Alright here is his comments - read this and tell me he wasn't talking specifically to Montana and Krysko:
http://www.bigskyconf.com/article.asp?articleid=75150
I don’t think it’s any secret that I’ve been concerned about the direction the league has taken in men’s basketball in that I worry that we’re not challenging ourselves from time to time. I look at our rank as a conference and it slipped down to No. 31 out of 32 last year. That’s unacceptable for the type of conference we are, in my opinion. I’ve been working with some of the coaches, some of the athletic directors. Our efforts have been focused primarily on increasing the schedule.
Still, if you look down at the schedule, you can see some of the concerns I have. Basketball has become a game where with the computer, every game counts. I’ve read some articles that talk about now the season really counts. That’s not true anymore in basketball. Every time you step on the court it goes into the computer and that win or loss, or that matchup affects everyone in the league because of the way RPI works.
It’s not just about getting a second team into the tournament. I’m talking about being able to schedule quality opponents having an RPI that is good enough as a league to schedule a good RPI opponent to play you, to get into preseason and postseason NITs. Last year was the first time we were not able to get our regular-season winner into the postseason NIT. I think those things are starting to affect us.
You’ll see over the next couple of years an emphasis out of the administration in working with the coaches in improving the scheduling, and then to put more emphasis on the preseason. Whether or not that includes not playing any more of the non-Division I teams, I don’t know. I don’t know if we’ll go that far.”
“I will tell you the discussion alone seems to have helped us a little, but the emergence of a couple of ball clubs. Montana has maintained a fairly decent RPI, although they dropped recently. We’ve had a couple of teams who have scheduled hard, Eastern Washington, Portland State have both maintained fairly competitive schedules. Unfortunately when we get into the conference season, now you’ll see the crossover games start to affect our best teams’ RPIs. It’s something we’re working on. It’s something I think we’re better. I think we’re better than we were last year. I don’t think we’ll end No. 31.”
Not too bad here, he praises EWU and PSU, so they are off the hook, and a little sugar to Montana for maintaining RPI.
“There are two ways to get a good RPI. You can play people who have great records. As you know, 25 percent of the RPI is your record, 50 percent is your opponents’ record and 25 is your opponents, opponents record. You can win a lot like Montana has done, or play people who are good like Portland State and Eastern Washington has done. Hopefully then you can maintain your RPI. Hopefully you’ll get a balance between the two. But if you look at our most recent strength of schedule you can see some of my frustration as a commissioner. Here’s the schedule strength of our teams: 53, 126 and then the next team is 273, 280, 299, 302, 308, 326. There are only three hundred and thirty-some schools. So, after the first two we drop to 273. I’m telling the athletic directors in my mind that that is unacceptable.
I think a good target for our teams giving the type of league we are, and our traditional strength is in the 150-170 range. If you’ve got a quality team coming back, you should challenge yourself, move up in the 90s, 70s in the schedule strength. If you’ve got a bunch of young kinds, I don’t have any gripe with you trying to build a schedule that helps you prepare and you should be down in the 170s, 180s. If you get down in the 300s, that means there are only 30 schedules that are worst than you. I think that is reserved for conferences that don’t play basketball as well as we have. We have been as high as the 12th-ranked conference heading into the NCAAs. Last year we were second to last.
We have to reverse that. It’s a trend. It’s not just a blip. We’ve done some analysis on it and it is a trend that has continued. I think it’s a mindset. I need the coaches to help with the mindset. I need them to leave me out of this. I think they will. We’ve had good discussions. I understand the argument of trying to get trying to get a home schedule vs. scheduling a good RPI schedule. It is very, very difficult, especially at some of the more isolated schools in the Big Sky. I understand that. But even then, you can’t get up in the 300s. If you’re in the 170s, 180s, I probably don’t have a major gripe with you, but you can’t be in the 300s.”
o.k. so what he is saying here is that Montana has won a lot, but did it by playing bad teams at home. Then he specifically calls out the coaches of the 3 teams with an RPI over 300 - Montana was one of these 3 teams. What I read from this is he would rather have Montana with more losses, more road games to "quality" conferences, but a better SOS like EWU and PSU. And the teams with lots of kids coming back (doesn't that pretty much mean Montana, Montana State, and NAU) your SOS should be in the 70's, or 90's (so I exaggerated on the top 50).
Part of it is luck, too. Montana scheduled a Stanford at home. You’re lucky enough to get them to come to Missoula, but you can’t count on the fact all of a sudden Stanford is going to go in the tank.
This was a question asked of Fullerton, as if to say your not really bitching about Montana's scheduling, were you, and he responds:
[quote
]“True. That’s my only caveat in my discussions with the ADs. If we actually make this into legislation form where they must schedule tougher…Now it falls into a top-five ranked conference. I would take into that consideration. You’re schedule would be matched two ways. How it is currently, and how it was when you scheduled them last year.
If you scheduled somebody that was good and they turned into a dog, that’s not your fault. That’s something they can’t help and I understand that. ‘’
"
This is something we’re quietly doing, but it’s something I want our coaches to be thinking about. They need to work on this. I think they are. They’ve been involved in the discussion. We’ve gone back and forth. Is my role as a commissioner to put together schedules and make sure we have officials that show up at every game, or is my role to make sure that when I think we’re heading a direction that I don’t think is appropriate that I raise the red flags? I feel comfortable enough with administrators that I’m able to do that.’’[/quote]
So maybe I do need to cut back on the beer 2304, but from all of this, clearly Fullerton's main concern is with the 3 teams with SOS over 300 as of early January, which Montana was one of. This, along with his statements that Montana has a high RPI due to (implied easy) wins vs tough scheduling, is calling out Krysko for not scheduling harder. He certainly wasn't calling out EWU or PSU, as he heaped praise on their tough schedules even with their lower RPI's.
I'm not a big fan of scheduling NAIA or DIII teams either, but there is a balance in scheduling, and I thought the Griz schedule this year was pretty well balanced. 9 of the 13 non-conference games have been against teams from good conferences - 1 WAC, 3 wcc (including 2 against the #2 team in the wcc), 1 Big West, 1 Pac 10, 2 Missouri Valley (1 team tbd), and the conference leader in the Horizon league. By the time things are said and done the Griz non-conference schedule is likely to have included 3 - 4 NCAA tournament teams (UWM, bracket buster opponent from MVC, Mississippi State from the SWAC, Loyola Marymount from the WCC, and although a long shot I wouldn't rule out Stanford yet. So yea the Griz played a DII and NAIA team and Utah Valley State at home, the rest of the schedule looks pretty good, and what BSC teams should schedule. But clearly the Griz schedule is not acceptable to Fullerton.
:beer2:
