OOC Strength of Schedule

06-07 Basketball Future Opponents General NCS Basketball23

UPDATED 4/1/2007 @ 17:00 (Scroll to Bottom)

Since this is the third time that I’ve documented the OOC strength of schedule for the ACC, I couldn’t come up with anything new and interesting to put into an introduction. But I can point new-comers to the first two entries on OOC SOS and especially to the comments on these entries.

1999-2005 OOC Summary
1999-2006 OOC Summary

If you don’t remember the standard complaints, please take a minute and review these previous entries. Let’s all endeavor to come up with something new to say and not just mindlessly rehash the same comments.

Thanks to kenpom.com we now have a nine-year summary on OOC SOS:

OOC Strength of Schedule

 

’99

’00

’01

’02

’03

’04

’05

’06

’07

AVE

Duke

15

33

17

59

108

24

46

6

10

35

UNC

30

17

42

34

46

29

54

70

7

37

UMd

51

15

115

15

189

43

125

64

40

73

WF

202

47

74

24

123

87

27

148

258

110

BC

284

142

116

176

51

65

88

282

51

139

GT

114

204

85

109

142

106

137

241

160

144

FSU

21

98

178

227

163

179

98

316

111

155

UVa

198

252

210

133

147

257

59

159

175

177

UM

47

169

203

225

261

317

142

177

274

202

NCSU

249

239

126

207

238

82

259

206

270

208

CU

272

200

301

288

293

53

155

152

214

214

VT

287

209

307

304

260

304

312

290

76

261

AVE

148

135

148

150

168

129

125

176

137

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DISTRIBUTION

 

 

 

1-99

5

5

4

4

2

7

6

3

5

 

100-199

2

3

4

3

6

2

4

4

3

 

200-299

5

4

2

4

4

1

1

4

4

 

300+

0

0

2

1

0

2

1

1

0

 

COMMENTS

– For those of you lucky enough to live close to a Wolfpack Caravan stop this summer, it would be interesting to ask Sid or Fowler if there are any plans to improve State’s OOC schedule. If memory serves, some lip-service has been paid to improving the schedule…but the results are a little slow in coming.

– For the first time since we’ve started looking at OOC SOS, no ACC team was adversely impacted by their choice of a weak schedule. VT (2005) and FSU (2006) certainly learned the consequences of weak OOC schedules in recent years.

Schedules of interest:

– WF and State had their weakest OOC schedules over the years archived at kenpom.com.

– VT had their best OOC schedule by far. We will have to see if this improvement was a fluke, a one-time choice with a senior-laden team, or if it represents a philosophy change in Blacksburg.

– If FSU had played the ’07 OOC schedule in ’06, that team would certainly have gone to the NCAAT instead of the NIT. I think that this goes to show that since you never know how a season is going to unfold, you don’t want an OOC schedule that turns into a big negative on Selection Sunday.

– UVa’s schedule was the weakest among the teams in the top-half of the conference this year….but they still tied for the regular season championship. I’ll just add this example to my list of reasons why I say that a tough schedule reveals good teams, it does not produce them.

We’ve been over the reasons why a weak SOS can come back to haunt a team, but we’ve never discussed in detail the mistakes made when setting up a given schedule. Since the Herbavores are no longer circling incessantly, I think that we should be able to take a closer look at State’s OOC schedule without a lot of emotion and posturing.

WARNING: For those that can’t handle ninth-grade math, this would be a good time to click on your next link of interest.

The SOS is calculated by the following formula:

2/3 x (Opponent’s Winning Percentage) +
1/3 x (Opponent’s Opponent’s Winning Percentage) =

Strength of Schedule

Notes:

– The game(s) against the given team are removed when calculating the Opponent’s Winning Percentage.
– Obviously, the OOC SOS only includes the OOC games.
– A team’s overall SOS is part of the RPI calculation.
– A more detailed explanation of SOS and RPI calcs is given here at kenpom.com

So here is State’s 2007 OOC schedule, each team’s adjusted winning percentage, and each team’s individual SOS.

 

Adjusted

 

 

W/L

SOS

 East Carolina

0.1154

0.4960

 NC Wilmington

0.2500

0.5089

 Wofford

0.2692

0.4610

 Gardner
Webb

0.2857

0.4920

 Savannah
St.

0.3200

0.4663

 Cincinnati

0.3448

0.5609

 Mount St. Mary’s

0.3667

0.4636

 Valparaiso

0.5172

0.4814

 NC Greensboro

0.5517

0.4477

 Alabama

0.6333

0.5630

 Delaware St.

