2013 Cancun Challenge (next year)

[kwyjibo]

Saint Louis, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Old Dominion in the Riviera division. If I understand the format SLU will play two teams from the Mayan Division at home Nov. 21st and 23rd before heading off to Cancun to play in a 4 team "Riviera" tourney Nov. 26th and 27th. Possible teams to play at home are Bowling Green, Presbyterian, and 2 TBDs.

http://www.triplecrownsports.com/cancun/cancun.asp?eventid=31

[kshoe]

Let's just hope the set-up is a first round game with West Virginia and a potential championship game with Wisconsin. I'd hate to waste one of the exempt tourney games, which are often our only opportunity against "Power" conference schools on a neutral court, on a horrible Old Dominion team.

[billiken_roy]

Saint Louis, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Old Dominion in the Riviera division. If I understand the format SLU will play two teams from the Mayan Division at home Nov. 21st and 23rd before heading off to Cancun to play in a 4 team "Riviera" tourney Nov. 26th and 27th. Possible teams to play at home are Bowling Green, Presbyterian, and 2 TBDs.

http://www.triplecrownsports.com/cancun/cancun.asp?eventid=31

presbyterian? that's a division one school? my gosh, will we ever stop with the nonsense buy games. imo, our sos is our biggest downfall this year. while a sos in the 70's isnt bad, it should be better considering how good of a team we have.

[Billiken Rich]

presbyterian? that's a division one school? my gosh, will we ever stop with the nonsense buy games. imo, our sos is our biggest downfall this year. while a sos in the 70's isnt bad, it should be better considering how good of a team we have.

It's part of a tournament. We do need to upgrade our non-con schedule especially if were stuck in the A10 next year without Butler and Xavier. Surely we could get someone like Murray State or some middling Valley schools to replace Rockhurst and the like......

[Box and Won]

It's part of a tournament. We do need to upgrade our non-con schedule especially if were stuck in the A10 next year without Butler and Xavier. Surely we could get someone like Murray State or some middling Valley schools to replace Rockhurst and the like......

We can play Bradley (resurrecting old Billikens.com meme).

[NashvilleBilliken]

presbyterian? that's a division one school? my gosh, will we ever stop with the nonsense buy games. imo, our sos is our biggest downfall this year. while a sos in the 70's isnt bad, it should be better considering how good of a team we have.

Biggest downfall? Roy, we're ranked 16 in the nation, won the A10 outright and have six losses. I'm all for playing "big name" opponents but i'm not seeing how our schedule this year has had any sort of negative impact on the team.

[dlarry]

presbyterian? that's a division one school? my gosh, will we ever stop with the nonsense buy games. imo, our sos is our biggest downfall this year. while a sos in the 70's isnt bad, it should be better considering how good of a team we have.

I wish our SOS was better too.

But should they skip the tournament in order to avoid playing Presbyterian?

Im pretty sure this game was neccessary to.play in the tournament.

[JMM28]

We can play Bradley (resurrecting old Billikens.com meme).

YES!!!

[billiken_roy]

Biggest downfall? Roy, we're ranked 16 in the nation, won the A10 outright and have six losses. I'm all for playing "big name" opponents but i'm not seeing how our schedule this year has had any sort of negative impact on the team.

explain how our rpi is worse than butler and vcu even though we have a better record and have beaten both head to head?

[waldo027]

presbyterian? that's a division one school? my gosh, will we ever stop with the nonsense buy games. imo, our sos is our biggest downfall this year. while a sos in the 70's isnt bad, it should be better considering how good of a team we have.

How long have you been going to Billiken games? How long have we been playing buy games against Savannah St, Chicago St, Alabama St, UT-Martin, ect. These games aren't going anywhere. They make money for the athletic department. Every major program in the country plays these games.

[billiken_roy]

I wish our SOS was better too.

But should they skip the tournament in order to avoid playing Presbyterian?

Im pretty sure this game was neccessary to.play in the tournament.

if these are our only buy game level non conference games, i would accept that. however wanna bet we have 3-4 more buy games besides those?

