scheduling thread

[sys]

lotsa talk on this currently.  let's start w. a few givens:

1.  ksu can't afford (&@#% you synder  ) to pay guarantees for a bunch of premium mid-majors.
2.  or have more than maybe 1.5 true roads (3 concurrent home and homes), not that martin necessarily would want to.



given those restrictions, realistically increasing the sos:


1.  add a 3rd home and home (ksu is usually @ 2, 1 being the pac 10 the last couple of years).  seems possible, but probably will require tv.  maybe in a couple of years, ksu is attractive enough for espn to help schedule.  they aren't now, obviously.

2.  get in 3 game exempt tourneys rather than 2 game ones.

3.  schedule 2 premium guarantees, 1 being the kc game (the kc game was a premium guarantee this year, not last year).  not sure ksu can afford that, but maybe.


honestly, that's about it.  not a lot of options that i can see.

[Byrd]

Why do you say we can only afford 1-2 road games?  I think doing 2 for 1's with mid majors is not a bad idea even if it means having 2-3 true road games some years.  We add an extra road game each year but it would get us two quality home games, on average, each year.

-3 game tournament
-2 home and homes with big conference teams(one road game each year)
-3 mid majors that you are in 2 for 1 contracts with(one road game each year on average)
-KC game against average opponent.

That would give us 9 decent non-conference games with only 2 true road games.  We would then have to buy around 5 more games and hopefully we will do our homework to find cheaper teams thats RPI won't kill our SOS.

[sys]

Why do you say we can only afford 1-2 road games?  I think doing 2 for 1's with mid majors is not a bad idea even if it means having 2-3 true road games some years.

only 1.5 roads/year because i don't think ksu can/will pay for more.  you need tv revenue to offset lost ticket revenue.  otherwise you're asking the a.d. to voluntarily give up money.  hard argument to make.

on the mid-majors, i'm not anti-mid major 2-1s.  but, i think it is much harder to get a mid-major 2-1 that makes sense than a home-home.

most high-quality mid-majors don't want to do 2-1s (and if they do, they have better options than ksu to fill the games).  so you're really looking at lower echelon mid-majors.  i think it makes sense if you can get to an important recruiting market at the same time, but not if you'd be playing in the middle of nowhere.

Hopefully we will do our homework to find cheaper teams thats RPI won't kill our SOS.

not possible.  you get what you pay for (given unpredictable fluctuations when a team is better/worse than expected).

[michigancat]

lotsa talk on this currently.  let's start w. a few givens:

1.  ksu can't afford (frack you synder  ) to pay guarantees for a bunch of premium mid-majors.
2.  or have more than maybe 1.5 true roads (3 concurrent home and homes), not that martin necessarily would want to.



given those restrictions, realistically increasing the sos:


1.  add a 3rd home and home (ksu is usually @ 2, 1 being the pac 10 the last couple of years).  seems possible, but probably will require tv.  maybe in a couple of years, ksu is attractive enough for espn to help schedule.  they aren't now, obviously.

2.  get in 3 game exempt tourneys rather than 2 game ones.

3.  schedule 2 premium guarantees, 1 being the kc game (the kc game was a premium guarantee this year, not last year).  not sure ksu can afford that, but maybe.


honestly, that's about it.  not a lot of options that i can see.

This is essentially what oSu did.  They only had one high-major home-home, but they lucked out and played Gonzaga, Michigan St., and Siena in Orlando.  They also got a better team to lose to in the Pac 10 challenge, and a better team for their "premium guarantee" in OKC.  I'm not sure what kind of deal they got with Tulsa, but I'm guessing there will be a trip to Tulsa at some point for them.

[doom]

With the Pac10 guaranteed game and our Xavier game, plus the PR tourney, that would drastically be an improvement.  Since we won't be playing Oregon odds are better that game won't kill our rpi

[michigancat]

With the Pac10 guaranteed game and our Xavier game, plus the PR tourney, that would drastically be an improvement.  Since we won't be playing Oregon odds are better that game won't kill our rpi

The PR tourney could do absolutely nothing for us also.  It just depends on who you play.  OSU played in the same tournament we did last year, but they played Gonzaga, Michigan St., and Siena (pretty good), instead of George Mason, Central Florida, and Rider.

