I think wins over those schools will produce a good RPI but it won't be enough for an at large bid IMO.

Last year we had 15 non-conf games, so this is about half of our non-conf for next year. I think we need to see how it plays out.

Here the schedule with last year's RPI.

Ohio...45 Final RPI

Marshall..44
St. Bonaventure...73
Winthrop...271
Portland...238
UMass...77
Memphis...16

That's four Top 100 teams from last year so far. Last year, we had three Top 100 teams total. Of course last year's success has no bearing on this year's, FWIW.

Would like to see Wichita State, Creighton, Gonzaga, VCU, Butler or Xavier on the schedule to see where we would fit vs other elite mid-major programs. Seeding could be important under the 68 team field. 12,11 or 10 seed would be really strong for a MAC champion.   

We smoked Portland  last year. They were terrible.

I would like to see two more Memphis-caliber teams on the schedule.

DJ had such an off night....

my bad on the Portland score.  yes, that game is a waste. 

^ ^ ^ Agreed...It is about stopping with the disappointing losses to bad teams in the conference, something we haven't been able to avoid for a long time.  That (aka winning the regular season championship) is much more important than the OOC.  Akron and Ohio should be battling for the title with just 1 or 2 losses each...SHOULD...but probably will not play out that way.

Anybody looked back to see what kind of teams JC chose to schedule while racking up all those 20+win seasons while at Kent St?  Be interesting to see if he scheduled to have a good record, or he liked to go out and play some people.  Then again, he may be in somewhat of a different mindset right now, whereas back then his goal may have been to rack up some nice resume numbers in hopes of getting out of town versus now where that "may" not be his ultimate goal.

Just seems to me that the philosophy of racking up a great record in hopes that getting an NCAA bid (assuming you don't win the tournament) is one way to get there, just leaves you so little margin for error.  You lose say 5 MAC games and if you don't have any big wins in the OOC schedule, you're down to needing to win the tournament.  Chances are a great record and no tournament win leaves you feeling good in that you're on the Bubble Watch, but then ultimately get left feeling snubbed when you don't get an invite.

A strong OOC schedule with a team like this may give you a triple edged approach to getting an invite.  Say 5 MAC loses may be overshadowed a bit if you went out and have some marque victories.  If you lose those marque games and have a great MAC record, then you may get the benefit of the doubt having at least tried versus the arguement you had a great MAC record, but played nobody in the non-conference schedule.

If it were me, this would be the year I tried to schedule 2-4 Memphis type games as without those wins you're putting all your chips on the tournament as with a great MAC record only that still may not be good enough.

Pretty good schedule IMO.  On Portland, remember that they usually are pretty good but were down last year.  I saw the game vs. them on web feed last year.  They were actually a decent team; we had to fight hard to pull away from them in the second half. 

if we beat Louisville last year and lose to Akron in the finals probably still come up short, but maybe in the discussion

That's part of the maturation process when you're a MAC fan.  Just like you have to develop the ability to get excited about an E. Michigan basketball game, you must also adjust to all the crazy OOC teams thrown your direction each year--like UT-Corpus Christi and yes, Portland.

If that's the case, McKinney is the most mature fan in the entire conference.