0.6452

0.4668

 Michigan

0.6563

0.5694

 West
Virginia

0.6897

0.5307

 

 

 

Average:

0.4342

 

Average w/o ECU:

0.4608

 

 

 

 

Minimum:

0.1154

0.4477

Maximum:

0.6897

0.5694

If I had no life whatsoever, I could go through each opponent’s schedule and figure out their opponent’s winning percentage to get an exact look at each component of the SOS formula. In place of that boring, time-consuming process, I listed each team’s SOS. These SOS numbers are not directly used in calculating State’s SOS…but do give some indication of what type of competition State’s OOC opponents faced.

More importantly, these SOS numbers illustrate that there is relatively little variation in the 33% of the SOS formula that State has no control over. State’s SOS rank is not due to bad luck, but is a reflection of choices made by the Athletic Department. Hopefully it is obvious that playing a top team from a weak conference (Delaware St) is much better than a weak opponent from a stronger conference (ECU).

It should be obvious to all State fans 15 years old and up, that the best way to improve State’s SOS is to eliminate the games against bad teams. Playing a team with an overall record of 0.500 is much better than playing ECU with a 3-23 record. You have to schedule a lot of teams with winning records to make up for just one team that essentially has no wins.

This is the main point that a lot of people don’t seem to understand. Picking out the best four or five OOC games and drawing conclusions about the SOS can often be misleading. Don’t forget that about 75% of NCAAT teams are seeded within one place of what you would calculate based solely on RPI. Thus chances are high that weak OOC schedules will ultimately hurt a team’s NCAAT seed.

How can you know which teams to schedule before the season starts? Well, it seems quite simple to me. Start by distinguishing between “bad teams” and “bad programs” in your current schedule…and never schedule another game against a bad program. Here are a few examples to illustrate what I mean:

– ECU has not had a winning record in the nine years of data available at kenpom.com. Since joining C-USA in 2002, they are averaging about three conference wins per season…with five wins being their best. In short, ECU is a bad program and should not be scheduled. This has absolutely nothing to do with hating on Pie-Rats, it is simple mathematics.

– Savannah State is another bad program that should not be on State’s schedule. How bad are they? Their eight Div 1 wins in 2007 matched their total Div 1 wins since moving up to Div 1 in 2003. Why is State playing a small school from Georgia that has just recently moved to Div 1?

– The second worst team on State’s schedule was UNC-W at 7-22. However, this was UNC-W’s first losing record since 1999. UNC-W plays in a good mid-major conference (Colonial Athletic) and has won the conference several times in recent years. So, why was this year so bad for the Seahawks? I have absolutely no idea, but someone needs to figure out if UNC-W just had a bad year or if their program is headed for the dumper before they are scheduled in the future.

UNC-W represents another reason to never schedule a game against a bad program. Even good programs have off-years. So quite often you will end up with a few clunkers on your OOC schedule through no fault of your own. Thus you don’t want to intentionally add more “RPI anchors” to the OOC schedule.

In contrast to ECU and Savannah St, Delaware St is consistently near the top of the MEAC and thus represents the perfect cupcake game….a nearly sure win that doesn’t destroy a team’s RPI ranking. Filling your schedule with these types of games won’t impress season-ticket holders or the NCAAT Selection Committee, but it is far better than playing pickup squads from the Sisters of Mercy School for Orphans.

Here’s my idea of what State’s OOC schedule should look like:

– SOS ranking of somewhere between 75-150 ie, neither overly challenging nor too big a drag on State’s overall SOS and thus its RPI ranking. On the opposite end of where State currently schedules, you don’t want an OOC schedule so difficult that you end up on the NCAAT bubble. This is what happened to Indiana in 2005, going 5-6 against the #13 ranked OOC schedule. 10 conference wins and a first-round loss in the conference tournament left them with a 15-13 record and a trip to the NIT.

– Minimum of 3-4 teams with good enough programs that they would be expected to make the NCAAT more years than not. (The ACC/Big 10 Challenge would contribute one game to this “requirement”.)

– A preseason tournament that actually includes real, Division 1 teams every couple of years. (Note that the BCA Classic from last season does not qualify.)

– Enough home games that the Athletic Department’s budget isn’t compromised. (This is the one “requirement” that I feel sure will be met.)

– Experience says that many people will scream that they want at least one game against a real power program (Kansas, UConn, UCLA, etc). I agree that this would be nice, but it doesn’t really rank as one of my “must-haves”.