[catzacker]

with Xavier, the PR tournament, and the Pac 10 game...I'd say one premium game in KC would do it.  The PR tournament doesn't guarantee good games, but they shouldn't be bad games...and, like, winning would help too.  Also, when we schedule the scrubs, try not to schedule to worst scrubs possible (i don't know how that is done, though).

[ksu_FAN]

Good thread.

One of the keys to the exempt tournaments is to win your first game.  Had we done that last year, our schedule there would've been significantly better.  Even with that, our OOC SOS was just fine last year finishing somewhere in the 150's.  That's plenty, you just can't have it in the 200s and definately not >300 like this year.  

MU was in the PR tournament this year and got two games vs the Top 50.  Of course they got 1 >150, but that was b/c they lost their opener there.  I think it will be a good tournament, especially with 3 games.  Should at least get 2 good games out of it, likely 3 if we win the opener.

Again, I agree we got some bad luck this year in that Iowa and Oregon turned out to be >100 RPI teams.  But overall I simply think we had too many bad teams.   We are going to have several >200 teams on our schedule every year, that's reality of making money, but 8 is too many, especially with 3 being >300.  

But as sys said, get into a rotation with 1.5 road games per year and you will have a decent schedule.  That gives you 3 games against hopefully solid teams as home and homes and 2 or 3 in an exempt tournament every year.  Then with your remaining 8 schedule guarantees; just try to make 2 of those a little more pricey ones against teams that are <200.

[BigCat]

Why do you say we can only afford 1-2 road games?  I think doing 2 for 1's with mid majors is not a bad idea even if it means having 2-3 true road games some years.

only 1.5 roads/year because i don't think ksu can/will pay for more.  you need tv revenue to offset lost ticket revenue.   otherwise you're asking the a.d. to voluntarily give up money.  hard argument to make.

on the mid-majors, i'm not anti-mid major 2-1s.  but, i think it is much harder to get a mid-major 2-1 that makes sense than a home-home.

most high-quality mid-majors don't want to do 2-1s (and if they do, they have better options than ksu to fill the games).  so you're really looking at lower echelon mid-majors.  i think it makes sense if you can get to an important recruiting market at the same time, but not if you'd be playing in the middle of nowhere.

Hopefully we will do our homework to find cheaper teams thats RPI won't kill our SOS.

not possible.  you get what you pay for (given unpredictable fluctuations when a team is better/worse than expected).

I'm not sure I agree with this... It would be different if we were filling OOD for these non-con games, but we're drawing like 16 people. Plus most of those showing up already have season tix anyways, they're not single game sales, so you're not losing that revenue anyways.

[ksu_FAN]

And agree with the point about mid-majors and 2 or 1s; most mid-majors that are any good aren't going to do a 2 for 1, especially with K-State.  You may find bad mid-majors or decent low-majors that will do 2 for 1s, but that's about it.  For example, the days of 2 for 1s with a Mo Valley team (especially for us) are over.  I'd be fine with doing 1 for 1s with teams from good mid-major leagues like the Mo Valley or Mountain West.

[Byrd]

Why do you say we can only afford 1-2 road games?  I think doing 2 for 1's with mid majors is not a bad idea even if it means having 2-3 true road games some years.

only 1.5 roads/year because i don't think ksu can/will pay for more.  you need tv revenue to offset lost ticket revenue.  otherwise you're asking the a.d. to voluntarily give up money.  hard argument to make.

My only argument for this would be even though we lose some revenue by having one less game at home we would save money on the home v home and 2 for 1 deals because we would not be buying our home games in those deals. 

Also, aren't the season tickets set at a standard price and not really dependent on the number of home games we have?

[steve dave]

I bet scheduling is one of those things that sounds fun but when you get down to it it's a huge pain in the ass. 

[Byrd]

And agree with the point about mid-majors and 2 or 1s; most mid-majors that are any good aren't going to do a 2 for 1, especially with K-State.  You may find bad mid-majors or decent low-majors that will do 2 for 1s, but that's about it.  For example, the days of 2 for 1s with a Mo Valley team (especially for us) are over.  I'd be fine with doing 1 for 1s with teams from good mid-major leagues like the Mo Valley or Mountain West.

You are probably right about teams from the Mountain West and Missouri Valley doing 2 for 1s.  But I think it may still be possible with teams from the Horizon League or WCC.( like Cleveland St. or San Diego)  I don't really know though.  It would be an awesome job to work with Frank Martin in contacting teams and trying to set up the schedule. 

