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Just how good are the Pokes?
by Robert Gagliardi , Wyoming Tribune-Eagle
CHEYENNE - Schedule tough teams and built your Ratings Percentage Index, even if it means not getting as many victories.
Or schedule a bunch of cream-puffs, along with a couple of decent teams, to build victories and take a hit in the RPI.
Depending on who you talk to in college basketball , those are the two main philosophies in terms of scheduling non-conference basketball games.
A lot goes into scheduling, and there are limits to both philosophies, which range from finances to team personnel.
Some coaches don't stack their non-conference schedule because they know the rigors of conference play will be tough enough.
Conversely, some coaches stack their non-conference schedules with tough teams to prepare for the toughness of league play.
The ultimate goal is to get to postseason play,
See Pokes, page B2
and in men's basketball , there are three post-season tournaments - the NCAA , National Invitation and the College Basketball Invitational, which is just two years old in 2009.
To get into postseason play, the RPI plays a big factor. The RPI is a mathematical ranking formula that takes into account wins, losses, schedule strength, quality wins, quality losses and just about everything else you can think of.
The RPI isn't the lone determining factor in a team's post-season fate. There are actual people who are part of committees to help in this process.
How a team is playing, how many wins they have and what conference they belong to are other determining factors.
But the RPI plays a significant role.
The University of Wyoming and University of Utah play in their Mountain West Conference opener Saturday in Salt Lake City, and they are good examples to teams that went in opposite directions with their non-conference schedules.
Utah (8-5) has the MWC's second-best RPI at 41 out of 343 Division I schools. According to CollegeRPI.com, Utah's record is 8-4 because it doesn't count wins or losses against non-Division I schools. The Utes lost to Division II Southwest Baptist at home in their season-opener.
However, Utah has played seven teams ranked in the top third of the RPI, including third-ranked Oklahoma (70-52 Utah loss), No. 27 Gonzaga (66-65 Utah win) and No. 30 California (72-69 Utah loss).
"We just call (teams) and say we want to play a series and we'll come there first," second-year Utah coach Jim Boylen said. "We went there first a lot last year, and we have got teams coming in this year."
Utah had home games against Oregon, California and Gonzaga, and has a home date with LSU (No. 103 RPI) Jan. 6.
"We're on the phone with the Big 12 and Pac - 10 every week trying to get them to play us," Boylen said. "We recruit against those schools, so why not play them? Is it challenging? Is it hard? It's not hard when you say you'll come there first.
"There were five new coaches in our league last year. A lot of times they don't want to get their brains beat in that first year, but we were willing to do that because we wanted to build a program. Not that the other guys don't, but going into our second year, we feel we've got a good team returning and a heck of a home schedule. People are excited and pumped up."
Utah was 18-15 last season, 7-9 in conference play and had an RPI of 95. It advanced to the second round of the CBI.
The Utes have averaged 9,290 fans per home game this season, which is fifth-best in the nine-team MWC.
UW is 11-3 heading into league play against Utah. The Cowboys' RPI is 172, and they have played seven teams that ranked No. 293 or lower in the RPI.
Like Boylen, UW coach Heath Schroyer is in his second season. He was 12-18 in his first season and is trying to turn around a program that has gone to one NCAA Tournament and five NITs over the last 20 years.
Schroyer opted to get as many wins as possible heading into league play with the hopes that his team's RPI will be decent heading into league play and rise once in conference play.
"We have got to start winning some games," he said prior to the season.
UW's marquee non-conference games were against No. 12 UCLA, where UW was humbled 113-62, and at
The Cowboys' RPI this week was the second-lowest in the MWC but still in the upper half among all Division I schools.
"You hear a lot of people say scheduling ranks right up there with recruiting in terms of success in your program," said San Diego State coach Steve Fisher, who led Michigan to a national championship in the 1980s and is the veteran among MWC coaches as he enters his 10th year.
