Gwmayhem wrote:

GWRising wrote:

Gwmayhem wrote:

0509, I've never fully bought the argument that nobody was willing to play us.  Not saying that everyone is willing or that it's necessarily easy.  There are lots of good solid programs out there even at the midmajor level.  You may have to do a home and home, or a two for 1 to get this done.  GW has also played one-off road games in the past at Duke, NC State, Wake Forest, Kansas, Syracuse, UCONN, UVA (in addition to a home and home), Auburn, Illinois, USC (Southern Cal) and plenty of others.  I think this issue is that GW is no longer willing to schedule these games rather than nobody would agree to play GW at their place.

But again, let'[s bring it back to the players.  There's no argument that it's much more difficult to qualify as an at large these days, but it's not impossible.  So as long as there is some hope, why not give the players some hope as well?

The truth always lies in between. Could GW schedule road games at Power 5 schools. Probably but here is the biggest issue. If you are a Power 5 do you want to play a buy game against GW or some LM? I tried to arrange a game between a P5 and GW. The P5 HC told me (and stated as a preface that he would otherwise absolutely play GW) "why would I play GW when the Conference schedule plus the Conference Challenge and one intrastate rival game give me everything I need to make the tournament. Beating GW gets me nothing. Losing to GW hurts me. I am not playing a game where I can only lose." 

We only look at this from GW's perspective. The bottom line is that the P5 HC I referenced probably reflects more than 75% of the P5 teams. That leaves bottom dwelling P5 teams. So then ask your self why would GW play those teams on the road. If GW wins it doesn't really help GW and if GW loses it hurts GW.

The larger point is that scheduling doesn't happen in a vacuum. It's nice to say we want to play teams like X. The reality is it is not that simple. And I didn't even address the new league scheduling rules for buy games. 

Unless GW improves to the point where it is a perennial post season contender where the risk/reward becomes better for most P5 schools and GW (remember scheduling a P5 is usually done farther in advance (sometimes a year or more out) than the other games) and the league permits more buy games on the road against certain types of leagues/teams, don't expect the OOC schedule to change much. The best we can hope for is improving the low major teams we bring to the Smith Center, finding a MM school similar to GW, and playing in a better MTE.

Some of you keep hoping this is going to change. I say you can keep hoping but it's likely not happening anytime soon. Either accept it or don't but that is where we are at.  
 

So no P5 school worth their salt wants to host GW when they can offer a buy game to a lower level school?

These matchups took place last year, not 10 or even 5 seasons ago:

LaSalle at Duke
LaSalle at Miami (FL)
Duquesne at Nebraska
St. Joe's at Kentucky
Dayton at SMU
Dayton at Cincinnati
George Mason at Tennessee
St. Louis at NC State
St. Louis at Drake
Richmond at Florida
Richmond at Wichita State
Richmond at Northern Iowa
Davidson at St. Mary's
Fordham at North Texas
Fordham at St. John's

I purposefully included some quality midmajors on this list, of which GW plays none outside of MTE's, and did not even mention Big 5 games.  That's 9 A10 schools or 60% of our conference members who managed to find a way to play challenging true road games.  You have a tough argument if your position is that GW "can't" attract such a game.  Rather, this is a conscious choice not to agree to one-offs, even if that's GW's only choice if it wants to play such a game.  And again, the quality midmajors represent a sensible solution that GW is clearly not taking advantage of.  Not only does this year's schedule lack a South Carolina (outside of the MTE with Kansas State) but it lacks a Hofstra as well.  The MTE helps but that's 3 games in 4 days.  Another 2-3 quality games against solid midmajors spread throughout Nov/Dec would make a big difference.

 
Gwmayhem please stop moving the goalposts. We were talking P5 schools not quality mid-majors. That is a different discussion and will likely depend on GW moving into a Quad 2 team before it is worth it to a quality mid major to either host GW or play at GW. 

This is a general comment but everyone is focused on what GW wants or should want. Most of you ignore the fact that there is another school on the other side of the equation. Ask the question differently? If you were a P5 team or a quality mid-major team, how does playing GW help your resume? For example, GW has not been ranked higher than 203 in Kenpom in the last 5 years and has an average ranking of 222. You'd have to have your head examined playing us on the road and even at home there is little upside to a win and big downside to a loss. The clear answer is we are in no-man's land scheduling wise. Just good enough to possibly be a threat but not good enough to make a win valuable. While we may all think GW can break out to the upside this year, schedules are mostly made well in advance when rosters are in flux. There was absolutely no reason to think GW would be any better this past Spring or last Winter especially before CC obtained certain transfers.

If you really want to fix the schedule the answer is clear. CC needs to elevate GW back into at least a Q2 program that sustains. Once that happens many more scheduling doors will open. Otherwise, you are just whistling past the graveyard.  


 

Scrap one more team from that list since SMU is now in the ACC.

The way the NET is set up nowadays the reality is that most D1 teams are not willing to take chances unless they financially have to (and as 0509 has mentioned, the prices for buy games have gone up as well). I don't even know how plausible playing two for ones against P5 schools will be moving forward. Outside of the MTE (which is undoubtedly stronger than last year) GW is not playing any teams in the top 280. It's unfortunate, but CC and others are following that "winning 70%+ games OOC" seriously. I do agree that a home and home against a comparable mid-major should not be impossible but I don't think CC wants to risk it. Let's be honest - most MM leagues are one bid leagues so does resume really matter for them?

I still think the A10 should be more proactive about scheduling challenges with comparable conferences, but given the A10 is one of the few MM leagues with 15 teams, GW would probably be left out anyways after last year.

