Strength of Schedule

[CAHoya07]

First, I take issue with DFW's newest post on the front page: "How did St. John's get to the NCAA while Georgetown is in the NIT? Start with strength of schedule."

Georgetown's non-conference SOS? 248. warrennolan.com/basketball/2019/schedule/Georgetown
St. John's? Not much better - 216. warrennolan.com/basketball/2019/schedule/Saint-Johns

St. John's simply won more games, not in Big East, but overall 21 to our 19, including better Quadrant 1 victories: Villanova, 2x Marquette, and a nice OOC neutral court win over VCU.

Do we need to upgrade our OOC schedule further? Yes. Ewing made a slight improvement from Year 1 to Year 2, and I imagine he'll make a similar improvement in Year 2 to 3.

He still has some work to do - while the MSG tournament in November is great, there's no guarantee we face Duke, and there's a chance we play Cal, which could be like playing a mid to low major team: warrennolan.com/basketball/2019/schedule/California

@ SMU will be OK, but since there's no Syracuse game planned, we definitely have some work to do on the OOC schedule for 2019-20.

However, at the end of the day, we have to win more games. That is the difference.

On that note, Go Hoyas, beat Harvard.

[hoyalove4ever]

I agree 100%. While the schedule should be upgraded, that should be because the Hoyas anticipate having a better team, and NOT to placate these absurd computer metrics.

[prhoya]

Mar 19, 2019 11:40:23 GMT -5 CAHoya07 said:

Do we need to upgrade our OOC schedule further? Yes. Ewing made a slight improvement from Year 1 to Year 2, and I imagine he'll make a similar improvement in Year 2 to 3.

He still has some work to do - while the MSG tournament in November is great, there's no guarantee we face Duke, and there's a chance we play Cal, which could be like playing a mid to low major team: warrennolan.com/basketball/2019/schedule/California

@ SMU will be OK, but since there's no Syracuse game planned, we definitely have some work to do on the OOC schedule for 2019-20.

However, at the end of the day, we have to win more games. That is the difference.

On that note, Go Hoyas, beat Harvard.

We also have the Gavitt Games, the new BE-B12 challenge and Penny H. would like a Memphis-GU series. Add SMU and the November tournament and it's quite a OOC schedule, even without Syracuse.

hoyatalk2.proboards.com/thread/31070/2019-20-schedule

We better get the scoring wing and the perimeter shooter.

[LCPolo18]

I wrote a similar post about the home page back in December. hoyatalk2.proboards.com/post/802758/thread

I get it. There are still lingering feelings from the 17-18 season about non-conference strength of schedule. And yes, I would like to see a tougher schedule next year and it looks like the team is headed that way.

But I don't think DFW HOYA took the right message from the non-conference strength of schedule comparison. What the St. John's selection for the NCAA tournament shows is that Georgetown could have made the tournament this season with a similar non-conference strength of schedule, but having less wins and having lower efficiency and margin of victory metrics ended up being the difference between the two teams.

I'll also point out that I'm pretty sure St. John's had a worse non-conference strength of schedule compared to Georgetown until they played Duke. That Duke game certainly boosted their non-conference strength of schedule rank, but losing by 30 likely hurt the metrics for St. John's more than the strength of strength of schedule improvement.

So as we transition from RPI to NET, it's not just about having a tough strength of schedule. It's also about winning games, winning games by a large margin, and limiting the scoring margin in losses (keep in mind that the 32 point loss against DePaul had a bigger effect on Georgetown's metrics than the 2 point win against Marquette).

Georgetown
NET 82
SOS 82
NC SOS 248
Avg Opponent NET 110
Record 19-13
NC Record 10-3
Road Record 5-6
Q1 Record 5-6
Q2 Record 6-5
Q3 Record 1-2
Q4 Record 7-0
Offensive Efficiency 1.040
Defensive Efficiency 1.018
Average Scoring Margin 1.6

St. John's
NET 73
SOS 74
NC SOS 219
Average Opponent NET 114
Record 21-12
NC Record 12-1
Road Record 4-7
Q1 Record 5-7
Q2 Record 5-3
Q3 Record 3-2
Q4 Record 8-0
Offensive Efficiency 1.042
Defensive Efficiency 1.006
Average Scoring Margin 2.7

[DFW HOYA]

Mar 19, 2019 11:40:23 GMT -5 CAHoya07 said:

First, I take issue with DFW's newest post on the front page: "How did St. John's get to the NCAA while Georgetown is in the NIT? Start with strength of schedule."

