Something wrong when BSC Commish has to beg ...

[Silvertip]

... for conference schools to play tougher schedules in order to raise the conference's RPI rating. If the schools and their AD's don't care enough to stop playing the role of bottom feeders it's clearly time for the more ambitious programs to look outside -or inside the conference - for bigger challenges.

Montana can play the Stanford's, Santa Clara's and Wisconsin/Milwaukee's tough, but unless the BSC , as a whole, improves they're going to see a #16, maybe 15 seed, come March. The best thing Gonzaga every did was leaving the Sky to start cutting their teeth on better West Coast A C competition on their way to becoming a program of national prominence.

Some talk about UM having "been there, done that " in football, but we should be just as concerned about the dead weight of the current conference basketball competition. What say you, Bill?

 

[Unwrittengriz]

The Griz have no room to talk in this matter. Sure they scheduled Standford & UWM but I saw in yesterdays Missoulian that our strength of schedule is like 318.

 

[wbtfg]

... for conference schools to play tougher schedules in order to raise the conference's RPI rating. If the schools and their AD's don't care enough to stop playing the role of bottom feeders it's clearly time for the more ambitious programs to look outside -or inside the conference - for bigger challenges.

Montana can play the Stanford's, Santa Clara's and Wisconsin/Milwaukee's tough, but unless the BSC , as a whole, improves they're going to see a #16, maybe 15 seed, come March. The best thing Gonzaga every did was leaving the Sky to start cutting their teeth on better West Coast A C competition on their way to becoming a program of national prominence.

Some talk about UM having "been there, done that " in football, but we should be just as concerned about the dead weight of the current conference basketball competition. What say you, Bill?

I've heard bits and pieces of this story, but for some reason Fullerton REALLY wants every single BSC bball team's schedule to be in the top 150. I know there is some specific reason for this (other than the obvious), but I haven't heard exactly what it is.

 

[Grizfan-24]

You want more teams in your conference but you can't put the right teams into the conference....

Reality is, until the BSC stops scheduling the Frontier conference as much as they do our RPI is going to be really dang low. If we play the Portlands, Denvers, UVC's our RPI will be better because they are counting games...

If you look at the UofM's schedule...
There are three non counters... UGF (even though it is an exibition game) Eastern Oregon, and Western. So instead of our record being 10-2, our record is 8-2.

It is nice to have cheap wins on your schedule. In the past Sac State and Portland State made a livnig off of D II hacks on their pre season schedule.

If yuo want to pull a Murray state and become cannon fodder for BIg D1 schools, fine. Great RPI, won't help you any when you make it to the NCAA tourney with a 19-10 record. In order to increase your RPI or Sagarin ranking you have to play and beat people in the top 50.

The other part of it is, you can't accurately predict what your RPI is giong to be when you schedule a year in advance. Take the Stanford. That win at home was looking great, but the reality is now it probably won't mean much unless they get hot and make it to the NCAA.

The inherent of being a bottom Mid Major conference is that Arizona or Washington would be less likely to schedule us a home and home because of the 'chance' to lose to a sub 150 or 200 school in the RPI. Those bad losses hurt them more in NCAA seeding than our one big win.

1 and 2 seeds are generally pretty close. 3-6 seeds are as well. 7-11 are all about the same. Then there is the drivel of the bottoms of the power conferences that make it in as 12 seeds and then the cannon fodder in the at large conferences. You have a bad loss, it can drop you from playing cannon fodder with a 3-5 seed to a playing a legit team in the first round.

So who do you schedule. More Santa Clara's, San Diego's, Gonzaga's, Creightons, Wisconsin Millwaukees. There are more of them, and they benefit by playing similar calibre schools and winning than they do of chocking their schedule full of DII patsies or becoming the whipping boy for the ACC or PAC 10.

 

[NavyBlue]

I have often heard and read that most conferences make more money from NCAA basketball tournament money than they do there bowl revenues. I also read about 6 months ago where Fullerton said that this is the last year that the Big Sky gets the extra tv credit for Weber State's win over North Carolina. So BSC tourney money will be reduced after this year. The Big Sky will get one team in the torunament year in and year out the coaches know this, there is no chance for an at-large bid for a Big Sky team. That is why many BSC coaches are not upgrading schedules and thus RPI. You only get in the NCAA tournament by winning the Big Sky autobid, so why risk losses (and your job) during the season?

