The Future of the A10 from a Scheduling Perspective

[peacefulbonnie]

Bonaventure fan here, but I come in peace! Just saw a quick article from everyone's favorite beat writer, Jon Rothstein, which made me think.

He was worried that the A10 was trending towards being a perennial one-bid league due to failures from the brass in the A10.

Aside from that statement being a bit of an overreaction, I think he did bring up some decent points.

He believes the A10 is not doing enough to create quality non-conference games for our members. He points to the A10 having five teams with 21+ wins in 2020, but only one school (Dayton Cryers) was a lock for the NCAAs.

Second, he believes there is a correlation with the A10 losing bids once we increased conference games from 16 to 18. He says A10 has not been a 3+ Bid league since that move.

I know the A10 and Mountain West had a challenge scheduled for last year, but obviously that was canceled. Not sure if that will resume next year, but that has the potential to be a positive for both conferences. Aside from having the MWC-A10 challenge each year, not sure what else could be done. I guess you could try the same with the Missouri Valley, but that conference is not as deep, and it would complicate things even further with deciding which team gets to play at home. I doubt VCU, Bona, etc. would go for two road games, if it shook out that way.

On top of that, which game or two do you remove from your schedule to make it work? It's a tough balance to strike having winnable games and having a good OOC. To make any type of challenge work, I think it'd be easier to play at a neutral site, especially if you want to do two conference challenges.

Regarding the schedule going from 16 to 18, I have to assume he would be correct if that meant teams in the conference getting two Q1/Q2 games, but that's hardly a given. I think the conference would be better served leaving two open slots for a game home and away in Feb/March to match up some of the best and worst teams.

Instead of playing George Mason and Davidson twice, maybe that gets replaced with the best team possible. Maybe one year you play Bona/SLU three times, but at least you get more cracks at Q1/Q2 games. It might be difficult to determine which team plays at home, but I guess you could go off A10 standings/ net rankings.

The best solution would be for our average to bad teams to win more games OOC and stop taking so many road games, which would help our SOS and those schools NET rankings.

Curious to see what you all think!

 

[Wolfpack Ram]

Get rid of Fordham and add Wichita State.

Seriously, though, it's just not adding quality OOC games. It's also winning quality OOC games. Regarding your suggestion relating to conference games, C-USA already uses a similar formula where they re-shuffle the schedule near the end of the regular season and schedule the top teams at that point against each other in order to help their NET ranking. Of course, they don't have the caliber teams that the A-10 does, but they are still a one bid league even with their new scheduling formula.

 

[N Mollen]

Bonaventure fan here, but I come in peace! Just saw a quick article from everyone's favorite beat writer, Jon Rothstein, which made me think.

He was worried that the A10 was trending towards being a perennial one-bid league due to failures from the brass in the A10.

Aside from that statement being a bit of an overreaction, I think he did bring up some decent points.

He believes the A10 is not doing enough to create quality non-conference games for our members. He points to the A10 having five teams with 21+ wins in 2020, but only one school (Dayton Cryers) was a lock for the NCAAs.

Second, he believes there is a correlation with the A10 losing bids once we increased conference games from 16 to 18. He says A10 has not been a 3+ Bid league since that move.

I know the A10 and Mountain West had a challenge scheduled for last year, but obviously that was canceled. Not sure if that will resume next year, but that has the potential to be a positive for both conferences. Aside from having the MWC-A10 challenge each year, not sure what else could be done. I guess you could try the same with the Missouri Valley, but that conference is not as deep, and it would complicate things even further with deciding which team gets to play at home. I doubt VCU, Bona, etc. would go for two road games, if it shook out that way.

On top of that, which game or two do you remove from your schedule to make it work? It's a tough balance to strike having winnable games and having a good OOC. To make any type of challenge work, I think it'd be easier to play at a neutral site, especially if you want to do two conference challenges.

Regarding the schedule going from 16 to 18, I have to assume he would be correct if that meant teams in the conference getting two Q1/Q2 games, but that's hardly a given. I think the conference would be better served leaving two open slots for a game home and away in Feb/March to match up some of the best and worst teams.

