Here's your roving hoops correspondent's report from last night's session one of the Big 12 Tournament at Sprint Center in Kansas City.
Hit: The crowd, for games featuring Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Texas A&M and Oklahoma State, was impressive. There were plenty of Kansas, Missouri and Kansas State fans in attendance and many were working the concourse, between games, trying to find tickets for today's session.
Miss: Texas A&M is a train wreck offensively. The Aggies are better off pushing the action and taking a shot versus getting into a half-court set as, last night, they didn't have one.
Hit: Pistol Pete, the Oklahoma State mascot, was a huge hit with younger fans. They were even asking for autographs which prompted my buddy to exclaim "Mascots don't sign autographs!"
Miss: The Phillips 66 "mascot," Captain Proclean, is a huge miss. I mean, c'mon--a gas pump as your "mascot!?"
Hit: Small guys. It was a battle between 5'9' dynamos for most of the night in game two--OSU's Keiton Page and Texas Tech's Luke Adams. Page's exploits are well-known by Big 12 fans but Adams is a story in his own right--born nearly deaf and wearing an implant device held by his headband.
Miss: Travis Ford. Ford spent nearly the whole game on the playing floor. There is plenty of sideline at Sprint Center but Ford chose to pace along the sideline and well within the lines of play. He was never warned to stay on the sideline and within the coach's box.
Hit: The pregame meal at Grinder's did not disappoint. For Big 12 fans in search of a great downtown dive, check out the pizza and grinders at this joint on 18th Street between Oak and Locust. And, be sure to order the tater tots.
Miss: There's a lot of Kansas City sports radio talk and fan buzz about whether Missouri can claim a one seed in the NCAA Tournament should they win the Big 12 postseason tournament. One, winning the regular season conference title should be a prerequisite for any one seed (are you listening Duke?) and, two, Missouri's strength of schedule does not hold up--81 overall given the lack of tough non-conference opponents. (The Tigers are currently 16th in the RPI.) This isn't about me being a KU homer--it's about rewarding a team for its performance over the course of a season. If Kansas doesn't quality for a one seed, then it'll likely go to teams such as North Carolina, Michigan State or Ohio State, given that Kentucky and Syracuse seemingly have the first two one seeds locked up. UNC won the ACC regular season outright and Sparty and OSU tied for the Big Ten title. Missouri is in line to be a two seed and should qualify unless the Tigers stumble today against Oklahoma State, which isn't likely.
Hit: Finally, I was reminded by a friend about another tournament locally--the NAIA tourney, which turns 75 next week. I suggested yesterday that depth plays a big part in winning three games in three days in the Big 12 tournament. The NAIA tournament is a marathon where the eventual champion must win five games over six days.
My main issue with the SOS argument is that not all teams and games are created equal. According to Pomeroy, RPI, etc, a loss to a good team (i.e. KU) is better than winning a game against, say, Kennesaw State.
ReplyDeleteTo teams like MU and KU, playing the #150 ranked RPI team is no different than #300; they'll beat them both by 20+ points. Part of scheduling is luck; are you going to schedule a team from a mid-major that is good-to-great? What if they fall off? Old Dominion was an MU opponent this year, a road opponent. The previous 3 years a win over them on the road would be huge. This year, they've slumped.
Or Villanova. NCAA tournament team that completely fell apart this year.
You'll recall this: a few years back, the Missouri Valley conference banded together to basically take advantage of the RPI system. They scheduled teams in the non-con that wouldn't hurt them, league wide, but when it came time for the NCAA tournament, the committee wasn't too impressed; they ignored the RPI numbers and focused on who those teams beat, which was basically no one. Only the tournament champion made it.
This is a long post to basically say, Missouri has quite a few top 50 wins, 10 or 11 I believe. If Missouri and Kansas meet and Missouri wins for the second time in three meetings, the committee is going to have a difficult decision to make. KU won the regular season by 2 games, which is a huge deal. I think the only way MU gets a 1 seed is by beating KU. If KU loses to Baylor tomorrow and MU still wins the tournament, I think both teams would be a 2 seed; MU needs another win vs. KU.
It should be fun though!
I understand the argument of never knowing how a non-conference team will be until the year you play them. Yet, Missouri only played four "Big Six" games in the non-con--Notre Dame and Cal (both in the CBE Classic), Villanova and the annual game against Illinois. Kansas played Kentucky (Champions Classic); Georgetown, UCLA and Duke in the Maui Classic; South Florida, Ohio State and USC. And, they played Long Beach State--who will win the Big West--plus Davidson, winner of the Southern Conference.
ReplyDeleteThe best RPI ratings, by MU's non-con foes, are California (37) and Notre Dame (39), followed by Illinois (85.) After that, ODU has a 108 and Mercer a 130, then it drops to RPIs of 204, 219, 248, 300, 327, 330 and 344.
While teams like ODU and Nova are down, the reality is that MU's non-conference schedule had too many teams that weren't even of mid-major variety.