Schedule Released

[EastStang]

I respectfully disagree. You can load up the first six games or so with twinkies, but after that its time to find out what you're made of. This is supposed to be a Top 30 recruiting class and yet we are going to play an OOC bottom 300 schedule. I remember when I was in law school we took a bunch of grad students two or three of whom had played for bad Division 1 teams and scheduled a scrimmage with a NAIA team. We beat them by 50 points. The kids need to be tested before they enter conference play. I don't mean UT, Kansas and Mizzou, I agree with XTC, play some competitive Division I teams. Suppose they go into conference play with 10 wins and then go 3-13 again, and we'll all be screaming about how they quit, MD doesn't know how to coach, blah, blah blah. And suppose we actually play well in conference and go 8-8 and win our first two tournament games. That could put us at 20 wins, do we get a bid to the NIT with an RPI around 1000? Do we then scream about how our attendance hurt our potential at getting an NIT bid? I'll cut MD a little slack because he's forgotten more about basketball than I know, but this is not the way to get ourselves into being a glamor team that's tournament ready.

[The XtC]

No General, in Doherty YOU trust. Dont drag me into that. And I clearly mentioned both the Colorado and Dayton games, and what I thought about them, in my previous post. Dayton is the only competitive program on the OOC schedule. They finished 19-12 last year, but didn't get an NIT bid (OOC schedule too soft?), and 8-8 in the Atlantic-10. With most of their team back they should be a bit better, far and away the best team we'll face before mid-January. I'll be at that game. Colorado finished last in the Big-12 last year, they aren't anything to brag about and it's a very sad state of affairs that you're pointing to that particular game as one of our toughest challenges. So, to answer your question, No, those two games arent enough. Particularly when ever other game is against a team below 300 in the RPI, a non-D1 team, or a team playing it's first year in D1.

To JT: The freshmen are going to get plenty of playing time, regardless of who is on our schedule. The Ponies only have 3 returning players who saw signifigant minutes last year, and two of them (Fall and Derek) have been injury prone since they arrived at SMU. John Killen is the only returnee who played in every game last year. SMU will start at least 2 freshmen, and at some point during the year I wont be surprised to see 4 starting. They'll play and play significant time, because they have too, there isnt a choice. I dont think they should be thrown to the wolves in their first or second game, but at some point they have to get an idea of what D1 ball actually is. You improve by playing against tougher opponents, not by taking the path of least resistance.

If these games are as competitive as you seem to be saying they will be..... if we actually lose a few to Prairie View and Texas State.... what does that say about the actual state of our program? Most of those games shouldnt be competitive, even if we are playing 5 freshmen. I can give you a statistical rundown on each of those teams, who they lost to and what they were ranked, or you can take my word for it that we're playing the the bottom scrapings of the bottom of the barrel. If we're going to lose, I'd rather lose to Baylor or Creighton than to Prairie View.

Finally, relevancy is NEVER a moot point. People on this board have spent a lot of time crying over a lack of coverage in the newspapers and TV. SMU finished at the bottom of C-USA in attendance last year for both football and men's basketball. Everyone knows that attendance is directly correlated to revenue, something SMU desperately needs, but it's also a measure of how your program is perceived. When you intentionally make yourself irrelevant, you're telling the community that it's OK to ignore you. SMU has been doing that for a long, long time, we've been taking steps steadily backwards, some small and some large, for 20 years now. It's a slippery slope, and it's very dangerous to intentionally step further back. Once you've slipped down, it's hard to climb back out.

[jtstang]

I can give you a statistical rundown on each of those teams, who they lost to and what they were ranked, or you can take my word for it that we're playing the the bottom scrapings of the bottom of the barrel.

I will gladly take your word for it X, but I don't really need to. I can tell that just by reading the names of the opponents, I'm not THAT far out of touch on such things.

The schedule is what it is, we are playing it, good or bad. And maybe I'm wrong about how the team will fare. If they blow these guys out, and play good ball in the process, I think they will have still accomplished a couple of important things. First they will have gotten a taste of playing together against real opponents. As bad as Paul Quinn may be, I promise you they are not going to lay down. Second, maybe a little confidence developed as a result of the first thing will carry over and help these guys fare better than expected in conference play.

Again, as Isaid previously I do not advocate playing cupcakes as a policy. And I have no idea what Doherty's thinking is on this. But I can see a scenario where some benefit may come of it for this team. Who knows, the real proof will come in the November-December timeframe and we can all look backwards and revisit the issue with the benefit of hindsight. That's how I do my best work anyway.

[George S. Patton]

I'm sorry, XTC, I don't think we really debate this schedule until the 2008-09 schedule is released.

I read where plenty of people on this board last year claimed that this was a 3-5-year rebuilding project and that they didn't expect a postseason bid until the third year at the earliest.