Instead of playing George Mason and Davidson twice, maybe that gets replaced with the best team possible. Maybe one year you play Bona/SLU three times, but at least you get more cracks at Q1/Q2 games. It might be difficult to determine which team plays at home, but I guess you could go off A10 standings/ net rankings.

The best solution would be for our average to bad teams to win more games OOC and stop taking so many road games, which would help our SOS and those schools NET rankings.

Curious to see what you all think!

Welcome to the board.

I saw Jon's tweet too, and I thought it was more provocative than the facts warrant, but questions about the long-term viability of the league are real. I suspect each A10 school is evaluating the limited options available, and if a better league (read: the BE) makes an offer to a top tier A10 school, the league shrinks in a heartbeat. For the better programs however, the opportunities to move up the food chain are extremely limited. Lots of threads here on that subject.

As for the assertion that the league isn't doing enough to arrange quality non-conference games for us, I am not quite sure what he (you?) expect the league to do. VCU schedules its own non-con games. True, the league tried to set up an MW/A10 series, but would that have led to the kind of "improved" non-con schedule we want?

 

[BracketForecast]

Get creative, which I have no expectation the dinosaurs at A10 HQ will do. For one, wait to schedule the MW/A10 challenge games until early February for a mid-late February date and based on NET rankings. A Bonnies win against San Diego State last year probably would have been worth 2-3 seed lines and a loss would not have pulled them out of the at-large field (the committee does not punish teams for scheduling and losing a tough OOC game). A SLU road win at USU, Colorado State, or Boise would have 100% moved them into the field.

 

[VCU Finance 2008]

I think the goal in non-conference scheduling is to play the best possible schedule that you can and win 80% of the games. Of course that's not an exact science because you don't know exactly how good your team will be or how good the other teams you play will be before the season starts. There are also other realities like difficulty scheduling when you are expected to have a strong team and the need for buy games as revenue generators. Overall I think most teams in the league are pretty good about it though. The weaker teams sometimes play a weaker schedule, but they're not going to be at large worthy anyway so it's better to have 10 or 11 wins in non conference games and be a .500 team overall than three wins with a good strength of schedule.

 

[AlienAiden]

He believes the A10 is not doing enough to create quality non-conference games for our members. He points to the A10 having five teams with 21+ wins in 2020, but only one school (Dayton Cryers) was a lock for the NCAAs.

In 2020 the A10 "would have been a one bid conference" because UR was 2nd

 

[Violet Ram]

In 2020 the A10 "would have been a one bid conference" because UR was 2nd

But really this. It's hard to predict what would have happened in the A10 tourny. I feel like last year was the only year since we've been in the league where chalk has won out.

 

[Thirstin4Burston]

The A-10 isn't 'trending' toward a 1-bid league, we're already there. But most around these parts are happy enough with it, they've stuck with an AD who let the best coach in program history walk out the door and has done little to nothing to get us into a better league. At least we're not a football school tho amirite?

 

[WillWeaverRVA]

The A-10 isn't 'trending' toward a 1-bid league, we're already there. But most around these parts are happy enough with it, they've stuck with an AD who let the best coach in program history walk out the door and has done little to nothing to get us into a better league. At least we're not a football school tho amirite?

VCU has to be invited to a better league. That hasn’t happened. Ed has no control over what other conferences do.

 

[Violet Ram]

The A-10 isn't 'trending' toward a 1-bid league, we're already there. But most around these parts are happy enough with it, they've stuck with an AD who let the best coach in program history walk out the door and has done little to nothing to get us into a better league. At least we're not a football school tho amirite?

Oh really? When was the last time the A10 received one bid?

 

[WillWeaverRVA]

The A-10 isn't 'trending' toward a 1-bid league, we're already there. But most around these parts are happy enough with it, they've stuck with an AD who let the best coach in program history walk out the door and has done little to nothing to get us into a better league. At least we're not a football school tho amirite?

