Scheduling for success

[35TangoTango]

I really detest ignorant fans who think they know enough to give the coaches advice, but sometimes I too am guilty as charged.

I think we must recognize the effect that the new rules about hosting the NCAA sub-regionals will have. Success leads to hosting, and hosting breeds success. The rich will get richer and the poor, poorer. We might have beaten Stanford on even a neutral court.

The name of the game is to be in the top 16 at the end of the season, and non-conference scheduling must be done with that in mind. Not so easy that you kill your RPI, but not so hard you lose half of them - and not so many road games!

 

[SKSooner]

Lot of truth here.

 

[Oliver Hardy]

Yes! This year's schedule was just plain stupid.

 

[KCRuf/Nek]

Simple. Don't lose the games you should win.

 

[sybarite]

I didn't expect us to make the Sweet Sixteen this year, regardless of whom we scheduled. I am pleasantly surprised to be a year ahead of where I thought we would be.

 

[Sooners4Life0101]

Good point. I think the benefits of this year schedule however, will show up more next year. Next year will not be quite the grind, I would assume- this will be a tough as it gets and I think that will take a good size load off us, without even thinking about it.

 

[MsProudSooner]

I agree and disagree.

The pre-season schedule, road games and all, made us good enough to have a big winning streak at the beginning of conference season. Had we played a softer pres-season schedule, I'm not sure we would have been good enough to go on that long winning streak at the beginning of the conference season. We shot ourselves in the foot with the KU game at home and by playing so uninspired against Texas in the Big XII tournament. We were only one seed off from hosting, even with those losses. We rolled the dice a little bit this year with the preseason schedule. It made us better but we stubbed our toe too much late in the conference schedule.

I would agree that most years, we want to have a mix of easy, medium and a couple of difficult preseason games and most of them should be at home.

 

[Stringmusic]

Iron sharpens iron. It works for Patty Gasso and I think it helps our basketball team. We don't learn anything much from playing weak opponents - it's like a scrimmage. There should be a balance but some of our opponents need to be tough ones.

 

[sybarite]

OK. I had to take some time out for Castle.

I think it is good to schedule tough opponents, as long as you let up occasionally to let the team think there is hope for a win against someone. A lot of our losses were to tournament teams. I think it did help us learn what we had to do. Unfortunately, once we learned it, we thought we knew it.

 

[Sweetest OU Girl]

OK. I had to take some time out for Castle.

I think it is good to schedule tough opponents, as long as you let up occasionally to let the team think there is hope for a win against someone. A lot of our losses were to tournament teams. I think it did help us learn what we had to do. Unfortunately, once we learned it, we thought we knew it.

We may have learned - but if so, there is no evidence of it. We lost to both teams seeded a bit higher than us (Texas & Stanford). The evidence suggests that we did not learn anything about beating good teams on their home court. It is very difficult to do.

We needed to have a record that would be strong enough to get us a home court seed so we could get to the neutral court games in the tournament.

 

[sybarite]

We may have learned - but if so, there is no evidence of it. We lost to both teams seeded a bit higher than us (Texas & Stanford). The evidence suggests that we did not learn anything about beating good teams on their home court. It is very difficult to do.

We needed to have a record that would be strong enough to get us a home court seed so we could get to neutral court games.

When you are inexperienced, when you learn it once, you think you have it. You don't. We thought we had it. Losing is the best teacher.

 

[Sweetest OU Girl]

When you are inexperienced, when you learn it once, you think you have it. You don't. We thought we had it. Losing is the best teacher.

I never heard that before.

I believe "Perfect Practice Makes Perfect".

I doubt Geno is asking his team to lose so they can get better. Is anyone?

You can learn from a loss, but most coaches want their team to win and then learn from the things they did that could have cost them the game.

 

[sybarite]

I never heard that before.

I believe "Perfect Practice Makes Perfect".

I doubt Geno is asking his team to lose so they can get better. Is anyone?

You can learn from a loss, but most coaches want their team to win and then learn from the things they did that could have cost them the game.

Geno has enough top rate talent that he doesn't have to play those who don't do as taught.

 

[j2d2]

Sherri's preseason emphasis on defense didnt take. The ncaas is where playing better defense that the other team pays off. No matter what philosophy governs preseason scheduling if you dont play good defense you lose.

 

[YCN]

You get 1.4 wins on your RPI for a road win. A road loss only costs 0.6 losses against the RPI. What is best is playing decent teams on the road in non-conference, just not too many top teams. But with the youth of this team at the start of the season, it's not surprising that they only went 6-5 out of conference. I expect that they'll do much better next year.

 

[SoonerNorm]

There is no evidence that I can see that playing tough games early helped us one iota. We still lost to Kansas. In fact, the early loses cost us a better seeding in the NCAA which caused us to draw Stanford which got us sent home.

 

[YCN]

KU was a strange team this year, they were so close to winning so many games, but the losses piled up.

OU's loss to KU cost a hosting bid, not the loss to Texas. It was OU's only sub-100 RPI loss of the year, but it was terribly damaging to our reputation this year.

 

[MsProudSooner]

Ya gotta love OU fans. You can't kill 'em, so you might as well love 'em.

All we read on this board from before pre-season even started up until the conference season started was how lousy we were going to be this year. Sherri couldn't coach or recruit and the players she brought in weren't any good - on and on and on ad nauseam.

It turns out that while the fans weren't paying attention, the team was getting better.

No one - not a single person on this board or the other Big XII coaches for that matter - would have ever predicted that the youngest team in the Big XII would end up 2nd in the conference and beating Baylor at home. But in spite of the fact that this team ended up being better than anyone could have ever dreamed, we still see *****ing and moaning.

While the same whining and complaining goes on here until next October, the players will work on the main thing they need to improve on - consistency - and I have complete confidence they will be more consistent next year.

You will now be returned to your regularly scheduled programming.

 

[35TangoTango]

Ya gotta love OU fans. You can't kill 'em, so you might as well love 'em.

All we read on this board from before pre-season even started up until the conference season started was how lousy we were going to be this year. Sherri couldn't coach or recruit and the players she brought in weren't any good - on and on and on ad nauseam.

It turns out that while the fans weren't paying attention, the team was getting better.

No one - not a single person on this board or the other Big XII coaches for that matter - would have ever predicted that the youngest team in the Big XII would end up 2nd in the conference and beating Baylor at home. But in spite of the fact that this team ended up being better than anyone could have ever dreamed, we still see *****ing and moaning.

While the same whining and complaining goes on here until next October, the players will work on the main thing they need to improve on - consistency - and I have complete confidence they will be more consistent next year.

You will now be returned to your regularly scheduled programming.

This is all so true - during the summer the gloom and doomers, and those with advanced degrees in coaching will dominate the board. Not much reason to check in until we start playing next year.

 

[tycat947]

Ya gotta love OU fans. You can't kill 'em, so you might as well love 'em.

All we read on this board from before pre-season even started up until the conference season started was how lousy we were going to be this year. Sherri couldn't coach or recruit and the players she brought in weren't any good - on and on and on ad nauseam.

It turns out that while the fans weren't paying attention, the team was getting better.

No one - not a single person on this board or the other Big XII coaches for that matter - would have ever predicted that the youngest team in the Big XII would end up 2nd in the conference and beating Baylor at home. But in spite of the fact that this team ended up being better than anyone could have ever dreamed, we still see *****ing and moaning.

While the same whining and complaining goes on here until next October, the players will work on the main thing they need to improve on - consistency - and I have complete confidence they will be more consistent next year.

You will now be returned to your regularly scheduled programming.

Nail, meet head! Excellent!