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Basketball scheduling. How do we fix our mistakes

tante

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rpi.JPG

What we have learned from not being selected is that building a tournament resume is an art and we must learn from the mistakes we made this year. Looking over our schedule we had several huge mistakes:

mistake #1 - limit the number of 300+ rpi teams that you play to a maximum of one. Looking at the chart above, it is pretty easy to deduce that Alcorn St, Texas Pan American, Longwood, Maryland Eastern Shore and Cal State Bakersfield would finish below 300 in the rpi standings.

mistake #2 - don't play "traditional" non-tourney teams on the road ever. There is no reason to play teams like San Francisco or Harvard on the road, it is hard to win away from home, so you need to limit your exposure to losses.

mistake #3 - no marquee names on the schedule. The road to the tourney starts and ends in the east and marquee games need to be loaded up from that region, but they must absolutely top 50 teams.

Here should be our schedule guide until the selection committee changes the structure of how teams are selected. We are looking to schedule 14 games every year out of conference with 16 conference games for a total of 30 games (before the conference tourney)

3 away games versus top-tier east talent. Go through the ACC/Big East and play as many away games with the top teams that you can schedule without asking them for a home game in return

2/3 tournament games. Get in the best tournament you can find where you will play at least 3 games versus top 150 rpi talent

1 conference exchange game. This will be similar to the Big 12/Pac 12 setup we have now. It will be interesting to see what happens next year with the Big 12 having less conference members.

1 cupcake - find a 300 or higher rpi team to come to your house every year without a return game

1 local game - it seems we are tied to CSU so we will continue the home/away series with them

4/5 teams that usually finish 150 to 250 in rpi that will play you only at home. This is where the rubber meets the road, we are going to have to find teams that we can pay an appearance fee to play in our court without requesting and appearance on their court. If we absolutely must play at their place, we need to do a 2 for 1 or if possible 3 for 1.

The plan for this out of conference schedule is to finish at least 8-5 at worst. We can afford to lose to the 3 top 50 rpi teams a tournament game and even afford to lose to CSU or the conference exchange game on the road, but we absolutely need to win versus the 5 or 6 top 150 rpi teams that we play at home.

At that point we should have 8-5 or 9-4 record with a top 50 rpi, with a very good strength of schedule and a great out of conference record going into conference play. We will need to finish a minimum of 10-8 with 2 conference tourney wins or 11-7 with one conference tourney win and an NCAA selection. We will have 9 conference home games every year, so we need to win a minimum of one or two on the road.
 
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Road trips should also be consolidated to minimize the overall travel on the team...the way the schedule was laid out this year with the team going east to Georgia, all the way west to USF, and then back east again to Harvard was terrible and ill-thought out....
 
One quick note: that Las Vegas Invitational ended up being a bad tourney for us. Not only did we get New Mexico and Indiana in down years for them, but the Citadel and Longwood home games were also part of that tournament.

The Puerto Rico Tipoff next year looks to be a significant improvement.

Field with 2010-11 Season RPI:

COLORADO (65)
Alabama (80)
Iona (68)
Maryland (98)
Purdue (12)
Temple (29)
Wichita State (60)

We're also renewing the series with Wyoming (264). They're usually better than that and they should be a solid RPI game for us. Colorado State (50) is also on there and they'll be a solid RPI game even though they won't be that high again next year.
 
It's a giant stat game obviously by the ridiculously high RPI's by some of this teams that are nowhere deserving of a bid (the VCU, Saint Mary's, Harvard/Princeton's, UAB, etc.).....i'm sure Plati being a big numbers guy could help them get it right fairly quickly

Buffs could have probably played an easier schedule than their current one, simply by scheduling just as terrible teams that typically play tougher competition each year (i.e. the ones willing to get destroyed by Duke/KU/etc. year after year). Even if the team is equally awful their RPI goes through the roof and ours does as well, simply because the RPI is the most bogus stat I've ever witnessed.
 
My solution -- play EVERY non-conference game at home. Win EVERY non-conference game.