[Byrd]

I bet scheduling is one of those things that sounds fun but when you get down to it it's a huge pain in the ass. 

You are probably right.  It's going to be a lot easier for us in 3 years after coming off a big 12 title and three straight sweet 16 appearances. 

[sys]

You are probably right about teams from the Mountain West and Missouri Valley doing 2 for 1s.  But I think it may still be possible with teams from the Horizon League or WCC.( like Cleveland St. or San Diego)  I don't really know though.  It would be an awesome job to work with Frank Martin in contacting teams and trying to set up the schedule. 

yes, definitely.

it's kind of an individual thing with coaches/teams.  some like 2-1s, some don't.  but that is the appropriate level.

[chum1]

These plans are complicated.  Seems like it's probably easier just to win more games.

[michigancat]

Looks like we'll have UNLV, Xavier, Washington St., and Bama ().

If perception is indeed a problem, and K-State has an image that it schedules too many gimmees, then Martin should note the schedule he's arranging for next season. Use any platform to inform the committee about games against Xavier and UNLV. Mention Alabama and Washington State. And don't leave out the Puerto Rico Tip-Off, with a prospective field that includes Villanova.

http://cjonline.com/sports/2009-03-08/schedule_still_haunting_cats

[doom]

Looks like we'll have UNLV, Xavier, Washington St., and Bama ().

If perception is indeed a problem, and K-State has an image that it schedules too many gimmees, then Martin should note the schedule he's arranging for next season. Use any platform to inform the committee about games against Xavier and UNLV. Mention Alabama and Washington State. And don't leave out the Puerto Rico Tip-Off, with a prospective field that includes Villanova.

http://cjonline.com/sports/2009-03-08/schedule_still_haunting_cats

Home against Bama would be fine.  I know they'll suck, but it's an SEC school.  Whenever the away game is that one could really hurt to lose. 

[sys]

nice reporting.


alabama isn't a bad game.  ksu recruits there.  i mean, g'town, miami, uf and st. johns aren't going to give us home and homes, so bama is pretty decent.

wsu is worse, but of course, you take what you get with that.

be interesting to see the terms on the unlv series.  i assume 1 in kc and 1 @ unlv.  both on espn or 2 


cleveland state should be coming to mhk, too.  not a bad schedule really.

[michigancat]

nice reporting.


alabama isn't a bad game.  ksu recruits there.  i mean, g'town, miami, uf and st. johns aren't going to give us home and homes, so bama is pretty decent.

wsu is worse, but of course, you take what you get with that.

be interesting to see the terms on the unlv series.  i assume 1 in kc and 1 @ unlv.  both on espn or 2 


cleveland state should be coming to mhk, too.  not a bad schedule really.

@UNLV will be on mtn or CBSCS

[sys]

@UNLV will be on mtn or CBSCS

that is disappointing.

[michigancat]

@UNLV will be on mtn or CBSCS

that is disappointing.

It's just how their TV deal is.  MWC home games are never on ESPN.

[Jeffrey_Martin]

Interesting that the UNLV game will be played at Orleans Arena and not Thomas & Mack...

[sys]

Interesting that the UNLV game will be played at Orleans Arena and not Thomas & Mack...

i was wondering about that, but didn't know if vegas had another arena.


btw, in another thread, trim was asking who the small recruit you talked to after russell was.

[michigancat]

Interesting that the UNLV game will be played at Orleans Arena and not Thomas & Mack...

Will the return game be in KC?

[sys]

Will the return game be in KC?

yes.  can't recall where i heard that, but i heard that some time ago (as a rumor).

[Trim]

btw, in another thread, trim was asking who the small recruit you talked to after russell was.

What's really weird is that jeff and this guy were talking about how to get you a bobblehead you'd won. 

[sys]

What's really weird is that jeff and this guy were talking about how to get you a bobblehead you'd won. 

hot topic.  i've been hearing a lot of rumblings about that as well.



just occurred to me, trim.  you're the kevin bacon of ksufans.com.  doubt if there is any poster more than 3 posters removed from you.

[mcmwcat]

losing to bama doesn't matter as long as you win the some of the other ones.  texas loss to arkansas this year and they're basically the worst team in the sec.  but texas is still a lock for the tournament.

[Butt Fugly]

Bama has 2 five stars coming in.

One is named Tony Mitchell.