2024 - 2025 Schedule Thread

[thetorch]

1 hour ago, brianstl said:

The WCC now would be a step up.

Correct.  How did the WCC add better members than the A10?

[Lord Elrond]

9 hours ago, thetorch said:

Correct.  How did the WCC add better members than the A10?

Better leadership and vision than the A10.

[gobillsgo]

On 8/9/2024 at 12:55 PM, cgeldmacher said:

Just did a bit of research to see what other A-10 schools are doing in their non-conference:

St. Joe - Villanova, College of Charleston, Virginia Tech

Dayton - Xavier, Northwestern, New Mexico State, Marquette, UNLV, Cincinnati, and the Maui Invitational (Good lord)

VCU - Boston College, Colorado State, New Mexico and the Shriners Hospital Charleston Classic

Loyola Chicago - Princeton, Tulane, San Francisco, South Florida (probably about as good/bad a schedule as ours)

Fordham - not fully announced, but they have confirmed St. Johns and Sunshine Slam (Clemson, Penn St., & USF)

George Washington - not fully announced, but have confirmed Marquette and Duke, wow

LaSalle - Temple and North Carolina along with Big 5 Classic

St. Bonaventure - Providence and ESPN NIT Tip Off

The other schools did not have schedule info out yet.  I cannot imagine SLU has a harder time scheduling than any of these other schools other than Dayton.  On top of the bad schedule, not getting in a non-con tournament was a big fail, regardless of whether there was one that fell through.  This schedule is a massive fail.

BTW, last year Indiana State played Alabama and Michigan St. in their non-con schedule.

 

I’d guess most of the big national network tourneys were filled prior to Schertz/Robbie announcements, but still pretty shocking a big network couldn’t fit us in somewhere with the whole Cream Abdul Jabar marketability surrounding Avila.  And add in that we should be pretty good… very strange. 

[cgeldmacher]

16 hours ago, thetorch said:

Correct.  How did the WCC add better members than the A10?

Did they add members, or did their existing members just improve their place in the college basketball world?

[ACE]

Regarding the A10 v. the WCC

Last year, the WCC had 3 teams in the Top 100 NET

The A10 had 9 teams in the Top 100

WCC had two teams in the Top 25, the A10 had one.

And as crappy as SLU was last year, the WCC had FIVE teams worse... let that sink in.

Any league would love to have Gonzaga and St. Mary's, but not really sure I understand the love for the WCC overall.

 

 

[ACE]

4 minutes ago, cgeldmacher said:

Did they add members, or did their existing members just improve their place in the college basketball world?

The WCC added WSU and Oregon State temporarily for two years in basketball and some other sports. The two schools also have a scheduling agreement with the MWC for football - that seems like a more likely permanent home for those two than the WCC.

[cgeldmacher]

17 minutes ago, ACE said:

Regarding the A10 v. the WCC

Last year, the WCC had 3 teams in the Top 100 NET

The A10 had 9 teams in the Top 100

WCC had two teams in the Top 25, the A10 had one.

And as crappy as SLU was last year, the WCC had FIVE teams worse... let that sink in.

Any league would love to have Gonzaga and St. Mary's, but not really sure I understand the love for the WCC overall.

 

 

Then let's poach Gonzaga and St. Mary's

[The Wiz]

28 minutes ago, ACE said:

Regarding the A10 v. the WCC

Last year, the WCC had 3 teams in the Top 100 NET

The A10 had 9 teams in the Top 100

WCC had two teams in the Top 25, the A10 had one.

And as crappy as SLU was last year, the WCC had FIVE teams worse... let that sink in.

Any league would love to have Gonzaga and St. Mary's, but not really sure I understand the love for the WCC overall.

 

 

Which is why I have the WCC as a B- and the A-10 as a B+.

[HoosierPal]

53 minutes ago, cgeldmacher said:

Did they add members, or did their existing members just improve their place in the college basketball world?