State’s OOC schedule in 2004 comes pretty close to what I would like to see most years. The 2004 season didn’t really have any 5-star OOC programs, but was reasonably respectable, had a good number of NCAAT teams, and minimized the number of truly horrible teams. This type of schedule would maximize benefit and minimize risk to any team ranging from the NCAAT bubble through a Final Four contender.

UPDATED INFO

Noah had an interesting question in the first comment to this entry that made me curious what type of OOC schedule the top two-thirds of the NCAAT field played. Stanford was the last at-large bid this year with an RPI ranking of #65. So here is the distribution of OOC SOS played by the conference champions ranked higher than #65 and all 34 of the teams to receive an at-large bid.

OOC

Conf

At-Large

 

SOS

Champs

Bids

Total

1-50

5

14

19

51-100

3

8

11

101-150

3

6

9

151-200

1

4

5

201-250

1

0

1

251-300

0

0

0

301+

0

2

2

What this table tells me is that it shouldn’t be that hard to come up with an OOC schedule that is considerably better than we’ve seen for most of the past nine years.

About VaWolf82

Engineer living in Central Va. and senior curmudgeon amongst SFN authors One wife, two kids, one dog, four vehicles on insurance, and four phones on cell plan...looking forward to empty nest status. Graduated 1982

06-07 Basketball Future Opponents General NCS Basketball

23 Responses to OOC Strength of Schedule

  1. noah 03/30/2007 at 11:03 AM #

    I don’t know if anyone has this…but does anyone know the avg. SOS for the average at-large tournament teams is?

  2. westwolf 03/30/2007 at 11:04 AM #

    Sid has clearly stated that he wants to return the Pack to a prominent place on the national scene once again. One way to do this, of course, is to put together a string of deep runs into the NCAA tournament. Another is to have reglular wins against the elite teams in our conference(which has already started to do), but a third way is to schedule OOC games against national elite teams.

    The benifits of this third strategy are so overwhelming that I think they warrant taking those games in any way we can get them. I don’t care if we have to play all those games on the road, just play them. There’s no substitute for playing Kansas, or Indiana, or Kentucky, etc in a early to mid-season game that is covered nationaly.

  3. Gene 03/30/2007 at 11:05 AM #

    Savannah State is another bad program that should not be on State’s schedule.

    From what I recall, the schedule was released and oops, no Heritage game. Savannah State was a last minute filler, I think.

    Good analysis on SOS.

    One thing you left out is how favorably the NCAA’s view teams from power conferences, who schedule OOC road games. Wake Forest got a lot of credit, a few years ago, because they had four away OOC games. One being the ACC-Big Ten challenge, which they did not have control over and I remember one was to the University of New Mexico. Can’t remember the other two, off hand, but they were UNM-esque schools.

    We will need some road games to schools, which are legitimate NCAA teams, but are winnable, like Notre Dame, Alabama, and WVU, for example, to make a favorable impression on the selection committee.

  4. Texpack 03/30/2007 at 11:13 AM #

    Sidney and Quentin Jackson both played a number of OOC games against quality opponents during their playing days at State. I would expect that to influence the scheduling in the future. I mentioned in a previous thread that teams like Bama and WVU were the types of teams we should add to the schedule. I think a game with the SEC each year and either the Big 12 or PAC-10 would be a way to come up with the 3-4 higher visibility contests. Interesting how the BYU, USC, and UW-Mil games contributed positively to the ’04 RPI. None of those programs make your eyes pop out when you see them on the schedule.

  5. VaWolf82 03/30/2007 at 11:28 AM #

    does anyone know the avg. SOS for the average at-large tournament teams is?

    I looked at the OOC SOS for Final Four teams some time ago and ended up not doing anything with the data. But from what I remember, you had everything from a top-10 SOS to something like 250+.

    I can’t get the “Dance Card” site to load today, but two professors have analyzed the NCAAT Selection Committee and derived a formula to predict the at-large bids. SOS and OOC SOS were not factors in their formula…though conference RPI rank was one of the factors. Here are their six criteria:

    1) RPI (Ratings Percentage Index) Rank
    2) Conference RPI Rank
    3) Number of wins against teams ranked from 1-25 in RPI
    4) Difference in number of wins and losses in the conference
    5) Difference in number of wins and losses against teams ranked 26-50 in RPI
    6) Difference in number of wins and losses against teams ranked 51-100 in RPI

  6. VaWolf82 03/30/2007 at 11:31 AM #

    One thing you left out is how favorably the NCAA’s view teams from power conferences, who schedule OOC road games.

