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Muskie
05-29-2008, 08:31 PM
Dayton Daily News (http://www.daytondailynews.com/s/content/oh/story/sports/college/ud/2008/05/24/ddn052408spudbb.html)

"During the A-10 season, each team plays 10 opponents once and three opponents twice. Last season, as the conference grouped its 14 teams into three tiers — those to likely contend for NCAA tournament at-large bids, those likely to contend for a postseason berth and those likely to miss the postseason — it decided two-time opponents for those groups in an attempt to match better teams or rebuilding teams for conference games.

This season, the double-up teams won't be decided by those groupings, but it hasn't been determined how they will be chosen."

waggy
05-29-2008, 08:56 PM
If they'd just kick a few teams out the scheduling gymnastics would go away.

Muskiefornia
05-29-2008, 11:13 PM
Ya, Dayton might have a chance at the tournament in the MAC or MEAC, just maybe though.

Emp
05-30-2008, 11:49 AM
The premise of the Dayton article is that Dayton inferentially got screwed by the tiers last year...which is not so. The league gave them three good RPI games...Dayton lost 8 league games, which requires a lot more splainin that that they got screwed on the tiered sched. Had they managed to win just two more league games, they would have been dancin.

We were disadvanaged by the supposed good sched because Dayton and GW were so sucky. It's never going to work out perfectly.

Snipe
05-31-2008, 09:49 AM
I like tier scheduleing. It makes sense. I do not want to play home and homes with the bottom dwellers.

XU Dozer
05-31-2008, 11:34 AM
I agree Snipe. The tier scheduling keeps us from having to play the bottom feeders twice. UD laid a turd in conference last year and tier scheduling or not they just didn't get the job done. I guess that's what the conference gets for counting them as one of the schools likely to make the tourney. Of course, had the conference big wigs just looked at their history they would have realized counting dayton in that category was a joke right from the start. Let them play the bottom feeders twice, we'll still lay the glove to them twice a year!!!! Plus those numbers, like most, are slanted. Did anyone else notice that the three toughest schedules just happen to be the three teams we played a home and home against?

wkrq59
06-01-2008, 01:51 AM
That DDN story is another "high water" story. Come hell or high water, it's gonna get in the paper. It would not surprise me if Kissel didn't initiate the idea for the story and basically set the tone for the coming season--Bitch about the Flyers' mistreatment by the league last year.
Stop and think for a minute. Suppose this year in addition to two Dayton games, Xavier has to play LaSalle and St. Bonaventure twice. That would be two very unattractive opponents for the games in Cintas.
Dayton will sell out its rat hole for every league game no matter what. What they're asking for is some sort of guarantee that they'll get a top seed and an easy path to an NCAA at-large bid.
What the A10 needs is a commissioner with, as Gary Burbank used to say, "Some hangey down things." Even though some say Broomhilda really had 'em but never used 'em.
Seriously, the attitude of the Cryers fans is they're always getting screwed either by the refs, the fates or Xavier or the league or all of the aforementioned.
But when you're a one newspaper town and have been for years, when there is nothing in the winter but Cryer Basketball, and you have to stay on the good side of the AD and the coach, that's what you'll get for reading material.
The simple answer to the A10's two most pressing problems, St. B and LaS, is really quite simple. Put them both on probation. Give them one year to show a financial commitment, an intention to improve facilities and upgrade their scheduling and limit their TV exposure to road games only. If they don't like it, there's always the Patriot League or that league that includes Siena and Niagara and who-shot-john.
Fordham and GW need to be placed on a watch list. Get better or get gone. The only benefit Xavier will have from playing at Fordham this season is a mini-exposure to the New York media.
And if the media in New York ignores the A10 and the school in its city the way Philadelphia's papers ignore the three schools there, the exposure will be next to nothing.:D

muskienick
06-01-2008, 09:01 AM
I have felt for years that the advantage of a "New York Presence" and "Philly Presence" were grossly overblown. One of the main reasons for this feeling stems from the drone of whining we hear all the time on the A-10 chatboard from the fans of the four A-10 teams in those cities. The claim that the reason for their poor attendance figures and their corresponding inability to invest money into their facilities is that they have far more competition for the entertainment dollars available in those two areas. They have more D-1 basketball programs, more professional sports teams, more artsy-type opportunities, etc. than Cincy, Dayton, St. Louis and other attendance- and facility-successful A-10 members. While the greater numbers of entertainment opportunities is certainly true in NYC and Philly, they conveniently leave out "the rest of the story" (as Paul Harvey says):
POPULATION AND AMOUNT OF TOTAL ENTERTAINMENT DOLLARS AVAILABLE.

The fact is, those A-10 "franchises" must just learn better ways to market themselves so that the media and fans are more interested in them. Hopefully, the A-10 will devise, implement, and enforce tough new minimum standards that will provide the necessary impetus for the less successful members of the A-10 to improve in these and other areas. If that happens, I'll be happy to be a fan of an A-10 member for the rest of my life.

SM#24
06-01-2008, 05:33 PM
The only team that has a complaint is St. Joe's in that they had to double up on the top 3 teams in the A10 (per the A10 standings) in XU, Temple and UMass. But it was that schedule that got them in the tournament as they went 4-2 in those games.

Tier scheduling is the way to go in order to maximize NCAA bids. Give the better teams more chances for quality wins and good losses (St. Joe's close loss to XU at Cintas, while obviously not as good as a win, was looked at as a quality loss.

If St. Joe's had to replace Xavier and UMass @ 2x with say LaSalle and Charlotte @ 2x, they probably don't make the tournament, especially if they replaced the Xavier game at Hawk Hill with a home game (and presumably a win) against Charlotte.

I'm not sure what Dayton's complaint would be, they split with RI and swept SLU (the Xavier game is always going to be 2x). I don't see how replacing those teams with weaker teams is going to enhance their profile. It will weaken it.

But at least they are acknowledging how mighty Xavier is, with the argument that since they have to play us twice, they need easier 2x games.

MADXSTER
06-01-2008, 05:58 PM
I read early last season that the Big East does tier scheduling. It does make sense. Helps the better teams with RPI thus getting a better seed for the tourney. And helps the lower tier teams have more opportunities for wins since they get to play teams of more equal ability.