Unbalanced Schedule; 14-4 Does Not Equal 14-4

[Ranch Dressing]

With 15 league teams, the unbalanced 18-game regular season Big East schedule creates significant disparities between teams' in-conference strength of schedule.

I reviewed the regular season conferences schedules of the league's three 14-4 teams: Georgetown, Louisville, and Marquette. Some interesting facts noted below lead me to conclude that Georgetown's conference record of 14-4 is substantially more impressive than both Louisville's and Marquette's 14-4 conference records.

Combined Conference Records of 2x Opponents

Georgetown 38-34 (Cuse, Quette, SJU, Rutgers)

Marquette 32-40 (Pitt, USF, GTown, SH)

Louisville 28-44 (SH, ND, USF, Cuse)

Combined Conference Records of Away Game Opponents

Georgetown 81-81 (Cuse, Quette, SJU, Rutgers, USF, ND, Cincy, Nova, UConn)

Marquette 78-84 (Pitt, USF, GTown, SH, Cincy, Ville, Nova, Rutgers, SJU)

Louisville 69-93 (SH, ND, USF, Cuse, UConn, Nova, GTown, Rutgers, DePaul)

Relative to Marquette and Louisville, Georgetown had the tougher 2x in-conference matchups and also played tougher competition on the road in conference.

I hope this bodes well for us in the BET and NCAAs.

[hoyas1995]

Nice breakdown. Louisville's opponents were a joke.

[skyhoya]

Before we beat the orange ****heads the first time and Ville 5th in the conference the ESPN analysts were picking Ville to win the BE regular season. It's all fixed for the rankings.

[Ranch Dressing]

Thanks. It's amazing to see what kind of disparities emerge with the unbalanced scheduling.

The new league will not have to deal with this (at least initially with 10 teams). Everybody will play each other twice home and away. So everything is equal. If we expand to 12-14, then disparities will emerge.

In an unbalanced scheduling format, perhaps leagues would be wise to break ties for seeding purposes by analyzing conference strength of schedules.

[HoyaChris]

Mar 11, 2013 15:45:17 GMT -5 Ranch Dressing said:

With 15 league teams, the unbalanced 18-game regular season Big East schedule creates significant disparities between teams' in-conference strength of schedule.

I reviewed the regular season conferences schedules of the league's three 14-4 teams: Georgetown, Louisville, and Marquette. Some interesting facts noted below lead me to conclude that Georgetown's conference record of 14-4 is substantially more impressive than both Louisville's and Marquette's 14-4 conference records.

Combined Conference Records of 2x Opponents

Georgetown 38-34 (Cuse, Quette, SJU, Rutgers)

Marquette 32-40 (Pitt, USF, GTown, SH)

Louisville 28-44 (SH, ND, USF, Cuse)

Combined Conference Records of Away Game Opponents

Georgetown 81-81 (Cuse, Quette, SJU, Rutgers, USF, ND, Cincy, Nova, UConn)

Marquette 78-84 (Pitt, USF, GTown, SH, Cincy, Ville, Nova, Rutgers, SJU)

Louisville 69-93 (SH, ND, USF, Cuse, UConn, Nova, GTown, Rutgers, DePaul)

Relative to Marquette and Louisville, Georgetown had the tougher 2x in-conference matchups and also played tougher competition on the road in conference.

I hope this bodes well for us in the BET and NCAAs.

This is a helpful piece of analysis. Our in conference road wins will be viewed very favorably by the Selection Committee. Of course this would all be moot if we had just won at South Florida.

[Ranch Dressing]

Yeah, the loss at USF was a stinker and is a reminder that this team's often limited offensive point production does not allow us to take a night off on defense.

Some more on Louisville vs. Georgetown records.

Louisville's 4 conference losses were to quality opponents (at ND, at GTown, at Nova, and Cuse). They had an easier schedule, but to their credit they beat everyone they should have. No bad losses.

Both teams went 6-3 on the road in conference.

But the Hoyas had 4 away wins against .500 or better clubs (Cuse, Cincy, ND, and UConn); Louisville only had 2 (Cuse and UConn). We also beat 8-10 SJU on the road. The remaining Louisville 4 away conference wins were against the bottom 4 teams in the league (USF, Rutgers, SH, and DePaul).

If you match up opponent records, the difference in SOS of away games boils down to this: replace Louisville's away games at DePaul and Seton Hall with away games at SJU and Cincy.