    I think that the NCAAT Selection Committee looks favorably on WINNING road games against QUALITY competition. I seriously doubt that State will get much credit for playing ECU in Greenville.

  7. StateFans 03/30/2007 at 11:34 AM #

    Instead of playing ECU totally killing our RPI, it will only hurt it moderately since the game is on the road. More great thinking from Uncle Jed.

  8. redfred2 03/30/2007 at 11:47 AM #

    Quentin Jackson said that he wants to put together a better OOC schedule than we’ve been playing recently, but in due time. He said “I don’t want to schedule the man (Sidney) out a job.”

    I don’t really know how much emphasis a coach would give to RPI rankings, especially in the early season, versus their considerations of what’s best their team’s development?

  9. VaWolf82 03/30/2007 at 11:48 AM #

    How much effect playing ECU on the road will have will depend entirely on how closely the teams are bunched around State. The RPI Formula is:

    1/4 * (Adjusted Win Percent) + 3/4 * (SOS)

    The effect of beating a cupcake on the road versus at home changes the adjusted win from 0.6 wins to 1.4 wins.

    After the LF interview where he said that he agreed to go to Greenville because of RPI, I did the math to see how much that would have changed a team’s ranking based on the 2006 standings. I ended up not doing an entry, but here is the ranking improvement that I calculated just by changing a home win to a road win.

    Original Rank -> New Rank
    10 -> 10
    20 -> 19
    30 -> 28
    40 -> 35
    50 -> 48
    60 -> 60

    Bottom line: Beating a cupcake on the road instead of at home doesn’t usually help your RPI ranking very much.

  10. Dan 03/30/2007 at 12:07 PM #

    Totally agree with targeting schedules to be in the top 100 in the country.

    There are 336 Div I schools. There are 73 BCS members. Any school that takes pride in its basketball program and wants to be a national contender should not be intentionally playing a schedule in the bottom two-thirds of 336 schools.

    By targeting a SOS of approximately 100, especially in these reformative years for NC State, you have an opportunity to be anywhere from top 50 to upper 100’s. That’s tolerable.

    However, it should be noted what little effect non-conference RPI has on overall SOS. Note the five following non-conference SOS ranks:

    Illinois – 33
    Southern Illinois – 41
    Texas Tech – 60
    Virginia Tech – 74
    NC State – 270

    Now, lets look at these same teams in regards to overall SOS.

    Virginia Tech – 21
    Illinois – 23
    NC State – 28
    Southern Illinois – 30
    Texas Tech – 39

    Crazy, huh? What’s all the hubbub about?

    Now please note that according to my understanding (And VaWolf will correct me if I’m wrong) the RPI does not recognize conference game vs non-conference game. That might help explain why Oregon and Washington State can be in the RPI top 26 but still have non-conference SOS ranks below 200 (Washington State is 310!). What this also says is that our RPI rank of 90 is more a product of our 15 regular season wins than anything. Still, people many times fail to appreciate the minutia that is the RPI and how closely the teams are bunched. Every little bit is really a big jump. I really wish the NCAA would publish more compete date that showed the RPI point gained and lossed for each win.

    While the RPI doesnt recognize conference, it DOES recognize road vs home games, which is admittedly outside the scope of this entry.

    Any home win (road loss) is multiplied by 0.6.
    Road wins (home losses) are miltiplies by 1.4
    Nuetral games are multiplied by 1.0 in case you want to ask.

    Now, just for clarity, I’ll do the 5th grade math.

    1.4 / 0.6 = 2.33.

    What that means is that if we play Sister’s of the Blind Tech on the road instead of at home we get over 2 times the RPI points fot that win. This bonus means little when its SotBT, but it means a helluva lot when its a top 100, or even top 150, RPI team. Its works the same way to lessen the blow of a loss if we go on the road to play the better schools. Now, taking into account how closely teams are bunched, this is a big deal.

    Virginia Tech is a fantastic example of a school who may finally hired some 5th grade math students to schedule games. You look at the RPI quality of their road games and you can see that this year was markedly better. Maybe its a one year fluke, we will see. My bet is getting snubbed in 2005 primarily due to RPI was a wake-up call. Kind-of like FSU last year. Like VaWolf said, time will tell.

    It clear to people that can do the math that the NCAA has really put a huge incentive out there to play quality non-conference games on the road. Its something each school has to work out with its finances to figure out how they can make this happen. A trick much more difficult for BCS schools with big basketball budgets. Still, it would do wonders for the RPI to replace an RPI-anchor game with ECU with a road game against a RPI 150’ish school.