So what are we talking about here? Again, I have no problem with this schedule. I think Doherty wants to find out how good these guys really are this season before he throws them to the wolves, Creighton, Butler, Wichita State, St. Joseph's, etc. I would anticipate that if this team blends like it could, then the 2008-09 schedule will look far tougher. These freshmen are going to get a lot of PT. That's different than Michigan State or Duke retooling with freshmen. Their programs are at different levels.

Perhaps a 3rd or 4th "game" would have made it a little more attractive, but I'm not too concerned about this year's record.

To me, it's about the great Mike Walker and the 08-09 season. Sorry, JT had to work that in.

[mavsrage311]

[quote="The XtC"]No General, in Doherty YOU trust. quote]

X, is your problem with Doherty regarding the current schedule, or something more? I'd like to know. I do see your point, I just don't think it's something to get too worked up over so soon. I'm sure some of those teams had to be scheduled in anyway, I know it took bennett quite a few years to start scheduling the pansies he wants. I know Doh realizes the value of playing D-1 teams, I just don't think he wants his team to get beaten up so soon. We'll be tested though. I think that team in Memphis will be pretty good this year, others in C-USA will be too.

[Hoop Fan]

might be a case of doherty wanting to play home games and not having the budget or the gate to bring in real opponents and pay them. I really dont like the schedule, neither from the standpoint of a fan nor the standpoint of whats good for the program. You can have one or two prairie view level games per year, maybe 3. We have a handful more than that. South Carolina Upstate? are u kidding, what is that? Its sad that we dont have any marquee home games. Don't we have an upgraded facility? wouldnt you want to have it dedicated in front of a decent crowd?

[MustangIcon]

While I do think the OOC schedule is shamefully weak, as it has been the past 2 seasons with this season being the worst of all, I think there are a few reasons for it.

1. First and foremost, I don't know if anyone remembers but Doherty has stated on numerous occasions that CUSA has a goal for every team to win X% of their OOC games (I want to say 70% but I can't recall). Teams that achieve that goal receive some sort of financial bonus from CUSA. I think a good portion of this scheduling can be attributed to reaching that goal and bringing in that $$$$.

2. In regards to Paul Quinn playing 5 games here. Who cares? We only play them once of those five. And I am no NCAA expert, but wouldn't they be paying us to play in our tournament? And from Paul Quinn's perspective I would imagine they save a lot of money by playing 5 teams, that are all fairly high profile for them, on the road that are a short bus ride away maybe allowing them the money to enter these tourneys. Again this assumes you even have to pay to come to the tourney, but if you do, we have two financially driven reasons thus far.

3. I might venture a guess that Doherty wants to bring in that money to further enhance our recruiting budget. The man is constantly all over the map from Maryland, to Florida, to Michigan, to California etc. With the breadth of his national recruiting scope, I would guess the recruiting budget has to be pretty large.

4. The seven freshman point has been made and is valid, although not the sole factor at play here I would say.

5. I think that there must be other factors at play as well here bc I recall that when Doherty got here he volunteered and wanted to play Memphis and UH both twice per season because he sees them as the best our conference has to offer. We play them both twice again this year, yet play bottom feeders Marshall, ECU, and Tulane each only once. It just does not make sense to me that a guy who WANTS to play the best our conference has to offer would set up cupcakes OOC without good underlying reasons to do so. I really think its largely financially driven.

[Stampede]

Stallion has most likely "passed on buying basketball season tickets" since the '94-'95 season.

Come on...real fans come to watch and support the Mustangs ...regardless of who we play....not to watch th eother team for entertainment.

Mindset change.

[The XtC]

I'm going to try to answer each of you as best I can, sorry if I miss something or leave someone out.

Patton: I'm afraid you're seriously mistaken, I'm not debating anything with you. I've presented my opinion, backed by factual data. I don't see where you've done anything vaguely similar to that. Schools like Creighton and Wichita State aren't "the wolves". They're tough D1 programs. Texas and Kansas are "The Wolves". You could even make a case that Arkansas, Texas Tech and LSU are wolves. But still, we used to play a couple of those teams every year, it was pretty much standard. But now we're afraid to play the 6th place team from the Missouri Valley? If that's what you really think, I feel sad for you and for our program.

Mavsrage:
I'm not a member of the Doherty Cult, but this isnt personal, and it didnt begin with Doherty. The erosion of our non-conference schedule began years ago, when Mike Dement was head coach. Each year I think it cant get worse, but then someone has to go and prove me wrong. It's been sliding downhill for 10 years now, and I want to see that trend reversed. We're scheduling ourselves out of Division 1. Our conference schedule has also weakened. Outside of Memphis, C-USA is a very weak league, we didnt get a single post-season bid last year, beyond our auto bid for the conference tournament winner. Not a single NIT bid. Looking at our schedule from last year, we played just 2 teams that reached post-season play, Memphis (NCAA) and FLorida State (NIT). Now we're trading Florida State for Alabama State. Our OOC schedule screams out that the SWAC and Southland conferences are the level we want to compete at. We're turning into one of the programs we used to laugh at.

