Our Schedule

[pnkranger]

Once again, we will end the year with a top 5 schedule. Here are our SOS ranks right now:

ken pom - 21
jeff sagarin - 15
rpi - 11
bpi - 24

To put this into perspective:

Only 4 power 5 teams have top 25 SOS in Ken Pom's rankings (Kansas, OU, North Carolina, and Southern Miss). These teams should end the year with the top 4 schedules.

Of the teams with a top 25 SOS in Ken Pom's rankings, OU has the second best record behind Kansas.

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Before anyone jumps in to argue that these rankings are garbage or it's too early, blah blah blah: My purpose in posting this is to say that the NCAA committee looks heavily at SOS when determining selections and seeding. This has been proven repeatedly over the last 5 years.

While OU has not played to the level we think they can, our non-con strength of schedule has given us an advantage in making the NCAA tournament if we can improve in a few key areas moving forward.

 

[Sooner04]

Interesting.

Yet we've only played one ranked team (Wichita State - LOSS).
And only one team receiving votes (Creighton - LOSS).

So the computers say the schedule is tough, but to me it just shows that a lot of teams play a lot of garbage games. I've thought for a while now that Mike Shepherd has learned how to game the system. Which is fine, because you've got to make the Tournament.

I don't think 7-11 in the league will get it done this year. Not that it should, ever.

 

[pnkranger]

Interesting.

Yet we've only played one ranked team (Wichita State - LOSS).
And only one team receiving votes (Creighton - LOSS).

So the computers say the schedule is tough, but to me it just shows that a lot of teams play a lot of garbage games. I've thought for a while now that Mike Shepherd has learned how to game the system. Which is fine, because you've got to make the Tournament.

I don't think 7-11 in the league will get it done this year. Not that it should, ever.

I do think human rankings at this time of year are garbage because they are so heavily based on name recognition. The teams we have played are better than a lot on this board want to give them credit for, especially on the road.

Only three games against teams with losing records. North Texas (4-7) lost on the road at 10-2 Dayton by 13 and on the road at 11-1 Arkansas by 23. Every other loss came by single digits. We've only played two "bad" teams, UTSA and Maryland Eastern Shore.

Our three losses came on the road to teams with a combined 29-4 record.

 

[WichitaSooner]

I do think human rankings at this time of year are garbage because they are so heavily based on name recognition. The teams we have played are better than a lot on this board want to give them credit for, especially on the road.

Only three games against teams with losing records. North Texas (4-7) lost on the road at 10-2 Dayton by 13 and on the road at 11-1 Arkansas by 23. Every other loss came by single digits. We've only played two "bad" teams, UTSA and Maryland Eastern Shore.

Our three losses came on the road to teams with a combined 29-4 record.

Thanks for a welcome reminder. People focus so much on human polls (which have truly zero meaning when it comes to making the tournament), and also look too much at individual opponents rather than the schedule as a whole. When you look at the relevant metrics, this has again been a very good noncon schedule. Now, it is very possible that the league as a whole won't be quite as good this season, so we certainly would be well advised to have a better conference record than last year.

 

[skyvue]

Here are the Kenpom SOS rankings for every team in the Big 12:

KU -- 10
OU -- 21
WVU -- 41
oswho -- 48
ISU -- 62
Baylor -- 136
texas -- 174
KSU -- 245
Tech -- 289
tcu -- 299

 

[oudna]

http://realtimerpi.com/

 

[steverocks35]

Well the Stanford loss was a neutral site game, not a true road game.

 

[WTSooner]

Interesting.

Yet we've only played one ranked team (Wichita State - LOSS).
And only one team receiving votes (Creighton - LOSS).

So the computers say the schedule is tough, but to me it just shows that a lot of teams play a lot of garbage games. I've thought for a while now that Mike Shepherd has learned how to game the system. Which is fine, because you've got to make the Tournament.

I don't think 7-11 in the league will get it done this year. Not that it should, ever.

Yep. It has to do with what the bottom of our schedule looks like, not so much the top. We're playing "better" teams in the games that should be 100% winnable either way. That is why this looks the way it does. Same as last year.

 

[skyvue]

Yep. It has to do with what the bottom of our schedule looks like, not so much the top. We're playing "better" teams in the games that should be 100% winnable either way. That is why this looks the way it does. Same as last year.

Same as the last several years, actually. We've consistently scheduled very well, especially when you consider the conference we play in.

There is increased parity in college ball now -- we see enough upsets and surprisingly close games to know that's so. But the parity only extends so far, obviously. I would say that the teams ranked from, say, 76-150 (perhaps even 200) have the talent to give some top 75 teams some trouble and even pull off an upset now and then.

On the other hand, the talent gap between a team like UCF (currently ranked 102nd in Kenpom) and Southeastern Louisiana (327) is pretty sizable, though some posters on this board are inclined to equate them.