 

44 minutes ago, ACE said:

The WCC added WSU and Oregon State temporarily for two years in basketball and some other sports. The two schools also have a scheduling agreement with the MWC for football - that seems like a more likely permanent home for those two than the WCC.

Prior to this two year temp arrangement as mentioned by @ACE, the last team the WCC added was Pacific in 2013.  Prior to that it was BYU in '11, but they have left in '23.  All other teams were added in the last century.  Grand Canyon and Seattle are scheduled to come on board next season. 

https://wccsports.com/sports/2018/6/26/ot-history-html.aspx

[BLIKNS]

Oregon State and Washington State will play basketball in the WCC the next 2 years

[BLIKNS]

Oops my bad, already mentioned

[Billikenbooster]

On 8/14/2024 at 1:47 PM, slu72 said:

Minus an MTE haven’t u pretty much described this years sched? 

No, Im meaning a Mountain West-A10 type challenge, where the top teams in each league face each other.

[brianstl]

Over the last five NCAA Tournaments played WCC teams have earned 11 tournament bids and 27 tournament credits.  In that same time period the A10 teams have earned 9 bids and 12 tournament credits. WCC teams get to more NCAA tournaments and win more in those tournaments.  In every way that actually matters the WCC has been better recently.

[CenHudDude]

11 hours ago, brianstl said:

Over the last five NCAA Tournaments played WCC teams have earned 11 tournament bids and 27 tournament credits.  In that same time period the A10 teams have earned 9 bids and 12 tournament credits. WCC teams get to more NCAA tournaments and win more in those tournaments.  In every way that actually matters the WCC has been better recently.

How much of the 11 and 27 were from Gonzaga and St. Mary’s thought?  What did the rest of the conference produce?  Two good teams don’t make for a strong conference.

[longtimelistenerfirsttimec]

Leadership? no matter who the comm. is you have to win the answer to any sports problem equation is to win without that nothing else matters (if you can get rid of Fordam  Lasalle this would be a better con) but you cant

[thetorch]

7 hours ago, CenHudDude said:

How much of the 11 and 27 were from Gonzaga and St. Mary’s thought?  What did the rest of the conference produce?  Two good teams don’t make for a strong conference.

Actually they do. NCAAs are all that matters. Having a bunch of top 100 teams but no top 50 teams is a recipe for mediocrity.

Do you want to be in a conference guaranteed to get 2 teams in the NCAAs and get a share of their credits or play in one that struggles to get 1 or maybe 2 in a given season. I'd take the first one every time.

The A10 is an NIT conference.

[CenHudDude]

4 minutes ago, thetorch said:

Actually they do. NCAAs are all that matters. Having a bunch of top 100 teams but no top 50 teams is a recipe for mediocrity.

Do you want to be in a conference guaranteed to get 2 teams in the NCAAs and get a share of their credits or play in one that struggles to get 1 or maybe 2 in a given season. I'd take the first one every time.

The A10 is an NIT conference.

I don’t believe the WCC is “guaranteed” to get 2 teams in the NCAAs every year.  The A-10 should be able to get at least 2 in every year.  There are usually 4 or 5 teams at the top of the conference who are capable of fighting for a spot.  Their downfall is that they usually don’t perform well enough in the o-o-c.

[ACE]

9 hours ago, CenHudDude said:

How much of the 11 and 27 were from Gonzaga and St. Mary’s thought?  What did the rest of the conference produce?  Two good teams don’t make for a strong conference.

Yep, you can count the number of programs that have been as good as Gonzaga over the past couple of decades on one hand and you can count the number of non-P6 programs that have been this good on one finger. They are an anomaly.  

 

 

[thetorch]

8 hours ago, ACE said:

Yep, you can count the number of programs that have been as good as Gonzaga over the past couple of decades on one hand and you can count the number of non-P6 programs that have been this good on one finger. They are an anomaly.  

 

 

Gonzaga & St. Mary's in the past 7 years are better than any A10 team.  It isn't even close.  Gonzaga makes the NCAA every year, and St. Mary's is very close 5 of the last 7 tourneys.  

