End of easy 1 seeds for KU???
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No more scheduling all the hard games at home or on neutral courts to manipulate the RPI to our favor. No more taking advantage of the best home court advantage in sports to artificially inflate KU’s seed. Maybe KU will play more to their seed if seeded properly. Maybe KU will become a better team by being forced to play higher quality opponents on the road. Or maybe nothing will change.
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I would take one or two more losses if it meant better tournament preparation.
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@dylans I’ve been beating that drum for years. We don’t go on the road to play tough away games unless it’s forced on us by things like the big12-sec challenge.
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I don’t believe it will affect KU much, in fact it might help. Most Big 12 teams are ranked in the top 75 and any conference win will now be even more valuable.
KU usually has a high SOS and many of the non-con games are home and home anyway.
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Good post, and I can definitely see that helping us in the big dance. Wake these kids up and make them hungrier.
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Tournament committee can say whatever they want, but I’ll believe it when they actually follow through. They’ve said multiple times that they were going to deemphasize RPI, but every March, that’s still the most important criteria for at large teams and seeding teams at the top of the field.
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Agree.
Ironically, this is one place where the Big12 (with 10 teams) actually helps KU.
Our home-and-home in-conference schedule means we play every B12 opponent on their floor, unlike the other mega-conferences.
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bskeet said:
Agree.
Ironically, this is one place where the Big12 (with 10 teams) actually helps KU.
Our home-and-home in-conference schedule means we play every B12 opponent on their floor, unlike the other mega-conferences.
Great point!
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dylans said:
No more scheduling all the hard games at home or on neutral courts to manipulate the RPI to our favor. No more taking advantage of the best home court advantage in sports to artificially inflate KU’s seed. Maybe KU will play more to their seed if seeded properly. Maybe KU will become a better team by being forced to play higher quality opponents on the road. Or maybe nothing will change.
Every team does it to an extent. I really don’t get the criticism. KU has consistently scheduled a non-conference slate that is among the best in the nation.
Home games generate revenue. Playing at the Sprint Center generates revenue.
Going on the road does what? Maybe a recruiting angle or getting your team ready for the Big-12 road schedule.
I don’t believe this change will have any effect on KU’s seeding. It will effect Power 5 teams that don’t like to leave their state in non-conference play like notorious offender Syracuse or Big-12 foe TCU. This may in turn benefit smaller schools that have to consistently go on the road to get victories. A recent example would be Monmouth. This new criteria might separate them in March from the underachieving Power 5 teams that get to pad their RPI in the last month of the season.
KU has always scheduled and done well on the road and I don’t expect that will change as long as Bill Self is coach
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KU usually has a nice non-con schedule, but how many of the good teams are true road games? They are almost exclusively neutral court or at Allen Fieldhouse. I’d like to see KU play more hard road non-con games. Bill is clearly comfortable playing on the road in conference and needs to go outside of his comfort zone. I think putting the team and Bill in more difficult environments will help prepare for the elite eight better. Like in 2011, that team came back so often there was no room for a pucker factor in the elite eight.