Now you could make the argument as to why we're facing American and Old Dominion on the road. That seems a bit risky given neither team figures to be even average this year so a loss would hurt GW more than it would gain. We should definitely be playing a couple road games OOC but you could argue GW maybe could have aimed a bit higher there unless ODU somehow turns it around right away under a first year coach. I like the local matchup, but CC is definitely risking it by even playing it - especially given how AU is fared against us the past couple times.
 

Another factor is that some of the matchups are based on Coaching Relationships and "promise games"  -  highly coveted recruits are promised a game near their hometowns as a recruiting inducement

GMU then HC Kim English had been an AC at Tennessee

I believe Miami played at Penn State Berks County as star player 
Lonnie Walker was from Reading, Pa.

in that vein i hope that GWU hosts Miami - soon

Gwmayhem wrote:

1.  This discussion has always been about playing a more challenging schedule, period.  It has not been about how we can play more P5 programs solely.  Outside of the Bahamas event, we really will not be playing ANY P5's or quality mid-majors.  No goalposts have been moved.

2. I'll answer the question raised a while back by 22ndandF..I can't ever remember this bad a home schedule.

3.  What did Duke have to gain by playing La Salle?  Or Miami for that matter?  Or Kentucky by playing St. Joe's?

4. As for a school like Drexel, playing us really has no bearing since they play in a one-bid league.  Unless they go along the lines of 30-3, they are likely not dancing as an at large.  This is also true of many midmajor programs; GW does not really weigh them down since winning the conference tournament is the only ticket they'll have to play against the big boys in March.

Sometimes there are exceptions. The exception never makes the rule. If you talk to enough P5 and MM coaches you will hear a similar story - it is increasingly harder to schedule quality games out of conference. Maybe Dunphy called in some chips, I have no idea. 

But there is another reason you are missing. Coaches like to schedule wins. Why? They have contract incentives and coaches with winning records are harder to fire. So if you are playing in a P5 conference, you need to find some easy wins. If you are GW,  you need to find some easy wins. You might have been incensed at Hobbs for playing a weak schedule at the time but do you really think anyone cares about that today - nearly 20 years later? The record books don't place an asterisk next to your record that says "achieved by virtue of a weak schedule." That year probably bought him an extra year at GW. I know you know how this works.

But regardless of whether this is a historically bad schedule, if this year, the reason that we don't make the NCAA tournament is because we played a bad schedule, then sign me up! That will mean this season is sure as hell better than the last eight and we've taken a huge step forward. Then maybe we can have a real discussion about the schedule. Right now, it is red herring until we improve.

Doesn't it show that out of 362 D1 teams in 2023-2024, we were second to last in terms of Non-Conference Strength of Schedule?
  That, or any other figures that show it in the 300 level, is not worthy of us even in our decline.
And especially after losing 12 league games in a row. Or even if we didn't.
  It's really, really hard to spin. 
 

jf wrote:

Doesn't it show that out of 362 D1 teams in 2023-2024, we were second to last in terms of Non-Conference Strength of Schedule?
  That, or any other figures that show it in the 300 level, is not worthy of us even in our decline.
And especially after losing 12 league games in a row. Or even if we didn't.
  It's really, really hard to spin. 
 

Only if you don't understand that this is not a completely objective ranking of teams' schedules and that the qualitative difference between a OOC schedule of 280 and 361 is not great  and could be as little as one or two opponents. For example if GW played Indiana State instead of Ohio in first round of MTE and played Lemoyne instead of Stonehill, might have jumped 50-75 places. Would you have viewed that as a much stronger schedule? 

The spin isn't that the schedule is weak or not (it is objectively weak), the spin is that we are entitled to a better schedule before we improve to a level where quality P5 and MM opponents want to play us because we add value to their schedule. Hopefully, that begins to happen this year.

Last edited by GWRising (9/04/2024 5:47 pm)

Ralphie, I think that's an increasingly antiquated way of looking at it. Fundamentally, with the NET rankings which prioritize the quality of wins and the margin of victory, I think folks would drive to Juneau for a Q1 game that looked winnable. The TV, the student experience, the friendships and relationships, and our place in college basketball history are increasingly immaterial. It's sucking the joy out of college basketball.

I've shared some stats and tried to play devil's advocate, but I think we should expect GW to field a Non-CON strength of schedule that's in the 200-275 range (acknowledging that we might not all agree on the formula Pomeroy uses to define that). To do that, GW needs to play better basketball, and we as fans also need to prove that we're going to buy tickets and tune in to better Multi-Team Events. And, we need to win the first games of these mini-tournaments to play better teams in the subsequent rounds in the times we're playing in high school gyms and hotel ballrooms.

Those are doable things to incrementally get better opponents and hopefully grow into a better team over the course of a season. I don't need a Top-100 schedule, but I don't think we should say we're satisfied with second-to-last.

GW73 wrote:

Arguing about how weak our schedule is seems silly when the last few years we can't beat or have trouble beating the weak teams on our schedule. So here's an idea: Before we complain about the quality of opponents, how about we improve our quality. Two losses straight losses to AU means we aren't even the second best team in DC. And look at the teams we have lost to in recent years -- for example --Radford, Missouri State, UMass Lowell. Ane when we win at home, we can't even win by double  digits   -- for example last year: Navy, Alcorn St. UMES and Bill & Mary. And then there is this: We finished last in the A-10 last season.  

Yes, exactly. I think we are on the upswing but until we demonstrate it, the "we need a better OOC schedule" discussion is largely nonsense. Again, for the 100th time, some here should make the case for why a team with postseason aspirations should play us instead of thinking we are entitled to play better teams. Let's first have a solid season against this level of competition and then we can discus the merits of moving up in weight class. The last 8 seasons have demonstrated that we are in the bottom 1/3 as a program. We have an opportunity to begin to change that this year. I am cautiously optimistic on that and believe CC has the right plan. But again, it's all talk right now.

Official schedule release on Friday