Hoop Fan:
USC Upstate is a former NAIA school that played DII last year and will play their first season of D1 basketball this year. They will be a member of the Atlantic Sun conference (Belmont, Mercer, Stetson, etc.)

Icon, I'll try to address your points one at a time:

[quote="MustangIcon"]While I do think the OOC schedule is shamefully weak, as it has been the past 2 seasons with this season being the worst of all, I think there are a few reasons for it.

1. First and foremost, I don't know if anyone remembers but Doherty has stated on numerous occasions that CUSA has a goal for every team to win X% of their OOC games (I want to say 70% but I can't recall). Teams that achieve that goal receive some sort of financial bonus from CUSA. I think a good portion of this scheduling can be attributed to reaching that goal and bringing in that $$$$.[/quote]

I can honestly say I've never heard that. I'm not saying you're wrong, but could you provide me with a link to a quote in the media, or is there anything regarding this on the C-USA official site? Have other people on the board heard this also, and I just missed it somehow? I'd be open to an answer from anyone on this.
I dont say that this isnt possible, but it seems odd to me. Other conferences are enacting rules to encourage their teams to strengthen their OOC schedules, for RPI purposes. It just seems strange that C-USA would do the opposite. If anyone could point me to more information on this, I'd appreciate it.

[quote="MustangIcon"]

2. In regards to Paul Quinn playing 5 games here. Who cares? We only play them once of those five. And I am no NCAA expert, but wouldn't they be paying us to play in our tournament? And from Paul Quinn's perspective I would imagine they save a lot of money by playing 5 teams, that are all fairly high profile for them, on the road that are a short bus ride away maybe allowing them the money to enter these tourneys. Again this assumes you even have to pay to come to the tourney, but if you do, we have two financially driven reasons thus far.
[/quote]

I'm afraid you have it backwards, teams dont pay you for the privilege of traveling to your gym to give you a home game. You pay them. Unless you agree to give a team a home game in return, as we are doing with Dayton and I hope to heaven we have done with UTSA, then the hosting school pays the visitor a pre-determined fee. We're buying victories here, by paying these teams to come to our gym. A few years ago Arkansas- Pine Bluff played all their OOC games on the road, to help fund the rest of the athletic department.
You are probably correct that this is financially beneficial to Paul Quinn, but I dont see how that is relevant to us?

[quote="MustangIcon"]
4. The seven freshman point has been made and is valid, although not the sole factor at play here I would say.
[/quote]

Thats interesting. A week ago you insisted that Dez Willingham left because he wasnt going to get any playing time. In the past you specifically said that the incoming freshmen were the reason that Dez wasnt going to see the court. Now, the freshman are the reason we are going to have to play one of the weakest schedules in D1. Dez started as a freshman at Kansas State, and started 42 games in 2 years at SMU, but he wouldnt have gotten playing time on a team that has to play the bottom of the barrel because we dont want the new players to be overwhelmed. Do you see the inconsistency in that logic?

[quote="MustangIcon"]
5. I think that there must be other factors at play as well here bc I recall that when Doherty got here he volunteered and wanted to play Memphis and UH both twice per season because he sees them as the best our conference has to offer. We play them both twice again this year, yet play bottom feeders Marshall, ECU, and Tulane each only once. It just does not make sense to me that a guy who WANTS to play the best our conference has to offer would set up cupcakes OOC without good underlying reasons to do so. I really think its largely financially driven.[/quote]

I remember reading that quote last year, as well. I didn't believe it then, and I don't believe it now. A coach can pick and choose his non-conference schedule, but the conference slate is assigned to him by the league, there isnt much he can do about it. We play Houston twice because they are on the western side of the conference. We play ECU and Marshall once each because they are on the eastern side. If you look around the conference at each teams schedule you will find that every team plays all the teams on their own side (east or west) of the league twice, except one. For us, that would be Tulane. And every school plays the teams on on the other side of the league once, except for one team they will play twice. Currently, that's Memphis, but next year the teams will rotate and we'll play Memphis once and Tulane twice. Claiming to have wanted the teams you were assigned to play, after the fact, is sometimes referred to as "Coachspeak".
So we look at the teams Doherty has chosen to play (OOC) and the teams he's assigned to play (Conference) and I dont see him making an effort to play the most competitive schedule he can, rather I see the opposite. It's a case of words vs. deeds. Do you choose to believe the words and ignore the deeds? If he wants to play the best in C-USA why schedule games with the worst teams in the SWAC and Southland, or the last place teams from the Mountain West and Big-12? To me, that is a contradiction between what's spoken and what is actually done. You're free to believe whatever you wish, but my belief is that our OOC schedule is based on easy victories, not any kind of financial gain (these games wont draw flies at the ticket window) and certainly not on improved competition.

