http://www.dnj.com/article/20101028/BLUE...on+mandate


"Isn't it amazing that on Media Days for the Sun Belt Conference, when we've practiced for two weeks, the questions aren't about our team. It's about a release out of the conference office," Brady said. "The timing of that is not conducive to promoting our league. ... We had a conference meeting this summer, and there was some discussion about scheduling. To bring it up at this time doesn't do any good."

"I don't like mandates put on me to direct this basketball program at Arkansas State," Brady continued. "I was hired by the administration here to do that. I don't need anyone telling me how to schedule or who to schedule, and I don't need anyone questioning if I want excellence. My track record proves that."

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/se...clnk&gl=us

Waters said the Sun Belt should finalize a contract with another league for a series within the next two weeks. He expects to make an announcement in early November.
“It’s not our willingness that has been the holdup in making that deal,” Waters said. “It’s the other conference’s willingness to make a commitment. We’ve reached out to everyone. We’ve just got to pull it all together.”
Brady was pessimistic about that ever happening.
“Let me hold my breath. I will fall over and you will have to revive me with an oxygen tank before that happens,” Brady said. “When has this conference ever helped anybody schedule anybody? Have they ever put a Conference USA, an OVC or a Missouri Valley challenge together? Has that ever materialized?
“I think it’s a lot of words on paper that don’t carry a lot of weight.”

I am with Brady on this one...The things that the conference is saying it is trying to do are things that should have been done. Anything now is just lip service...The conference office needs to hit the streets and meet with the other officials and nail these things down. Given where we are, we should have deals in place for easy team OOC scheduling in both basketball and football.

I like Brady calling out the conference office like that.

(10-28-2010 07:20 PM)CardinalBlackTrojan Wrote:  I like Brady calling out the conference office like that.

But didn't we need these rules? Our conference RPI has been pathetic - to the point where we are literally playing the easiest schools we could find. Houston Baptist could argue that they were an honorary member of the Belt last year, lol.

(10-28-2010 07:45 PM)stebo Wrote:  

(10-28-2010 07:20 PM)CardinalBlackTrojan Wrote:  I like Brady calling out the conference office like that.

But didn't we need these rules? Our conference RPI has been pathetic - to the point where we are literally playing the easiest schools we could find. Houston Baptist could argue that they were an honorary member of the Belt last year, lol.

I think we did.

We had a similar rule before, the league ranking went up. The coaches said they couldn't meet the standard (my memory is UNO was the only school to ever fail to meet it) and it was too hard, trust us we can get those results without the mandate.

It got repealed.

The league RPI has declined ever since.

I hate the idea of a mandate because sometimes you need flexibility but history has proven that without the mandate a large number of league coaches will scramble to get the easiest wins possible at the expense of ranking.

(10-28-2010 07:45 PM)stebo Wrote:  

(10-28-2010 07:20 PM)CardinalBlackTrojan Wrote:  I like Brady calling out the conference office like that.

But didn't we need these rules? Our conference RPI has been pathetic - to the point where we are literally playing the easiest schools we could find. Houston Baptist could argue that they were an honorary member of the Belt last year, lol.

I was talking about the supposed contract with another league. Should have clarified.

I do agree that the conference needs to schedule better teams. The 2008-2009 UALR team is a great example to me that the weak scheduling hurts. They finished 23-8, but played 18 games against teams that had 200+ RPI's. Only 5 games against top 100 teams. They didn't even go to the NIT. IMO that schedule hurt them.

(10-28-2010 07:56 PM)CardinalBlackTrojan Wrote:  

(10-28-2010 07:45 PM)stebo Wrote:  

(10-28-2010 07:20 PM)CardinalBlackTrojan Wrote:  I like Brady calling out the conference office like that.

But didn't we need these rules? Our conference RPI has been pathetic - to the point where we are literally playing the easiest schools we could find. Houston Baptist could argue that they were an honorary member of the Belt last year, lol.

I was talking about the supposed contract with another league. Should have clarified.

I do agree that the conference needs to schedule better teams. The 2008-2009 UALR team is a great example to me that the weak scheduling hurts. They finished 23-8, but played 18 games against teams that had 200+ RPI's. Only 5 games against top 100 teams. They didn't even go to the NIT. IMO that schedule hurt them.

My memory is that several of the non-conference opponents that year failed to get to 10 wins.

Brady was disappointed in that the conference brought this up during media day, a time to promote your conference. I agree with him.

This should have been handled at a different time, in-house. No need to air our dirty laundry to the ESPN's of the world.

I have absolutely no problem with the mandate, except I think one non-D1 game is OK at the beginning of the season. It does not count on the RPI, and much better than playing a D1 team in the 300's (i.e. Houston Baptist)

(10-28-2010 07:20 PM)CardinalBlackTrojan Wrote:  I like Brady calling out the conference office like that.

He made himself look like an idiot to anyone who knows what they're talking about.

The largest portion of your schedule is your conference schedule. This "mandate" will improve the largest part of your schedule, boosting their RPI, in return boosting your own RPI more than playing and beating top 100 teams on your own will do.

Brady thinks he can do it on his own, but he can't. He needs the part of his schedule he can't control (conference games) to become better.

(10-28-2010 08:58 PM)Raider_ATO Wrote:  

(10-28-2010 07:20 PM)CardinalBlackTrojan Wrote:  I like Brady calling out the conference office like that.

He made himself look like an idiot to anyone who knows what they're talking about.

The largest portion of your schedule is your conference schedule. This "mandate" will improve the largest part of your schedule, boosting their RPI, in return boosting your own RPI more than playing and beating top 100 teams on your own will do.

