I have never understood why football and basketball scheduling appears to not be better coordinated. If you look at the "WANTS" of each, there is some very interesting synergy.

Basketball: we want to play "tier 1" schools that would be in the top 50/100 - home/away, doesn't matter - WANT to improve our overall schedule.

Football: We want to play beatable "P5" schools" - with a home and home preferred as we WANT to improve our home schedule.

So why not coordinate and horse trade? let's approach schools with packages, e.g., give us 2 or 3 basketball games - all on YOUR court - but we also get a home and home football. There are a number of schools that have higher-end basketball, and lower-end football - THOSE are the ideal targets:

ACC: NC State, Pitt, Ga. Tech. Wake, Syracuse, Virginia, Duke (last 2 maybe not)
AAC: everyone but Cincy makes sense (they would not play us in Athens).
Big 12: Texas Tech, KState, Iowa St. Kansas?
Big 10: Rutgers, Indiana, Illinois, Northwestern, Minny, MD
SEC: MO, Miss St. Vandy, Ole Miss (especially with their issues).

I would take any of these teams on the road in basketball and any of them in Pedan Stadium.

Why not coordinate?

I don't think Syracuse has scheduled us since we became the first -- and, I think, only -- school to beat them in the first round of their own tournament, the late Carrier Classic. (We beat them in '98 and they ditched the tournament about three years later.) They were #12 in the nation and we beat them with a very young team: one senior (Corey Reed), three juniors (Diante Flenorl, Shaun Stonerook and LeDrell Whitehead), three sophomores (Dustin Ford, Nick Terry and Sanjay Adell)and three freshmen (Patrick Flomo, Jason Crawford and Jeremy Thrapp).

We have Cincinnati on the football schedule for the future, right now. 2018 in Cincy, 2020 in Athens:

http://www.bobcatattack.com/football/schedule.asp

Yea I just saw that. Thanks. So why not a bball game? Same with Iowa St. we also have football games at BC, Northwestern, Pitt, Virginia and Purdue coming up. Are they home and homes? If not why not package a basketball game or two on their home court as part of the deal to make it happen. Maybe we are but I don't see it. Not going to work in all cases but go for it.

I can see the point you're making regarding using football & basketball together to negotiate scheduling. I don't know what they're doing right now.

I do know that at least for next season, if OUr guys win the games that are already on the schedule for Nov/Dec 2017, they'll be in a great position. At-large? I don't know, but I doubt it.

Kenpom weighs in on a flawed system, power conferences not leaving home and bad losses. Playing on the road has now been used by the committee in the form of of"bad losses" Good article http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2017/03/h...

Came here to post this. It's fantastic, but unlikely to change things. The NCAA is a plutocracy and conferences like the MAC are not rich.

Good article. Thanks for posting it. I don't know how much past performance weighs into a decision, but with the MAC record in the tourney of 0-11 since 2004 (not counting Ohio), I don't think there's a perception that MAC teams deserve an at-large.

Ohio is 3-3 in the tourney this century.

Agreed - great article. Hopefully the committee gets it together when it comes to at-large selection and more importantly, seeding. Using analytics, and standing by what they tell them, is the first step.

I'm of the opinion that a second step that should be taken is to change the people the committee is comprised of. Why not include some sports writers, retired coaches, etc?

I don't want the media involved in the selection committee. I watch it with HS ball across the state and their rankings. They gotta be watching a ton of basketball across the country if they're gonna weigh in.

AP and UPI have never been a replacement for the guys in the gym

I frequently use super hoops http://www.superhoopsplus.com/super_hoops_top_12.htm and Hickory Husker as I know those are guys I see in the gyms evaluating teams night in and night out. In the NCAA I think having guys like Ken Pomeroy contributing to the advent of a new methodology is intelligent.

I see your point, and I get where you're going. I'm simply thinking that different perspectives are needed that solely those of AD's.


Using Ken Pomeroy's expertise is something they should be looking at. It sounds like they have been entertaining the idea of using different methods. The seeding, in my opinion, is a bigger issue that the actual selection of teams. I'm not sure how to apply Ken Pom's analysis to seeding.