I seem to remember several seasons ago there was a much ballyhooed emphasis from the conference office for all MAC teams to schedule up for RPI and other reasons. There was talk of certain penalties for teams that wouldn't do that.

Now, it seems that over the half the league played a pretty weak OOC schedule this year. What happened to the previous directive to play tougher schedules?

Yes, you are correct, there was a concerted effort to do that. It was a good idea, but since the NCAA still won't give the MAC an at-large bid (like Toledo should have gotten a few years ago), what's the point anymore. It's win the MAC Tournament or nothing. You could be 0-28 entering the MACT and win 4 games and you're going dancing. It sucks but that's the way it is. So teams are doing what they need to do to get wins. Look how few games everyone played vs big named schools and how many non DI schools there were. It's why I'm glad MAC play is finally here.

Toledo in 2014 (I assume that's the Rocket team you are referring to) is the poster child for why the MAC doesn't get at-large bids. It has nothing to do with the MAC getting shafted. It has everything to do with Toledo not deserving it. What was their signature win that year? Cleveland State? Their second best OOC win was a Boston College team so bad they stole our coach after the season. Their not getting an at-large should have been a confirmation of how their scheduling practices cost them any consideration just as Akron's had in 2007. They played three games against teams in the top 100 (Ken Pom) all season long (and one of those was in the NIT) and lost to two of them. If they had played our schedule (We played six top 100 teams) they probably get in. You don't have to play a ton of P5 teams in their gyms. But you do have to schedule good teams. Getting home and homes against MVC or A-10 teams and playing neutral court tournaments against P5s should be the goal IMO. But the MAC isn't getting shafted and it's not impossible to get at-larges. It just hasn't happened. The teams that might have gotten an at-large have won the tournament.

Doomed by the loss of Jeff Boals. The problem with that team was that our NCAA resume was all in November. We finished a mundane 8-5 after Boals went down. We finished 2nd in the conference and lost in the semis. If Miami had beaten Ball State in the tournament we might have gotten in. But with Ball State winning that meant that Miami, who finished 1st and beat us twice was getting the at-large. I don't remember who the last teams in that year were but I do remember that I didn't think we were getting in. We just didn't have anything but the Pre-season NIT and Gary Trent to hang our hat on.

Exactly.

Last season is another good example. The MAC finished 10th in RPI but was the only conference in the top 12 to not earn an at-large bid. The regular season MAC champ and MACC runner up was CMU. CMU was also 2nd in the conference in RPI at #70 and had an SOS of #162. Buffalo, the MACC Champ and auto-bid winner was #28. CMU were eliminated from at-large consideration before conference play began with an absurdly awful OOC schedule. Here's their OOC schedule ranked by RPI-

W 127 Northwestern
W 274 Grand Canyon
W 279 McNeese St.
L 288 Bradley
W 291 Youngstown St
W 292 SIU Edwardsville
W 301 AR Pine Bluff
W 339 Maine

Not listed are the 3 non-D1 opponents. You can't put together a non conference schedule where 1 team finishes with an RPI better than #274 and expect to be given an at-large bid at the end of the season. By comparison, here's CMU's RPI/SOS compared to the teams from the 11th and 12th ranked conferences that earned at-large bids last year for added context-

17/98 Wichita St
26/76 SDSU
28/79 Buffalo
40/116 Boise St
70/162 CMU

Buffalo was in a good position to make a case for an at-large but it was CMU's terrible OOC scheduling that kept them out of at-large consideration, not any conspiracy or bias against the MAC.

And this season will be no different. With conference play about to begin tonight here's the current SOS for the teams in the MAC-

SOS (out of 351)
51 EMU
65 Buffalo
95 Kent St

178 Miami

206 WMU
209 Ohio
280 CMU
295 NIU

319 Akron
329 Toledo
345 BGSU
349 Ball St

Absolutely pathetic. Out of 32 conferences the MAC's SOS ranks 27th.

I don't know what's up with scheduling 4 non-Division 1 teams. I've never seen anything like it. Most years (since I can remember) we'll have maybe 1 exhibition game against a lower division, and 1 regular game against a lower division. If this had been done a few years ago, with how bad the team was, I could almost see it.

This year, I have no idea why they did that. And EMU did that too. Puzzling.

non-D1 opponents are not factored into SOS. The SOS is accurate, you just have to view it it in context of a record of 4-5, not 8-5.

L 6 @Michigan St
L 30 @Louisville
L 73 @Penn St

W 111 Detroit
W 123 Vermont
L 134 N Florida
L 138 @Oakland
W 179 @Omaha

W 289 @Coppin St

That's a solid OOC schedule, the biggest issue I see is 6 of 9 games are on the road.


By comparison, here is Ohio's schedule-

L 75 @St. Bona
L 82 vTulsa
L 90 vFlorida St

W 163 Florida GC
W 169 Marshall
W 174 vCleveland St

W 205 vNorfolk St
W 216 AR Pine Bluff
W 223 Jackson St
W 226 Tennessee St
W 279 UC Riverside

The bottom 3 teams on our schedule are all better than any non-D1 team we would schedule but does it really matter? They're still considered buyout cupcake games. Is EMU being smart by scheduling cupcakes that don't sink their SOS?

It does matter. If you remove the bottom three RPI teams we played and replace them with non-D1 opponents then our SOS goes from 172 to 140. Or assign an RPI value to the non-D1 opponents, which would be somewhere around 340+ then all of a sudden EMU's SOS is crap. But the bigger point is that they have put together a schedule that removes them from any at-large consideration unless they have an other-worldly conference record (think 17-1 or 18-0). But as soon as you set them next to other at-large worthy schools the first thing that the analyst will say is "Hey, they played 4 non-D1 teams". Sorry, but their SOS is an illusion.

+1000

The myth that the MAC doesn't get at-large bids because of some conspiracy is one of the dumbest things I read on this board.

Anyone perpetuating this needs to apply their brain cells more effectively.

I would say that there is most decidedly a bias against mids but not as much in basketball as there is in football. But that doesn't mean that it's hopeless. I'd also add that it's not always been the OOC resume that has done our teams in. We've had a few at-large worthy teams coming out of December that have been done in by the conference schedule. Miami in 2005, Ball State around 2002 and us in 1995 come to mind.

The lowest RPI ranked team to get an at-large bid last year was #61 Indiana. Here's a list of every team ranked better than 61 that didn't receive an auto or at large bid-

RPI/SOS
29/111 Colorado State
34/62 Temple
45/146 Old Dominion
46/91 Tulsa
49/190 Iona
54/148 Green Bay
56/186 La Tech
57/47 Richmond
59/46 Stanford

Raw data: http://realtimerpi.com/2014-2015/rpi_Men.html

Does this prove a bias vs mid majors, or did these specific teams just not have a good enough resume? BTW you have to add 8 more teams to that list before you get to the 2nd best MAC team, CMU. Hard to say that the MAC deserved a 2nd a bid when 17 other teams in front of CMU were left out too.

I thought the directive coming from the MAC in regards to OOC scheduling was to prioritize home games, they wanted to get away from the Fiami model of pay-for-play road warriors.

Would love to play some of these teams. But, all 6 every year is program suicide. Nobody plays that tough a non-conference schedule.