The A10 has only been a 1-bid league twice in the past 20 years, excluding 2019-20, and the last time it happened it was because GW (which was REALLY good) beat St. Joe’s in the finals and deprived it of its only shot at a tournament bid.

 

[Havoc City]

The A-10 isn't 'trending' toward a 1-bid league, we're already there. But most around these parts are happy enough with it, they've stuck with an AD who let the best coach in program history walk out the door and has done little to nothing to get us into a better league. At least we're not a football school tho amirite?

To say this right after we got an at-large bid is celticguy level dumb.

 

[TampaKAP]

Bonaventure fan here, but I come in peace! Just saw a quick article from everyone's favorite beat writer, Jon Rothstein, which made me think.

He was worried that the A10 was trending towards being a perennial one-bid league due to failures from the brass in the A10.

Aside from that statement being a bit of an overreaction, I think he did bring up some decent points.

He believes the A10 is not doing enough to create quality non-conference games for our members. He points to the A10 having five teams with 21+ wins in 2020, but only one school (Dayton Cryers) was a lock for the NCAAs.

Second, he believes there is a correlation with the A10 losing bids once we increased conference games from 16 to 18. He says A10 has not been a 3+ Bid league since that move.

I know the A10 and Mountain West had a challenge scheduled for last year, but obviously that was canceled. Not sure if that will resume next year, but that has the potential to be a positive for both conferences. Aside from having the MWC-A10 challenge each year, not sure what else could be done. I guess you could try the same with the Missouri Valley, but that conference is not as deep, and it would complicate things even further with deciding which team gets to play at home. I doubt VCU, Bona, etc. would go for two road games, if it shook out that way.

On top of that, which game or two do you remove from your schedule to make it work? It's a tough balance to strike having winnable games and having a good OOC. To make any type of challenge work, I think it'd be easier to play at a neutral site, especially if you want to do two conference challenges.

Regarding the schedule going from 16 to 18, I have to assume he would be correct if that meant teams in the conference getting two Q1/Q2 games, but that's hardly a given. I think the conference would be better served leaving two open slots for a game home and away in Feb/March to match up some of the best and worst teams.

Instead of playing George Mason and Davidson twice, maybe that gets replaced with the best team possible. Maybe one year you play Bona/SLU three times, but at least you get more cracks at Q1/Q2 games. It might be difficult to determine which team plays at home, but I guess you could go off A10 standings/ net rankings.

The best solution would be for our average to bad teams to win more games OOC and stop taking so many road games, which would help our SOS and those schools NET rankings.

Curious to see what you all think!

Couple of ideas off the top of my head. Using a running three year NET avg,, no team from the top half plays a team from the bottom half twice in conference play. 2nd the A10 needs to implement ooc scheduling requirements. Using the same three year rolling net as a guide. For example, a team with a rolling avg of 275 must play schools 125 or better. Schools that have a rolling avg of less than 100 must play schools 250 or better. Now this means those bottom schools will likely play the majority of there ooc on the road but so be it. The alternative could be that the school elects to forgo it’s share of tournament and media revenue if the choose not to adhere to the scheduling criteria

 

[rvaram]

The A-10 isn't 'trending' toward a 1-bid league, we're already there. But most around these parts are happy enough with it, they've stuck with an AD who let the best coach in program history walk out the door and has done little to nothing to get us into a better league. At least we're not a football school tho amirite?

I don't get this. And what's your beef with ed? Shaka was on the committee that picked him and he backed up a truck of money to Shaka to counter the Texas deal. Well over 3m a year - the fact that a school like VCU was offering that kinda cash shows the commitment Rao and Ed have for bball.

There is no other conference we can go to other than the American. Do you view that as an upgrade? A few months ago I would have said heck yes. Now, I'd pass.

 

[ramsareus]

The A-10 isn't 'trending' toward a 1-bid league, we're already there. But most around these parts are happy enough with it, they've stuck with an AD who let the best coach in program history walk out the door and has done little to nothing to get us into a better league. At least we're not a football school tho amirite?

You my friend are a moron