Georgetown's non-conference SOS? 248. warrennolan.com/basketball/2019/schedule/Georgetown
St. John's? Not much better - 216. warrennolan.com/basketball/2019/schedule/Saint-Johns

St. John's simply won more games, not in Big East, but overall 21 to our 19, including better Quadrant 1 victories: Villanova, 2x Marquette, and a nice OOC neutral court win over VCU.

Duly noted. I saw the same numbers, but it was not meant as a comparison of St. John's to Georgetown head to head, but that Georgetown continues to aim low in scheduling to its detriment.

Excepting the Jamaica Classic opponents to which GU had no scheduling control over, its 2018-19 non-conference record was 94-123 (.433). Forty-five of the 94 wins came from just two schools: Liberty and Syracuse and six schools had 20 or more losses. That same group of schools was a combined 95-132 the year before, so nothing changed.

Maybe Ewing sets his own schedules independently of anyone named Thompson. Maybe he has help. In either case, the case against a 9-9 Big East team not getting more serious NCAA consideration starts with scheduling, and the lack of serious competition after the Syracuse game hurt this team heading into January. Going forward, two simple rules should apply:

1. Excepting tournament mandated games, no opponent under a 2018-19 NET of 225. (This would eliminate UMES, Little Rock, and Howard.)
2. No games versus teams with 20 more more losses from the previous season. (This would eliminate the above three plus Richmond and App St.)

If Ewing can't five better opponents to fill out the 2019-20 schedule than these, Georgetown has bigger problems than finishing 9-9.

[RockawayHoya]

If we had had taken care of business against all of the non-high major teams on our OOC schedule, I would agree. But we didn't. We lost to SMU and LMU with the former at home.

If we had blown out all of the cupcakes on our weak schedule, I would agree. But we didn't. Aside from a 35 point against Howard, our largest OOC margin of victory was 15. We let 4 teams with a NET of 200 or worse to play us within single digits, including 1 that went to OT and effectively counted as a 1 point win for NET. As pointed out above and in other threads, efficiency was a significant factor in determining NET rankings and quite possibly even greater than margin of victory or even strength of schedule.

Scoring margin in conference was just as bad. In our 9 wins, we won by an average of 6.7 points (factoring OT as 1 point wins). In our 9 losses, we lost by an average of 10 points (using the same OT factor). That's not going to get it done either.

CA and LC are absolutely correct: it's more important that this team wins more games and is more efficient in doing so than it is to make sure the schedule gets harder.

And lastly, if you don't want a team getting over you for one of the last spots in the tourney, not blowing a 4 point lead under 18 seconds to go at home would be a nice start. 0 to do with the schedule and everything to do with executing in between the lines, which is what the focus should be on this offseason (in addition to recruiting).

[Hoyas4Ever]

Mar 19, 2019 12:43:08 GMT -5 DFW HOYA said:

Mar 19, 2019 11:40:23 GMT -5 CAHoya07 said:

First, I take issue with DFW's newest post on the front page: "How did St. John's get to the NCAA while Georgetown is in the NIT? Start with strength of schedule."

Georgetown's non-conference SOS? 248. warrennolan.com/basketball/2019/schedule/Georgetown
St. John's? Not much better - 216. warrennolan.com/basketball/2019/schedule/Saint-Johns

St. John's simply won more games, not in Big East, but overall 21 to our 19, including better Quadrant 1 victories: Villanova, 2x Marquette, and a nice OOC neutral court win over VCU.

Duly noted. I saw the same numbers, but it was not meant as a comparison of St. John's to Georgetown head to head, but that Georgetown continues to aim low in scheduling to its detriment.

Excepting the Jamaica Classic opponents to which GU had no scheduling control over, its 2018-19 non-conference record was 94-123 (.433). Forty-five of the 94 wins came from just two schools: Liberty and Syracuse and six schools had 20 or more losses. That same group of schools was a combined 95-132 the year before, so nothing changed.

Maybe Ewing sets his own schedules independently of anyone named Thompson. Maybe he has help. In either case, the case against a 9-9 Big East team not getting more serious NCAA consideration starts with scheduling, and the lack of serious competition after the Syracuse game hurt this team heading into January. Going forward, two simple rules should apply:

1. Excepting tournament mandated games, no opponent under a 2018-19 NET of 225. (This would eliminate UMES, Little Rock, and Howard.)
2. No games versus teams with 20 more more losses from the previous season. (This would eliminate the above three plus Richmond and App St.)

