Question re Next Year's Big East Schedule

[voltahoya]

The "Who is our Rival" thread got be thinking about the Big East Schedule.

The Hartford Courant article linked from the main page suggests that the Big East schedule will be increased from 16 to 18 games next year and that every team will play every other team at least once. They claim this will fix the problem of "unbalanced" schedules.

I don't buy it. Under the proposed schedule every team will still play 3 other teams twice. How will they determine who plays who twice? Is it a rivalry thing (i.e. will we be matched with 1,2, or3 teams that are our designated rivals). Is it a percieved strength of the team thing (stronger teams matched up against each other). Seems like they solved one problem (not playing every team every year) but perpetuated the bigger problem--lack of balance. Is there something I am missing?

I think they should stick with a 16 game schedule, have everyone play every other team once and give every team a single designated rival, so that the issue of "balance" in the schedules is reduced.

If anyone knows any more about next year's schedule and how it will be determined, share your knowledge!

[TrueHoyaBlue]

It's a tv thing. In the history of the Big East, there has never been a systematic year-to-year approach on how the matchups shift from year-to-year. Since expansion, TV matchups have dictated most of the home-and-home pairings.

Quite frankly, I don't mind the unbalanced schedule so much (especially with next year's adjustment). Stronger teams have the opportunity to ring up a very solid NCAA profile, while middle of the pack teams can get some additional wins that might help with postseason consideration.

[Deleted]

I think every team should play every other team once, and call it a day. None of this "rival" game crap. Who's USF's rival? Lousiville's? Georgetown's?? We clearly can't place that decision in the hands of ESPN or the powers-that-be in the Big East, otherwise there may be some years G'Town's "rival" game will be against Seton Hall or Rutgers at this rate.

You create too many questions with this unbalanced crap, unless you remove all guess-work from the operation and simply have the team a squad faces twice a year rotate alphabetically or something to that effect.

[texanmark]

TV will dictate 18 league games:

I predict the three rivals yearly will be linked to TV--maybe they give the best teams in the league a break and only schedule 2 top teams and 1 gimme return: i.e. Hoya--> Cuse, Nova and Seton Hall

Cuse--> Hoya, UConn and Seton Hall or Rutgirls

[vamosalaplaya]

Given how large the conference is, I think a longer term issue for the Big East is getting its fair share of NCAA bids. One of the ways the conference can demonstrate its strength - the only way, you could say - is how well it does out of conference. By moving to an 18 game in conference schedule, you would reduce the amount of games that you play out of conference.

Teams are still going to want to play weaker opponents out of conference, which is great for tuning up a team but not great for impressing the NCAA committee. That would leave less games against better teams and create more of a wide swing/standard deviation in how the conference is judged by the analytical tools that are used to decide NCAA berths.

We'll see what happens this year, but one of the issue the Big East will face come selection Sunday is how few marquee wins the conference overall was able to get out of conference; that ultimately reflects on the conference RPI>

I'd prefer you play ever team once, then add another game - whether you call it rivalry or not, I don't think matters - and call it a day. At a minimum, the league powers would have to note that reducing the out of conference schedule by two games would potentially result in a further weakening of the league RPI of those two games are mid level to strong opponents.

[texanmark]

All excellent points--we'll see what happens.

I prefer 16 games, too but TV is a big factor.

I really think the upcoming SEC challenge should involve 12 games between the two conferences.