Who cares what the rest of the conference does?  The WCC has two teams that are consistent top 40 teams.  The A10 has none.

We've always wanted the cream to rise to the top in the A10.  The WCC made it happen.  Having a conference full of teams ranked 50-100 does absolutely nothing.  The WCC has developed two flagship programs and if they get a third team in every 3-4 years.  The A10 gets their auto qualifier and hopes and prays that they have another team on the right side of the bubble.  

When we talk about the A10 it is always about our potential not realized.  The WCC is actually getting results.  

[MusicCityBilliken]

If you look at Gonzaga's last 25 years they made the NCAAs every year (minus the Covid year).

Monson's last year at Gonzaga (98-9) made it to the elite 8.

With Mark Few, he has made it every year (24 yrs) with 8 sweet sixteens, 2 elite eights & 1 runner up.

That's unreal record in anyone's conference puts them at huge advantage. 

The issue with the A10 is if a coach gets good they leave. Both Few and Bennett are in for the long haul.

[cheeseman]

On 8/14/2024 at 9:06 PM, thetorch said:

Correct.  How did the WCC add better members than the A10?

They only added the PAC 10 few teams that found no home and isn't it only for 2 years?  I do agree the A10 has to be better.  Sorry didn't see the other posts

 

[slu72]

19 hours ago, MusicCityBilliken said:

If you look at Gonzaga's last 25 years they made the NCAAs every year (minus the Covid year).

Monson's last year at Gonzaga (98-9) made it to the elite 8.

With Mark Few, he has made it every year (24 yrs) with 8 sweet sixteens, 2 elite eights & 1 runner up.

That's unreal record in anyone's conference puts them at huge advantage. 

The issue with the A10 is if a coach gets good they leave. Both Few and Bennett are in for the long haul.

The really successful programs; Duke, Zaga, UNC, Syracuse  etc all had the same HC for years. An insightful point from Captain Obvious; keep a successful coach very happy. But in a lot of cases when that long term HC retires from those programs they tend to go thru some lean years. 

[ACE]

Gonzaga and St. Mary's are not succeeding because of the WCC, they have managed to succeed in spite of it. The conference has not exactly elevated the likes of Pepperdine, Portland, San Diego, Loyola Marymount and Pacific.

Randy Bennett has been amazing. He's unusual. Most coaches in his shoes would've jumped to another job a long time ago. After he retires, it'll be interesting to see what happens to that program. 

[brianstl]

34 minutes ago, ACE said:

Gonzaga and St. Mary's are not succeeding because of the WCC, they have managed to succeed in spite of it. The conference has not exactly elevated the likes of Pepperdine, Portland, San Diego, Loyola Marymount and Pacific.

Randy Bennett has been amazing. He's unusual. Most coaches in his shoes would've jumped to another job a long time ago. After he retires, it'll be interesting to see what happens to that program. 

It hasn't just been Gonzaga and St Mary's making the the last 5 NCAA tournaments played out of the WCC.  They have placed four of their 10 programs over that time programs in the NCAA Tournament with Gonzaga, St Mary's, San Francisco and BYU.  

[billikenbill]

44 minutes ago, ACE said:

Gonzaga and St. Mary's are not succeeding because of the WCC, they have managed to succeed in spite of it. The conference has not exactly elevated the likes of Pepperdine, Portland, San Diego, Loyola Marymount and Pacific.

Randy Bennett has been amazing. He's unusual. Most coaches in his shoes would've jumped to another job a long time ago. After he retires, it'll be interesting to see what happens to that program. 

Bennett has built the program using players from Australia. Started in ‘01, his first year, when he stumbled into an Aussie recruit to fill out his roster. That recruit panned out and more followed. St. Mary’s College basketball is now very popular among the Aussies so if the next coach can keep that pipeline open, then my guess is they’ll continue to have a solid program.

More info here:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/18/sport/march-madness-saint-marys-gaels-australia-spt-intl/index.html