Brady thinks he can do it on his own, but he can't. He needs the part of his schedule he can't control (conference games) to become better.

Which is why I said I was talking about the conference series contract, not the scheduling mandate. I agree with the tougher-scheduling.

Brady is now upset with the Jonesboro Sun for taking those quotes and making him sound like a "Ranting Raving Lunatic"

Hard to say what to think here, the Sun does this ALL the time, yet Brady is a ranting raving lunatic at times... its why we love him after all.

That and theres not one other person on this campus outside of Tommy Raffo maybe who has the gumption to call out Wright Waters...

(10-28-2010 10:11 PM)chiefsfan Wrote:  Brady is now upset with the Jonesboro Sun for taking those quotes and making him sound like a "Ranting Raving Lunatic"

Hard to say what to think here, the Sun does this ALL the time, yet Brady is a ranting raving lunatic at times... its why we love him after all.

That and theres not one other person on this campus outside of Tommy Raffo maybe who has the gumption to call out Wright Waters...

If this doesn't work out Brady can start calling games for FAU.

I'm 100% behind the point Brady was trying to make. He is not for the status quo, for ASU or the SBC he just thinks were are headed in the right direction.

How many posters here have not been shocked by the quality of basketball commits being reported on this board?

As far as Brady winning any popularity contest with the media, that ain’t going to happen. Have a strong a feeling that as this season goes along he is not going to be very popular with the coaches or fans of the other teams in the SBC either, but what the heck.

The lack of seriousness for the quality of basketball in the SBC is the worst thing about this league.

The mandate was and is needed. If a school does not like it...THERE IS THE DOOR.

That's how serious we should be about this.

The MVC is the envy of all mid-major conferences. A big reason they have gotten where they are is a similar mandate that they stuck with and enforced.

(10-29-2010 11:53 AM)CAJUNNATION Wrote:  The lack of seriousness for the quality of basketball in the SBC is the worst thing about this league.

The mandate was and is needed. If a school does not like it...THERE IS THE DOOR.

That's how serious we should be about this.

The MVC is the envy of all mid-major conferences. A big reason they have gotten where they are is a similar mandate that they stuck with and enforced.

I can only speak for what is happening at ASU but the hiring of Brady and most of his staff from LSU was a major commitment and did show they are serious about upgrading men’s basketball. That move has already and will continue to result in improvements the program at ASU.

Bradys concern is the the rule favors the richer schools in the short term and could result in some teams playing only 11-12 games at home a years.

(10-29-2010 01:53 PM)Seminole Indian Wrote:  I can only speak for what is happening at ASU but the hiring of Brady and most of his staff from LSU was a major commitment and did show they are serious about upgrading men’s basketball. That move has already and will continue to result in improvements the program at ASU.

Good for ASU, but if they're playing 11 other 200 RPI teams twice a season, it won't matter how committed ASU is. They'll still merit a 13-16 (or worse now) seed because of their RPI.

Sun Belt Commissioner Wright Waters hints at league shakeup
When asked Saturday afternoon where the Sun Belt currently sits within the conference shuffle landscape, Sun Belt Conference Commissioner Wright Waters hinted at the possibility of the University of Denver indeed leaving the league for the Western Athletic Conference.

“Obviously the WAC piece you’ll see resolved in the next 30 to 60 days and I think may impact Denver,” Waters said. “Denver has been looking for some time for a western home that geographically makes more sense as the league becomes more concentrated to the southeast. If that happens, we’ll move very slow, very deliberate.”

Waters said that if Denver does indeed leave, the league will put no pressure on itself to immediately add a member. If Denver does in fact leave, the league will feature 11 teams rather than 12 for men’s and women’s basketball.

“I think you’ll hear a lot of speculation about what we should do, but the reality is that 11 is a number that works,” he said. “The Big Ten was 11 for a long time, the ACC was nine for a long time. We’ll go very slow and because of the things we did in 2000, 2004 and that time period – we will be able to go slow and look for somebody who does bring incredible value to the league.”

I also spoke with Waters about the recent flak being tossed about the conference’s new rolling 150 RPI policy. Waters said that unpopular or not, the mandate was something that had to be done.

“It was something that had to be done,” Waters said. “If they’re happy being 23rd out of 31 or your team being No. 200 then maybe you need to be somewhere else doing something else.

“At the end of the day our presidents weren’t happy, our conference office wasn’t happy – we’ve talked about how to improve it, but now we just said this is what we’re going to do.”

One gripe from several coaches was the fact that by eliminating non-Division I opponents, scheduling home games would become increasingly difficult – Waters says he understands scheduling is a challenge, but the schools need to put forth the effort to make it happen.

“There’s enough Division I schools in our area, people follow our schools, you just have to go where you have to go and get it done,” he said. “People have connections and people that are networked will get games and people that are doing things the right way will have people come and want to play. It’s part of coaching. There’s parts of my job and parts of your job that are harder than others – getting home games will be a difficult part but it’s something that’s got to be done.”

As far as the lack of enforcement or penalties are concerned, Waters says that is something that will be handled by each member president – saying that if coaches choose to ignore the new mandate, then they’ll have to deal with their own university.

“If the editor or your paper says do something and you don’t do it, what happens?” Waters said. “It’s the same thing here, this isn’t a commissioner decision or athletic director decision it’s a presidential decision.

“If my boss says something, I’ve got two choices and the one that works best is just to do it.”

(10-30-2010 06:06 PM)TOPPERTOM Wrote:  There’s parts of my job and parts of your job that are harder than others

Like counting to 1 as a way of breaking ties.

Or remembering to send WKU out to Denton once every half decade.