Thursday, October 15, 2009

Chris Murray analyzes the non-conference schedules for the various WAC teams

Now this took some mighty work so our hats are off to Chris Murray on this one.

Behind the numbers: Nevada one of few WAC teams with tough schedule
Chris Murray
Reno Gazette-Journal
10/14/200

At about this time last season, I asked then-Nevada coach Mark Fox what the WAC had to do to regain its status as a two-bid NCAA Tournament league. He said the solution was easy: the teams in the league needed to schedule better games and give itself a shot at quality, attention-grabbing wins. The conference as a whole lacked those win last year, and as a result got only one team into the Big Dance for the second straight year.

With that in mind, I wanted to look at which WAC teams have the most difficult schedule this year -- to see which teams stepped up their scheduling. The results, which are below, aren't all that pretty. While there are some potential big wins out there, the majority of the teams scheduled conservatively again, whether it be because of an inability to get big games, the desire to beat up on cupcakes, or whatever other reason.

Here is a team-by-team look at this year's non-conference WAC schedules. It includes: the number of non-conference games against Division I foes (sans BracketBuster games), the average RPI of those teams based on last year's rankings, the team's three best and worst games, and a summary of the schedule. Teams listed in alphabetical order...
Go here for the remainder.

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