If Ewing can't five better opponents to fill out the 2019-20 schedule than these, Georgetown has bigger problems than finishing 9-9.

This is just more hot garbage from you as you BEAT YOUR DRUMS! I guess you have to make up a narrative about the schedule to complain about while you can as you know next year schedule will make it harder to push this trash...

Everyone knows the schedule was not world beaters but neither was the team. The real truth is Coach Ewing scheduled appropriately for a team that started the season with a freshmen backcourt that had a high learning curve to conquer and eventually started 3 freshmen that played big/critical minutes.

The truth of the matter is that the schedule wasn't the reason this team didn't make the NCAA Tournament. The real reason is they lost games they shouldn't have. If this team beat LMU & SMU they would be preparing to dance instead of the NIT. If this team held on and won the Road game at Syracuse and held on to the St. John's game at home, they're Dancing.

Scheduling wasn't the issue this season and isn't going to be the issue going forward as next season schedule has Gavitt Games, 2 of 3 in Duke/Texas/Cal, BIG 12 challenge, Memphis who will be highly touted with theit talented freshmen class, probably Syracuse (highly doubt that $erie$ comes to an end), @ SMU, and who ever else the staff schedules. On paper that is 6-7 quality games.

Now back to you BEATING THOSE DRUMS!

[CAHoya07]

Mar 19, 2019 12:43:08 GMT -5 DFW HOYA said:

Going forward, two simple rules should apply:

1. Excepting tournament mandated games, no opponent under a 2018-19 NET of 225. (This would eliminate UMES, Little Rock, and Howard.)
2. No games versus teams with 20 more more losses from the previous season. (This would eliminate the above three plus Richmond and App St.)

DFW, I don't think these rules are realistic. I see what you're saying, but I think you'd be hard-pressed to find ANY team that adheres to these 2 rules.

Take Villanova as an example, with a non-conference SOS of 30 this season: warrennolan.com/basketball/2019/schedule/Villanova

1. Morgan State (333), Quinnipiac (244), Canisius (282 - although this was part of a tourney)
2. I won't go into the 2017-18 results, but Morgan State (8-20), Oklahoma State (12-20), and La Salle (10-21) all fall into this category for 2018-19.

It seems like we have the potential for a good schedule next year - I'll be curious who we get from the Big 12, Big Ten, etc. I do agree we should avoid those 300+ opponents as much as possible.

[hoyalove4ever]

I still want to play as many locals as possible, so I would schedule Howard and AU if they were the last two teams out of 353.

[LCPolo18]

Mar 19, 2019 12:43:08 GMT -5 DFW HOYA said:

Mar 19, 2019 11:40:23 GMT -5 CAHoya07 said:

First, I take issue with DFW's newest post on the front page: "How did St. John's get to the NCAA while Georgetown is in the NIT? Start with strength of schedule."

Georgetown's non-conference SOS? 248. warrennolan.com/basketball/2019/schedule/Georgetown
St. John's? Not much better - 216. warrennolan.com/basketball/2019/schedule/Saint-Johns

St. John's simply won more games, not in Big East, but overall 21 to our 19, including better Quadrant 1 victories: Villanova, 2x Marquette, and a nice OOC neutral court win over VCU.

Duly noted. I saw the same numbers, but it was not meant as a comparison of St. John's to Georgetown head to head, but that Georgetown continues to aim low in scheduling to its detriment.

Excepting the Jamaica Classic opponents to which GU had no scheduling control over, its 2018-19 non-conference record was 94-123 (.433). Forty-five of the 94 wins came from just two schools: Liberty and Syracuse and six schools had 20 or more losses. That same group of schools was a combined 95-132 the year before, so nothing changed.

Maybe Ewing sets his own schedules independently of anyone named Thompson. Maybe he has help. In either case, the case against a 9-9 Big East team not getting more serious NCAA consideration starts with scheduling, and the lack of serious competition after the Syracuse game hurt this team heading into January. Going forward, two simple rules should apply:

1. Excepting tournament mandated games, no opponent under a 2018-19 NET of 225. (This would eliminate UMES, Little Rock, and Howard.)
2. No games versus teams with 20 more more losses from the previous season. (This would eliminate the above three plus Richmond and App St.)