    Still, even with all that said, my first point regarding the non-conference schedules and their soft impact on the overall SOS and RPI proves one saying true:

    Win and everything else will take of itself.

    But in those years when you cant win 25+ games, it sure helps to please the powers that be. Not to mention I also think that our basketball tradition demands a basketball schedule worthy of our program.

  11. VaWolf82 03/30/2007 at 12:39 PM #

    And VaWolf will correct me if I’m wrong

    And you take correction so well too 😉

    It clear to people that can do the math that the NCAA has really put a huge incentive out there to play quality non-conference games on the road.

    The RPI formula is really not that smart. For example, VT lost at Marshall and won at Duke. VT’s RPI ranking would have been exactly the same if those two results were reversed….win at Marshall and lose at Duke. However on Selection Sunday, a road win at Duke most likely caught alot more attention than the road loss at Marshall.

    We’ve talked about BC and VT before. They had almost identical overall records, conference records, and RPI rankings. But VT was seeded two spots higher than BC. You have to think that VT’s road wins at UNC and at Duke played a huge role in the seeding difference.

    I do agree with Dan’s main point….you need to schedule quality teams on the road. State has done this with the two home/home series with Alabama and West Virginia. I certainly hope that this continues in the future.

  12. westwolf 03/30/2007 at 12:57 PM #

    If your goal in scheduling is focused mainly on RPI/NCAA tournament bids, etc, then that determines one type of scheduling priority.

    If your goal in scheduling is to elevate the stature of your program on a national level, then that may determine a different type of scheduling priority.

    If your goal is to prepare your players for playing tough games in unfamiliar environements, then that may also play a factor.

    In my opinion, just fixating just on the first goal, RPI stuff, is to have too narrow a focus. All of these other factors, and maybe more, should be considered as well.

  13. Dan 03/30/2007 at 1:09 PM #

    I dont think its out of the range of possibility for a major basketball program to satisfy all three of those goals.

  14. noah 03/30/2007 at 1:11 PM #

    My problem with a crappy non-conference schedule is that it limits your options. You HAVE to do well in conference play.

    If you go 7-9 because you play in a tough league and had a bad night once and someone missed two games with an ankle, then you can cover that with a good non conf. schedule.

    The ACC ought to prepare you for playing tough teams at the end of the year. And it ought to prepare you for playing on the road.

    But look at our 1983 non-conf. schedule. Had we beaten Mizzou, Notre Dame, Memphis State, or Louisville (and everyone of those games came down to the wire and was a single-digit loss), then we might not have had to win the ACC tourney. We were 8-6 in the league, but our only quality wins were Wake Forest, Mich. State (maybe) and UNC. I don’t think we had any bad losses, but we were going to be able to overcome the loss of Whittenburg without winning the ACC tournament.

    In 1984, we had quality wins over Houston and Arkansas. Had we not gone 0-for-7 down the stretch, we could have gotten into the tournament. We needed a split and we couldn’t do it.

    In 1986, we were 7-7 in the conference, but we had quality wins over UK, Louisville, UNLV, UNC, Dook (I think) and we had also played Oklahoma that year. And that was an Elite Eight team.

    Plus, there’s the fact that during V’s tenure, you could watch his teams playing in Alaska. You could watch us in the tip-off classic beating two of the very best centers of the 80s in Akeem and D. Robinson, you could see us beating UK and Louisville in the same week and going head-to-head with great players like Wayman Tisdale and Keith Lee on CBS.

  15. RickJ 03/30/2007 at 2:31 PM #

    As always VaWolf82 – great entry.

    “SOS ranking of somewhere between 75-150 ie, neither overly challenging nor too big a drag on State’s overall SOS and thus its RPI ranking.”

    “Enough home games that the Athletic Department’s budget isn’t compromised.”

    This year we played 12 OOC games, 10 at home and 2 on the road (at WVU & Cincy). Last year we played 13 OOC games, 10 at home and 3 on the road (at Iowa, Notre Dame & Alabama). Assuming this ratio is needed to not compromise the Athletic Dept.’s budget, here is the key question for Quentin Jackson or anybody that wants a OOC SOS in the 75 – 150 range:

    Since about 80% of your OOC games are going to be played at home – What are the best teams you can schedule at home without having to give the team a return game? I don’t know the answer to this question but I don’t think you can schedule many BCS conference teams without giving them a return game. The solution is that you are going to have to start paying some pretty good money to get the “good” non-BCS teams to come to your place and play without a return game.