If you can show me anything about the winning percentage financial incentive, I would appreciate it. Thanks.

Stampede:
It's not about "entertainment" for me, and never has been. I'm at every game, regardless of the opponent, and have been for more than 20 years. It's about remaining competitive. It's about remaining relevant. Have we slid so far that some of you are actually happy about this, and you want everyone else just to keep their mouth shut so they dont interrupt your serenity?

Now, I've said my piece, and dont intend to beat a dead horse. It seems like I'm in the minority on this, so I'll just keep any further opinions to myself. If everyone else is happy I wont rock the boat, anymore. Best of luck to you.

[Stallion]

XTC - there is some financial benefit the CUSA gives out for meeting certain preseason scheduling standards but I thought it had something to do with winning against teams with higher RPI not just cupcake wins. Perhaps it was winning records against Top 200 teams. I can't remember exactly but SMU and Memphis I believe were the only teams to get the stipend last year. Of course, conferences benefit by teams playing strong schedules because at tournament time this all weighs into who gets a bid and who doesn't.

[mavsrage311]

X...thanks for taking the time to reply to us. We all value your opinion

[MustangIcon]

xtc, i feel like you make some great points here and i'd like to elaborate on a few things you touched on also. plus this gives me something to post on that does not involve that awful game in our other "revenue" sport that i attended this afternoon! as always, i love reading your comments and opinions as its interesting hearing what other smu hoops fans think.

- i am certain doherty talked about the financial incentive for OOC winning percentage during one (if not a couple)of his weekly radio shows at TEN sports bar. i'll look for the link and post here.

- with paul quinn, we pay them for the game we play against them, but i wonder about the other 4 games they are playing in our gym against other opponents during these tournaments. seems like one of or both of the teams playing should be giving us something or do they both just get free games? i just figured there was some sort of tournament fee but i could very easily be incorrect about that. it just seems like we must gain some advantage to having these teams on our campus, such as paul quinn 5 times, so what is it exactly? i will speculate on that next.....

- could it be doherty wants paul quinn college on campus 5 times this year bc it is a predominantly african-american school located in south dallas? is this part of doherty's plan to rebuild our relationship in south dallas and disd in general? say they have a bunch of players from disd this is a way to get their fans, friends, and family to our school bc they are supporting paul quinn while we gain exposure to smu's campus, program, facilities etc etc. with them. maybe this idea is far fetched, but it seems to pass the sniff test with me. i'd love to hear comments from others on this.

- in regards to paying teams to play you in your gym, i would have to assume that the less noteworthy of a team you bring in, the less you have to pay them. seems like there are some finances to be gained through that but might very well be offset by the lack of ticket sales for these games.

- from talking with people around the program dez was not going to get significant playing time, due to the guys we have returning and new guys we have coming in, and i am led to believe it was a significant factor in his deciding to leave.

- 7 freshman. i am not so much worried about the fact they are freshman but more so the number of new players to the team. if it were 7 juco guys playing together for the first time i would be worried, or 7 mcdonalds all americans. when you return only 3 rotation players and plan to add in 5-6 new players to that rotation it will take time to gel. these cupcake games allow the team a chnce to do just that while intergrating so many new players.

- you are probably dead on about the coach speak.

- question? why in the world in the cusa tourney in memphis every year? shouldnt it be rotated out to other places like other conferences do? say we had it in dallas or houston this season maybe someone other than memphis wins the tourneyh and we all the sudden have two cusa teams in the ncaa tourney. thats just something thats been bugging me since we have been in cusa.

wow, long post. wonder if anyone will even read it.

[Pony_Fan]

Very weak. Don't have time to read the above. A bunch of yawner opponents, nice work Doh...this is terrible.

[MustangIcon]

Very weak. Don't have time to read the above. A bunch of yawner opponents, nice work Doh...this is terrible.

you must be REALLY important, sorry for us troubling you with our posts...

[Pony_Fan]

MI --

Whatever...they are all SUPER LONG, not just yours.

I'm in a bad mood after sitting in the rain watching that crap yesterday and then having to see this schedule where there isn't ONE quality opponent in the non-conf.

We used to have Tech, Wake Forest, OU...give me at least Baylor or UNM, or LA Tech, ORU...something. WEAK. I understand a few cupcakes but this started a few yrs ago with Tubbs too.