If Ewing can't five better opponents to fill out the 2019-20 schedule than these, Georgetown has bigger problems than finishing 9-9.

I think your concepts make sense, but the criteria might be a little too stringent.

First, 225 is a pretty low number to have as a cutoff. As a comparison, Villanova had 3 games against NET 225+ teams this season and Marquette had 5 games against NET 225+ teams. Their non-conference strength of schedules were 35 and 73. I think you could get away with a cutoff closer to 250-275 and get the schedule you're looking for. Even JT3 with his difficult schedules would include a few of opponents above 225 most seasons.

Second, regardless of record, Richmond was the kind of home and home series that Georgetown should be scheduling. Especially with the NET bonus for away games, scheduling home and home series with teams projected to be ranked between 100-200 should be a priority.

Below is how the 2019-2020 schedule is shaping up so far:

Big Ten TBD (Gavitt Games) Home (NET range 1-100)
SMU Away (NET 100)
Texas (Empire Classic) Neutral (NET 40)
Duke/Cal (Empire Classic) Neutral (NET 5/225)
Big 12 TBD (Big East Big 12 Challenge) Home/Away (NET 1-100)
TBD (Empire Classic) Home (NET 250-350)
TBD (Empire Classic) Home (NET 250-350)
Memphis? Home/Away (NET 40)
TBD Home (NET 150-275)
TBD Home (NET 150-275)
TBD Home (NET 150-275)
TBD Home (NET 150-275)
TBD Home (NET 150-275)

That would be approximately 3 Q1, 3 Q2, and 7 Q3-4 games, which would likely get Georgetown to a non-conference strength of schedule around 100 based on similar schedules this season.

[NCHoya]

I would agree with criticizing this year's schedule if we did not struggle so much with it. We really did not impress much during the OOC portion of the schedule. We got away with one against USF, and lost to 2 medicore teams in LMU and SMU. So if you swap two of the lowest ranked teams with more SMU-type teams, why would you expect to win those games? Instead, you probably lose at least 1 and that would not help at all with our NET.

I do agree with avoiding all 300+ rated teams, playing UMES, the lowest rated NET team was not good.

And for those who think we can simply game the NET, I think NCSt proved otherwise. You still need a decent OOC strength of schedule. NCSt was not even one of the last 4 out, since they were not automatic #1 seeds in the NIT. As always, any negative outlier on your team sheet is going to be a red flag, whether it is SOS or very few Q1 wins (see TCU).

[tribeninerhoya]

That's fair, and I like the sentiment of avoiding 300+ teams, BUT it's pretty volatile - it's hard to tell whether a team that was 240 last year is going to be 310 this year, whether a team that was 320 last year will be 275 this year, etc. They bounce all over the place. Not that there's no autocorrelation, obviously, but they can bounce pretty violently.

[AshantiCooksBurner]

I completely agree that we need to beef up the OOC. There aren't enough Quad 1 teams in the BE to get into the tournament with a 10-8 9-9 type season, and even with a 12-6 BE record you can expect a 9-10 seed.

As has been said before, we need more games in the 100-200 range. We need to be playing teams in the MAC, not the MEAC, teams in the WAC, not the SWAC etc. I understand the desire to have winnable games to beef up the record, but games against Coppin State and UMES just bring down the aggregate so bad.

Correct me if I am wrong, but it's my understanding we will gaves games against Illinois, @smu, a Big 12 game, possible Memphis game, tournament in the Garden with UT, Duke and Cal, is it two games in that tournament so we will end up at least playing two of the three teams? Any other games confirmed?

[hoyalove4ever]

The committee is sooo stupid. The notion that a win against the 220 team is more meaningful than a win against the 320 team is absurd. ONLY COUNT GAMES AGAINST REAL TEAMS- the rest need to level off.

[centercourt400s]

As others have said, eliminate the improbable end of game Hoya mistake sequences at Syracuse and vs St. Johns and they would be dancing and we wouldn't be having this conversation. Heck, even one of those wins might have done it.

Instead of bemoaning how a "weak" SOS cost us the NCAA tournament this season I think we should be celebrating the PERFECT schedule that got a talented but extremely young and inconsistent team to arguably within a couple of on-court mistakes of the tournament.