    This reminds of a remark Valvano made on his radio show during one Final Four weekend. It went something like “If you want to start a stampede at the Coaches Convention just yell I need an away game in December.”

  16. MadWolf92 03/30/2007 at 3:26 PM #

    Great entry!

    (Though I *do* look forward to the point in time where we can read such an entry without any sniping at any segment of the fan base. Your writing should surely be enough to make any comments superfluous.)

  17. VaWolf82 03/30/2007 at 3:35 PM #

    What are the best teams you can schedule at home without having to give the team a return game?

    I don’t the answer to your question…but State pays people that should know the answer. I would be happy (for a little while) if it looked like anyone at State was even trying to get home games with the best teams that they could.

    If you wanted to actually risk a defeat, then I bet that you could schedule teams from the top-half of the MVC. Their conference commissioner has been quoted as saying that they would travel anywhere and play anyone that would be willing to play them. There are probably other strong, mid-major programs that want a chance at beating BCS schools….and won’t require a return trip.

    As you pointed out….State evidently wants 10 home games against OOC opponents. There are good teams like Del St this year and GW last year that will come to Raleigh without a return trip. Any school from the UNC system that traditionally does well within their conference would be the first place that I would look. Then move onto schools at the top of the MEAC, Big South, or Southern (ie reasonably close to Raleigh) and see how many are interested.

    ISTR that we already have committments to play ECU, New Orleans, and Western Carolina in upcoming seasons…so some of your work has already been done.

  18. MadWolf92 03/30/2007 at 5:23 PM #

    So, who do you think we should schedule home-and-home’s with? The “3-4 teams with good enough programs that they would be expected to make the NCAAT more years than not” ? Anyone else worth that?

  19. Texpack 03/30/2007 at 5:33 PM #

    One solution is to get into some better tournaments where you get neutral site games against quality teams. That requires some elevation of the program or some connections. The other thing to do is schedule some neutral site games. In ’83 we played WVU at the Meadowlands as part of a doubleheader (Arkansas vs. St. Peters). I remember all of the great OOC games in ’83. Most of them were without Whit which made for a tough season. The Cincy game this year is one that you would have expected to boost your RPI if you scheduled it a couple of years ago before all of the problems with Huggie Bear. For purely selfish reasons, I also favor a permanent home&home with Houston.

  20. VaWolf82 03/30/2007 at 5:37 PM #

    Nearly any Big East or SEC team that makes the NCAAT would be worth considering. It’s a shame that SC isn’t any better….they would make a logical choice.

    We’ve done a home and home with UW, so the Pac-10 isn’t out of the question either….though the travel costs would certainly go up.

    Don’t forget…other BCS schools will be interested in doing a home/home arrangement for the exact same reasons that State is (or should be). So I would think (hope) that setting up the home/home part of the schedule would be easier to do than working out the other 10 games that have to be played at home for financial reasons.

  21. RickJ 03/30/2007 at 7:20 PM #

    I wonder what the difference (if any) is between what we would have to pay, say Savannah State and Old Dominion. If there is no difference, it should be relatively easy to do get to the 75 to 150 OOC strength of schedule. I suspect there is a difference but I just don’t know how much.

  22. highstick 03/30/2007 at 7:48 PM #

    SC would be a great choice. I think this year was a terrible “fluke” year for SC and not reflective of Odom. They want his “hide” down there and I’ll admit it’s a recruiting issue rather than a coaching issue.

    Last time State played them there(and I was in attendance), they beat State with Julius Hodge and “HWSNBN”. I had to “catch” myself and change the “name”!

    If Odom had not been “blindsided” by Balkman going to the NBA early, they would have had a much better team. Everybody, and I mean everybody, underestimated Balkman and it turned out great for him. Great for him, but I know(and I mean “know”” because I know one of his assistants) underestimated Balkman.

    The best part of scheduling SC is that their “lunatic fringe” constantly trashes the ACC(or A She She as they refer to it) because of both their rivalry with Clempson and the SEC/ACC rivalry. It would be great to go “kick their butts” in basketball to put that to rest. I’ve got football season tickets there and I may have to “go hide” next year when State plays them.

  23. bTHEredterror 03/31/2007 at 11:59 PM #

    Great posts. Recruiting has to be the greatest reason to schedule a tougher OOC. Most players want to be in the nationally-televised intersectional battles, rather than the Heritage Beatdown. Only to be glimpsed on TV by diehards late Sunday on the coaches show. With cheesy music behind it.

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