Mens hoop open house tonight
- Thread starter saulpaul21
- Start date
Still a lot of football going on. Things are changing...Basketball will take place. Football is in the middle of a struggle that will define its future and inclusion into the bigger conferences.
It was just a glorified pickup game. We really fallen off the radar as only one side of the T&M was open.
My guy Luis Gonzalez is gonna turn some heads.
It seems like if the Runnin Rebels are going to be successful this year they will have to win ugly games. They could be great defensively and struggle offensively. I can see them being like the old school San Diego State teams that used to win 52-45 by just playing hard nose defense and many of their points coming off of offensive rebound put backs. It was ugly but it worked. It will be interesting to see how the season unfolds.
They’ll be “successful” for sure if we look at W/L records. That OOC is easy double digit wins and the MWC is going to be pretty weak … I can’t see them winning less than 23 games before the MWCT. So just looking at that number, it’ll be “success” by way of win total and improvement YOY with wins.
But before the ball tips, once again, we are relegated to winning the MWCT for a bid. Check that, if you are a top 2 seed and you grab that many wins and lose in the championship game, you might get it. You’d be a strong bubble in all likelihood. What is going to hurt on that nitty gritty sheet though, will be overall SOS which would give UNLV a rough RPI/NET, one that typically does not make it. Schedules like this are the very reason RPI and other metrics were developed, so you can’t back door an invite from judges with ignorant eyes.
Yeah, I’m not a fan of weak schedules. A little weak, doesn’t bother me so much really, depends upon the experience/makeup of your team. I do like the OOC having the potential to be an asset. This schedule doesn’t do that.
I don't watch tv so I would never have known if they only put that info out to the local sportscasters. I'm on the internet all day long though and they get me with targeted ads all the time. If UNLV is serious about getting any attention at all they need to improve their online presence.
Totally agree with Joe. A weak schedule does nobody any good.Not good for the team. Not good for RPi. Not good for attendance. Some day our administration or our head coach will wake up and figure that out. Our non conference schedule is crucial in so many ways. We blew it this year.
Should we really even be talking NCAA tournament? That would be cool but come on it's been a decade since we squeaked into the big dance. Since then, we pretty much became a dormant program who doesn't participate in post season activities at all anymore even given the chance. Afterall its expensive - it gets in the way of the schooling - admin just say NAHH lets pass and doesn't even pursue the NIT as a steppingstone. we aren't that kind of top tier program anymore. The lack of commitment to athletics from the top is obvious. UNLV is a mid major with a storied past. We'd love to schedule the big boys and pretend we are at the table again, only to be served another huge helping of humble pie every time we do. I know its not what we are used to. However this year I am oddly okay with a different approach towards scheduling. After all nothing else has been working. Lets just win the league this year !! that would be fun !
Schedule this year is especially bad. So bad that I doubt this was the plan all along. We had a pretty good schedule last year, I doubt this is CKK preferred approach.
My guess is some commitments fell through, and the only available schools that could replace them were lower tier teams.
I just hope they keep their focus and not drop any stinkers. Other MW teams have had super soft schedules and still competed well in conference. We will need to do that to have any success.
Also we have never turned down a NIT.
My guess is some commitments fell through, and the only available schools that could replace them were lower tier teams.
I just hope they keep their focus and not drop any stinkers. Other MW teams have had super soft schedules and still competed well in conference. We will need to do that to have any success.
Also we have never turned down a NIT.
Here's a point I feel is overlooked on the scheduling issue. Why would any current top 40 program with ncaa aspirations agree to a home and home series with UNLV based on how bad UNLV has been the last decade? There is nothing to gain! Because if you win it is to be expected and won't really help the NET ratings. But if you lose, it's a BAD loss based on NET ratings and could hurt your ncaa tourney chances. Consequently, IMO based on the current state of UNLV basketball and how bad it has been over the last decade, it is much tougher to get top programs to play at the T&M.
I used to believe this exactly. But with NET rankings I'm no longer so sure. It appears that who you play matters less than by how much you cover. If this is the case Duke can come in here and if the can beat us by 50 when they are favored by 35 that's a big plus for them.
See the article below taken from the "Offensive" for a full explanation.
Is Kevin Kruger trying to exploit the NCAA’s NET Rankings?
august 19, 2022 by tyler bischoff, posted in unlvUNLV’s non-conference schedule is less than impressive. The 12-game slate features just three teams that were inside Ken Pom’s top 100 last season, leaving the Rebels with limited chances to claim a marquee win.
Instead, the scheduled is littered with teams like Incarnate Word, High Point and Southern Miss, three schools that combined to go 28-69 last season.
But that might be the point.
Colorado State’s 2021-22 season may have provided a blue print to gaming the NCAA’s NET rankings, the fairly new metric used to pick and seed teams for the NCAA Tournament.
The Rams non-conference schedule ranked 230th in Ken Pom’s strength of schedule last season. Colorado State played just one top 25 team (St. Mary’s) and just two more top 50 teams (#49 Mississippi State, #50 Creighton).
Like UNLV’s new schedule, Colorado State played awful teams like Arkansas Pine Bluff and Little Rock. Despite the weak schedule, the Rams found themselves in the NCAA Tournament as a six seed.
One of the keys to Colorado State’s success was blowing out bad opponents. They beat Arkansas Pine Bluff by 20. Little Rock by 31.
Using Ken Pom rankings (NET rankings don’t get released until December), Colorado State started the season at 72. After beating Oral Roberts by 29, Arkansas Pine Bluff by 20 and non-division I Peru State by 26, the Rams jumped up to 55 in Ken Pom.
That is a 17-spot jump after playing three bad teams (even though non-division I teams don’t impact Ken Pom ranks).
By the time the first NET Rankings came out, Colorado State was 8-0 and ranked 27th, despite having just one quality win in Creighton.
Because NET rankings and Ken Pom use efficiency margins, a fancier way of looking at scoring margins, teams can get a boost if they obliterate bad teams.
UNLV opens the season with Southern. If the Rebels are favored to win by 15 points, but cruise to a 28-point victory, they will rise in Ken Pom.
If the Rebels can manage to do that to the majority of their opponents, they may have a high NET ranking despite playing such poor competition.
Obviously, this strategy runs the risk of not beating those opponents by enough. A 6-point win over Southern will sink the Rebels Ken Pom and NET ratings.
The bigger key to Colorado State’s run to the NCAA Tournament was winning. The Rams went 10-0, blowing out the bad teams and beating the few good teams on the schedule. Plus, they ripped off a 14-4 conference record.
If this is indeed Kruger’s strategy, the Rebels have to win. An 11-1 non-conference record with a couple of decent wins and bunch of huge blowouts could be enough to make this weak schedule work in UNLV’s favor.
Well … look at SDSU’s schedule … or others in the league …
And if you have to play on the road, you play on the road …
Making it sound like we probably tried to schedule some really tough teams but they said no, there’s nothing in it for us … we can just as easily guess the opposite side of things - maybe the Rebels aren’t that good and KK’s goal is to get to 20+ wins and that’s his only goal.
I’d have to look back because I’m not sure but it’s not like Otz’s teams were in a better circumstance to schedule people. I’m curious as to whether his OOC was stronger than what we have currently.
If that’s the case, though I do feel scheduling is an art (have to schedule “appropriately”, not necessarily strong or weak, needs to be a balance based on what you have and what conference looks like) … it’s spending way too much time worried about analytics and the numbers game. Some coaches have the mindset of roll out the ball, let’s beat them. The above sounds like overthinking to a level that’s too intense.