[HometownHoya]

Mar 19, 2019 15:40:19 GMT -5 hoyalove4ever said:

The committee is sooo stupid. The notion that a win against the 220 team is more meaningful than a win against the 320 team is absurd. ONLY COUNT GAMES AGAINST REAL TEAMS- the rest need to level off.

I didn't see anything that they gave a bonus for Q4 wins, only for losing those games. Yes winning in a blow-out upped efficiency numbers (which I'd have to believe the NCAA will adjust next year) but record against Q4 was probably barely considered.

[SDHoya]

Mar 19, 2019 12:43:08 GMT -5 DFW HOYA said:

Mar 19, 2019 11:40:23 GMT -5 CAHoya07 said:

First, I take issue with DFW's newest post on the front page: "How did St. John's get to the NCAA while Georgetown is in the NIT? Start with strength of schedule."

Georgetown's non-conference SOS? 248. warrennolan.com/basketball/2019/schedule/Georgetown
St. John's? Not much better - 216. warrennolan.com/basketball/2019/schedule/Saint-Johns

St. John's simply won more games, not in Big East, but overall 21 to our 19, including better Quadrant 1 victories: Villanova, 2x Marquette, and a nice OOC neutral court win over VCU.

Duly noted. I saw the same numbers, but it was not meant as a comparison of St. John's to Georgetown head to head, but that Georgetown continues to aim low in scheduling to its detriment.

Excepting the Jamaica Classic opponents to which GU had no scheduling control over, its 2018-19 non-conference record was 94-123 (.433). Forty-five of the 94 wins came from just two schools: Liberty and Syracuse and six schools had 20 or more losses. That same group of schools was a combined 95-132 the year before, so nothing changed.

Maybe Ewing sets his own schedules independently of anyone named Thompson. Maybe he has help. In either case, the case against a 9-9 Big East team not getting more serious NCAA consideration starts with scheduling, and the lack of serious competition after the Syracuse game hurt this team heading into January. Going forward, two simple rules should apply:

1. Excepting tournament mandated games, no opponent under a 2018-19 NET of 225. (This would eliminate UMES, Little Rock, and Howard.)
2. No games versus teams with 20 more more losses from the previous season. (This would eliminate the above three plus Richmond and App St.)

If Ewing can't five better opponents to fill out the 2019-20 schedule than these, Georgetown has bigger problems than finishing 9-9.

The BE had 4 teams finish with a 9-9 record, and only one of them (Seton Hall) got serious consideration for a bid. Creighton had a non-conference SOS of 24, Xavier 132, Seton Hall 86--all much higher than ours. It wasn't non-conference SOS that killed us, it was the losses to LMU and SMU, along with the overall sense from the committee that the BE wasn't that good in the middle.

[TrueHoyaBlue]

Not sure we’ll be playing Illinois at home next year. I know we played in Maryland home and home in consecutive years, but I figured that was a one time deal, had to get both schools to agree.

I think they pick match ups on a year-to-year basis in general, so if we are looking promising for next year, they could give us a stronger opponent. Not entirely sure though.

[hoyarooter]

I'm tired of the criticism of this year's schedule. It was a huge step up from last year (a duplication of that would have been clearly unacceptable), and it was necessary for a team with a large learning curve. Plus, as pointed out, we lost to two not so stellar teams, barely beat another (USF), and struggled against others. So maybe we had exactly the right schedule - and if we could have won the first St. John's game (thanks, refs) and the Syracuse game, we're probably in anyway. Now I do expect to see a continued improvement in the OOC schedule, and I think we will see it. It would probably just be smart to avoid teams that were in the bottom 30 this year, based on the likelihood that they will continue to be very bad.

[hoyasaxa2003]

Part of the problem with these assumptions is that just because we lost to SMU and LMU does not mean that we would have automatically lost had we played better teams. Our Big East schedule proves that wrong - we were capable of getting killed by DePaul but also beat Villanova and Marquette. Our guys have always had a tendency to play up to competition.

Had we scheduled multiple top 100 opponents, might we have won some of them? Unclear, but when Syracuse is basically the only top 50 team you play, there’s no chance of getting that good win.

The other assumption that’s problematic is saying this year’s team wasn’t good enough for a tougher schedule. Yes, one could maybe say that now in March but when you set the schedule each year, you have to make assumptions about how good the team is. In my mind, the schedule should always be good enough to allow a solid Big East team a good chance at the tournament with a 9-9 type record.