[billiken_roy]

How long have you been going to Billiken games? How long have we been playing buy games against Savannah St, Chicago St, Alabama St, UT-Martin, ect. These games aren't going anywhere. They make money for the athletic department. Every major program in the country plays these games.

i contend we do not make money on them. there is a reason they are called "buy games". when you bring those teams to town, you pay all their expenses and you pay them a premium besides the expenses. second there is no denying we will not get any sort of walk up at the turnstiles for those games as opposed to say playing a couple three more home and away series games where there is no premium paid and no need to buck up for expenses.

the only reason a program plays buy games is to pad the record.

i understand a couple of these games. if for no other reason that to give the season ticket holders a full slate of games for their ticket price. but to say "they all do it" then how does butler have such a substantially lower rpi? obviously they are playing a better non conference schedule to some degree. instead of playing presbyterian, why not play a low 100's mid major?

[ACE]

i contend we do not make money on them. there is a reason they are called "buy games". when you bring those teams to town, you pay all their expenses and you pay them a premium besides the expenses. second there is no denying we will not get any sort of walk up at the turnstiles for those games as opposed to say playing a couple three more home and away series games where there is no premium paid and no need to buck up for expenses.

the only reason a program plays buy games is to pad the record.

i understand a couple of these games. if for no other reason that to give the season ticket holders a full slate of games for their ticket price. but to say "they all do it" then how does butler have such a substantially lower rpi? obviously they are playing a better non conference schedule to some degree. instead of playing presbyterian, why not play a low 100's mid major?

They played three big name teams in the Maui Invitational (UNC, Marquette, Illinois). RM talked about some day trying to get us in that tourney. Making two NCAA championship games certainly helped Butler land in that prestigious tournament. I doubt that say five years ago, a program like Butler would have been invited to Maui. Hopefully continued success coupled with entering the Big East will open up attractive scheduling opportunities. Of course the Indiana game was huge for their RPI as well. Two problems we would have trying to schedule a game like that with an in-state rival... SPUMAC is no Indiana and more importantly, they are too chicken sh!t to play us.

Butler still played the likes of Hanover, Ball State, IUPUI, New Orleans and Elon.

[cgeldmacher]

explain how our rpi is worse than butler and vcu even though we have a better record and have beaten both head to head?

I don't know about VCU, but Butler beating two tournament #1 seeds (Gonzaga and Indiana) is probably what is jacking up their RPI.

[slu72]

Off the top of my head, Butler played UCLA in a tourney, Zaga, and IU. We played UNM (which I'd like to see every year... two top teams from outside the BCS'ers), KU, Tx A&M, and UWash. Not saying it's as attractive, but still not bad. Give us time to build the program, especially if we're in the Big East (official name now so can drop the C7), and those big games will come. Hell, after next year, we're gonna welcome the Savannah States and Tennesee Martins of the world as we rebuild our team. Some mids I would like to see with home and homes are Davidson, College of Charleston (purely selfish reasons), Murray St., Belmont, continue w/ SIUCarbon Foot Print, Wichita St, Bradley (for old times sake). Ideally it would be great to have a non con sched of 4 good BCS'ers, 3 solid mid majors, 6 or 7 buy games. That would/should satisfy the fans. Not B'roy, but the majority.

[showthebill]

I wish Majerus was still around to comment on the new Big East

[jbizzle09]

Can't we at least wait until the offseason to begin b!tching again about buy games? Ugghh.

And Roy, it might be one thing to wish that we had a tougher OOC SOS this season. But, it actually turned into a blessing in disguise this year, IMO. We started this season with Kwamain out with a broken foot, Cory and Jett getting banged up and Crews getting acclimated to being a head coach. The team lost to Santa Clara in the 2nd game of the season at home. If there were more high-quality low-to-mid majors on the early season schedule, we might have seen a couple of more losses and a harder to dig out of hole.

[NextYearBill]

We had a PERFECT schedule this year.

[kshoe]

Can't we at least wait until the offseason to begin b!tching again about buy games? Ugghh.