"It's nice to say you are playing (this tough) schedule, but you better beat a few of them if you're going to play them."
San Diego State and Utah both return all five of their starters from last season. The Aztecs were 20-13 and made it to the NIT, where they lost in the first round at Florida.
San Diego State is 9-3 and 8-3 according to the RPI with a ranking of 64.
Easier said than done
Boylen said going to a Pac - 10 or Big XII Conference school first often makes it easier to get them to make a return trip.
Ideally, MWC teams want teams to come to their home gyms first.
But good luck trying.
"I know this year there are 343 Division I schools, and (assistant coach) Dave Pilipovich made contact with over 300 teams to try and start a home-and-home series that started at our place, and it just didn't happen," second-year Air Force coach Jeff Reynolds said.
"What happens is we end up spending more money to try and get home games, particularly this year because we tried to down load our schedule a little bit because we have seven freshmen. In order for us to be successful, those freshmen have to develop some confidence.
"Getting home games at our place in impossible."
Reynolds added that the task of getting teams to come to Air Force is made harder because the Falcons are 75-8 at Clune Arena since the start of the 2003-04 season.
You think that's tough, how about Brigham Young, which has the nation's longest home-court winning streak at 53?
"It's quite a challenge," coach Dave Rose said. "We spend as much time on trying to schedule as we do recruiting and developing our players. It's a huge part of what we want to do.
"The real marquee teams we try to bring into the Marriott Center is our biggest challenge."
BYU's lone "marquee" non-conference home game is Saturday against No. 6 Wake Forest.
The Cougars, like a lot of other schools in the MWC and around the country, try to make up for that by playing games on neutral courts.
For instance, they played No. 17 Arizona State at University of Phoenix Stadium in Scottsdale, Ariz., and suffered their lone loss of the season, 76-75.
They also played in-state rival
"Getting home-and-home is a challenge," Rose added. "Part of it is about relationships and trying to work as hard as you can and get involved with as many schools as you can."
Many schools simply buy home games, and Reynolds said the price for those games is "getting out of control."
Rose is in his fourth year as BYU's head coach, and he was an assistant coach there from 1997-2005. He said the cost of those games has doubled and even tripled since he's been at the school.
Fisher agreed.
"When I first got here, where we could buy four games, we're lucky to get 1.5 for the same dollar amount," he said. "I saw where UTEP was offering more than $100,000 for a buy game. You thought that was something only a school like Kentucky could do.
"When we first got here, we had no trouble to get name schools to come to San Diego because they knew they were going to win. Now that we're better, it's harder to get somebody to come in if they think you're good."
Schools who can afford to do that often don't leave their home court during the non-conference portion of their schedules, other than for tournaments or neutral court games.
Reputation
As a conference, the Mountain West was ranked seventh in the RPI this week, and it has been ranked in the top 10 in eight of its nine years of existence.
Several MWC schools provide unique challenges for opponents, ranging from big crowds to elevation to tradition to isolation.
But often success spells doom for conferences like the MWC.
Despite all of its efforts, it is not at the same level as the Atlantic Coast, Big East or Big XII conferences. The MWC doesn't annually put three or four teams in the 65-team NCAA Tournament. The most the conference has sent is three, and it has done so three times.
To gain credibility, as is the case in college football, MWC teams have to play and beat the big boys of the college basketball world and often have to do it on the road.
Boylen hopes it pays off for his team and program.
"A lot of guys hide behind 'they won't come. They won't play us.' Maybe that's true," he said. "We have as good a reputation and tradition as anybody (26 NCAA Tournament appearances and one Final Four), and we have them coming in. So I don't know if I buy into that they won't go to Wyoming or won't go to Air Force. Is Air Force harder to play at our place? I don't know.
"If we want to be a four-bid league, we've got to play some people. . We have the schools, the coaches, the facilities to do it.
"Am I on an island on this? It sure seems like it sometimes."
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