Be better than .500 in conference.


Tournament.
 
one thing I am worried about is the financial aspect of basically paying these teams to only play here. We aren't one of the teams that can afford it, but if we eventually keep making the tourney our fan base should increase, but we won't make the tourney unless we start to schedule better. So we might have to bite the bullet and lose revenue a bit to make a winning program.

thanks for the input on Citadel and Longwood.

One other big concern I have is when do we schedule our cupcake? do we make it the first game of the season to shake off rust, or do it schedule it during Christmas when we have low attendance? I think the first game of the season just to shake off any rust.
 
We play Georgia at home next year.

Thanks. I wasn't sure if the return trip was next year. That will be interesting with both teams retooling in big ways.

Georgia is likely an RPI 100-150 type team next season.
 
The Pac-12 schedule is going to bump us up from 16 conference games to 18. That should help our RPI and strength of schedule.
 
The Pac-12 schedule is going to bump us up from 16 conference games to 18. That should help our RPI and strength of schedule.

Good point.

Another point I'd like to make... no more D2 teams on the schedule.
 
The Pac-12 schedule is going to bump us up from 16 conference games to 18. That should help our RPI and strength of schedule.

thanks, I'll adjust my main post. I think we will need to take the games out of the 150 to 250 that we play.
 
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The Pac-12 schedule is going to bump us up from 16 conference games to 18. That should help our RPI and strength of schedule.

Not sure that's a guarantee....most likely case that this year 18 in the Pac 12 vs. our 16 in the Big 12 probably would have lowered our RPI more than what it ended up being

Point being, depends on conference competition and we were guaranteed a shot at playing the #1 team in the nation twice in the Big 12 each year....Pac 10 hasn't had consistent bball of that caliber for quite some time
 
Schedule like michigan state, lose those games, Knock off a few ranked teams in conference, change boyle's name to izzo and we're set.
 
Playing your non-conference slate at home certainly worked for Missouri this year.

Ya, why not. There really is no reason for us to ever play a road game at a mid-major. (especially football games in the state of ohio that are scheduled 4 days after our last game while our opponent gets a full week to prepare). Play all home games and then play in two tournaments instead of just one. This would get you some quality opponents and you play on a neutral floor as opposed to a true road game.
 
How about 3 reasonable road games:

@Wyoming 264 @csu 50
@ Kansas st 23


Home games:


Denver 244
air force 110
Georgia 47
gonzaga 56
Nebraska 89
Minnesota 85
New mexico st 139
northern Arizona 151
texas st 224


Puerto Rico Tournament


Or leave off KSU and just play 1 premier team like Ohio St or Kansas. We're not a mid major so we shouldn't have to schedule anything ridiculous.
 
With the way our group travel away games work next year we should schedule a couple games exactly like how the scheduling will be.

If we were to play a school like Texas A&M away, we should also play another texas area school away within a couple days. We would get great practice and be prepared for the conference schedule.

Not suggesting we start our season in this manner but, this type of schedule will be different to get used to.
 
Generally I like what's posted here. But there's absolutely no reason to ever schedule a team likely to be a 300+ RPI. They drag our average down, and a 200-250 RPI team is almost as beatable.
 
That's not going to work. Playing 12 weak non conference teams at home will gain cu nothing.

What make you assume they will be weak games? Were not going to get Duke to come to Boulder but its not like every game will be against Maryland Eastern Shore either. And if we play in two preseason tournaments thats 4-6 quality games right there.
 
That's not going to work. Playing 12 weak non conference teams at home will gain cu nothing.
It got mizzou a spot in the dance. They won 1 game on the road in conference and we won 3. The main difference between CU and mizzou is they played slightly higher RPI teams but had them all at home except for one game against Oregon.
 
What make you assume they will be weak games? Were not going to get Duke to come to Boulder but its not like every game will be against Maryland Eastern Shore either. And if we play in two preseason tournaments thats 4-6 quality games right there.

Yeah! What make you assume!

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