, its a nice campus in an urban setting with a soon to be new arena. It's a much more fun lifestyle for many guys than being on a college campus town in the middle of nowhere.

Our style of play is to win and we are tough to beat because we control the tempo of the game. That's why P-5 schools don't want to play us. What is your hang up with our style of play? A 30 & 5 record is excellent in my book.

This year the quality teams that we beat included only Iowa State, Xavier and SMU. Good teams, but in the Big East, we played and beat many more such teams. We had a good season but not a great one. No conference crown, no tournament championship, one and done in the NCAA's. Kind of a recurring pattern.

We were not one and done...we played two.

Obviously, I'm aware we played two games. We won one game and our run then came to an end. Thus, one, and done.

(03-20-2017 02:19 PM)vabearcat Wrote:  Obviously, I'm aware we played two games. We won one game and our run then came to an end. Thus, one, and done.

So, UC made it halfway through a two game win streak? Had UC lost Friday night would you have said "none and done"?

(03-20-2017 12:07 PM)vabearcat Wrote:  This year the quality teams that we beat included only Iowa State, Xavier and SMU. Good teams, but in the Big East, we played and beat many more such teams. We had a good season but not a great one. No conference crown, no tournament championship, one and done in the NCAA's. Kind of a recurring pattern.

This is all true about playing and beating quality teams in the Big East, but the highest seed UC ever got in the Big East was a 6 seed. They've actually had better seeding average the past four years in the American than they did in the Big East.

Im not really quite sure how to take that.

(03-20-2017 02:41 PM)BcatMatt13 Wrote:  

(03-20-2017 12:07 PM)vabearcat Wrote:  This year the quality teams that we beat included only Iowa State, Xavier and SMU. Good teams, but in the Big East, we played and beat many more such teams. We had a good season but not a great one. No conference crown, no tournament championship, one and done in the NCAA's. Kind of a recurring pattern.

This is all true about playing and beating quality teams in the Big East, but the highest seed UC ever got in the Big East was a 6 seed. They've actually had better seeding average the past four years in the American than they did in the Big East.

Im not really quite sure how to take that.

If you schedule and beat good teams you can get a high seed regardless of the conference. Had UC run the slate in their nonconference an lost 3 games they'd probably be a 2 or 3 (that would have been wins over Iowa State, Rhodey, Duke, Butler and Xavier). Contrary to what some would have you believe...there is no arbitrary cap on UC's seed... you just don't get credit for a gaudy record without a decent amount of big wins.