And Roy, it might be one thing to wish that we had a tougher OOC SOS this season. But, it actually turned into a blessing in disguise this year, IMO. We started this season with Kwamain out with a broken foot, Cory and Jett getting banged up and Crews getting acclimated to being a head coach. The team lost to Santa Clara in the 2nd game of the season at home. If there were more high-quality low-to-mid majors on the early season schedule, we might have seen a couple of more losses and a harder to dig out of hole.

This.

I'm all for a tougher non-con schedule (assuming we aren't in the Big East next year) but it was a blessing in disguise that we had that stretch of games from early December to New Mexico that were nothing but patsies. We played horrible in a couple of them and easily would have lost to better teams.

[NashvilleBilliken]

explain how our rpi is worse than butler and vcu even though we have a better record and have beaten both head to head?

Does it matter? According to RealTimeRPI we are 21, 26, 27 for Butler, VCU and SLU. Seems like we're talking about semantics here.

I guess I just don't see how this schedule has hurt us. As long as we win, everything takes care of itself.

[NH]

Am I the only one who thinks it seems like RPI is becoming less and less important as a measure of who is good? With Kenpom, efficiency numbers, even ESPN's dumb BPI system it seems like we're becoming less reliant on RPI in college basketball.

[kwyjibo]

Am I the only one who thinks it seems like RPI is becoming less and less important as a measure of who is good? With Kenpom, efficiency numbers, even ESPN's dumb BPI system it seems like we're becoming less reliant on RPI in college basketball.

RPI was never intended to be a measure or index of "who is good". It is a standard by which the committee judges the season. In that sense (who knows this year may be different) RPI is as important as ever. Selection was never about purely the RPI but it is where all selection and seeding discussions start.

[jbizzle09]

RPI was never intended to be a measure or index of "who is good". It is a standard by which the committee judges the season. In that sense (who knows this year may be different) RPI is as important as ever. Selection was never about purely the RPI but it is where all selection and seeding discussions start.

+1

[kshoe]

RPI was never intended to be a measure or index of "who is good". It is a standard by which the committee judges the season. In that sense (who knows this year may be different) RPI is as important as ever. Selection was never about purely the RPI but it is where all selection and seeding discussions start.

RPI may be only where the committee starts but if you are to believe the bracketologists as accurate predictors of where the eventually seeds will be and you see some of the following, I think it is fair to ask of RPI really means much anymore :

Belmont: RPI 19 Bracket Matrix = 12 seed

Coloardo St: RPI 15 Bracket Matrix = 7 seed

Minnesota: RPI 24 Bracket Matrix = 8 seed

Mid Tenn: RPI 27 Bracket Matrix = out

LaSalle: RPI 41 Bracket Matrix = 12 seed

Wisconsin: RPI 42 Bracket Matrix = 5 seed

If the 19 or 41 ranked RPI is a 12 seed but the 42 is a 5 seed, what does that say?

[waldo027]

i contend we do not make money on them. there is a reason they are called "buy games". when you bring those teams to town, you pay all their expenses and you pay them a premium besides the expenses. second there is no denying we will not get any sort of walk up at the turnstiles for those games as opposed to say playing a couple three more home and away series games where there is no premium paid and no need to buck up for expenses.

the only reason a program plays buy games is to pad the record.

i understand a couple of these games. if for no other reason that to give the season ticket holders a full slate of games for their ticket price. but to say "they all do it" then how does butler have such a substantially lower rpi? obviously they are playing a better non conference schedule to some degree. instead of playing presbyterian, why not play a low 100's mid major?

I strongly doubt that the athletic department is flushing thousands of dollars down the toilet, while simultaneously hurting our RPI and tournament chances. "Padding your record" means nothing when the 25% of the RPI is your record and 75% is your schedule. This Presbyterian game is part of the tournament, just like USC-Upstate and Santa Clara this year. It's way more worrisome that we don't have a single interesting non-conference home game lined up as of right now. We would have Stanford if we didn't back out for unknown reasons.