Montana it is reported gets less money than it's BSC peers from state funds is often reported here, yet UM has the best athletic program. But the rest of the conference is making up ground so to keep it's growth UM will be forced to seek extra funding sources to keep the program growing.

With the rise of UM's basketball program along with already top-notch football and women's basketball, UM will have to think more and more about the money they are leaving on the table from not joining the WAC. The WAC will probably get 2 or three teams into the NCAA Tournament each year (1 tv credit shared among conference member per game for 6 years). And WAC teams will have a better chance at higher seeding than a BSC team will and there will be years a team goes deep into the tournament (Reno advanced to the Sweet 16 recently) and there will be more money to share.

Many people say that UM can't afford the WAC, I think it will be just the opposite. It will be conference revenue sharing that the WAC will provide that will get the Griz to want to join.

 

[Grizfan-24]

Navy good points.

The common phrase uttered in bars is make the uofm the next Gonzaga. That won't occur as long as we have other teams in our conference in the bottom half of the rpi index. Gonzaga was benefited by a similar rise of Pepperdine and Santa Clara at the same time.

Not all schools share the same visions of granduer. Get yourself into a better conference, you will have schools with better goals. I don't think the BSC schools are on the same wave length. If they were they wouldn't be scheduling DII creampuffs at home all the time.

The UofM doesn't get much in the realm of state money and most of it is from private donations. I know that the state contribution to the schollie fund for the athletic has dropped over recent years mostly because of all the fund raising the GSA does. They raise more than justabout every other school in the BSC.

That level of funding by private sources is dependent on continued success by football ( a big reason why to stay AA) and increased success of smaller programs. That can only really increase if the competition level increases in teh conference. UofM just wont put up with mediocrity in any program. A move to a conference like the WAC would be a good move for all sides. I would love to see personally three levels of football. A BSC, 1-A and 1-AA. Where 1-AA and 1-A both have playoffs and not bowls...

 

[bozbobcat]

As far as basketball scheduling goes, I agree that a lot of the teams in the Big Sky need to step up, Montana State included. U of M played a relatively tough schedule this winter, I think. Weber St. always gets a little benefit by playing Utah, Utah St., and BYU, mainly because they're close to Ogden. It will be hard to get a Pac-10 team to play a Big Sky team regularly in men's basketball. MSU took a step up today as it was announced that Oregon State would be playing a 2 for 1 deal with MSU. They'll play in 2006 at Bozeman, 2007 and 2008 at Corvallis. The best bet I think for Big Sky teams is to schedule games with WAC and Mountain West opponents. Some teams would be willing to go home-and-home with either UM or MSU. Colorado State and Utah State have done home and home with MSU and I'm sure the Grizzlies have had similar contracts, like Gonzaga. I'd bet schools like Boise St., Utah St., Colorado St., and some others would be more than willing to set up a series between themselves and UM/MSU. The problem lies with getting these "bigger" schools to go to places like NAU. Maybe going with the women's basketball approach to scheduling would work at some level where UM always can find a way to play somebody big at Missoula. The MSU women had an all-DI non-conference schedule, excluding exhibitions. UM always plays a tough schedule. So maybe working out regional deals would help to boost rankings. That's my :twocents:.

 

[SactoHornetFan]

Last year we finished a 2 for 1 with Oregon State where they came down here 02-03 and we went up there the last two seasons.

 

[Mung]

Isn't there something in the Sky's rulebook that mandates all athletic teams from each school must play in the conference? It's too bad if that's the case. I think the griz would be a perfect fit for the WCC. I know we would clean up against Gonzaga in football :thumb: ...and futboll

 

[TrueGriz]

Isn't there something in the Sky's rulebook that mandates all athletic teams from each school must play in the conference? It's too bad if that's the case. I think the griz would be a perfect fit for the WCC. I know we would clean up against Gonzaga in football :thumb: ...and futboll

Gonzaga left the Big Sky because they did not have a football program, and the Big Sky is a football conference. No football, no special membership into the Big Sky.

WCC does not have football, so Griz would never consider the WCC.

 

[Mung]

A just annalyzed my joke right out of the sky... :crybaby:

You win.

 

[Silvertip]

The Griz have no room to talk in this matter. Sure they scheduled Standford & UWM but I saw in yesterdays Missoulian that our strength of schedule is like 318.

Hey NoIowa, pray tell why do you think UM has a shoddy 318 RPI rating? It's because of in addition to "Standford" and UMW the Griz play 14 games against their lowly BSC brethren.[/quote]