A Conversation With Dr. Maggard

[cajuns80]

Current model is not working for anyone at our level. To show you the imbalance, LSU only has one true non conference road game prior to the SEC season starting. P5 teams simply refuse to go on the road and buy home games instead. They play neutral court tournaments against the better competition to supposedly prepare for conference play. In order to change things, conference commissioners need to get involved. We could play more pay day road games to get our RPI up but we are required by Learfield to have so many home games and we don't want to miss too much class time either. It is not true that basketball schedules are finalized 12 to 16 months in advance. Coach Marlin and Coach Brodhead were on with Jay tonight in the Louisiana Athletics Live show. Coach Marlin said that as of late August, 8 of the 12 teams in the league had not finalized their schedules for this year. There was also a comment made that the SBC limits basketball teams to 3 non D1 games (It used to be 2 but the pandemic pushed it back up due to finances). Some teams may be playing 4 and just paying the fine for breaking the rule. There is a simple partial solution going forward once the league expands. That is to play 20 conference games assuring you of 10 home games. That will still result in a variety of opponents being played with 14 teams in the league. We may have 16 for a year or two in fact. I would also do 2 for 1 deals but the AD does not think those are wise moves. I do agree the status quo is not a favorable situation for any team in the SBC but I don't know what the answer is.

Marlin doesn't care one bit about non conference. He will tell you as much. Until he cares, these are the schedules we are going to get. He will focus only on conference.

[Turbine]

You ignore the cost associated with buyin’s of the teams that you desire we bring in.

Yeah, not really.

I gave the formula 15 years ago.

Three appearance fee games and use the money from two of them to finance bringing in decent opponents.

The subsequent ticket sales will pad the books as well.

[Turbine]

It’s the back half of our schedule that is a big problem. It’s been said many times until the entire conference goes all in on MBB, we’ll be held back by our conference brethren the rate out 270+.

Very true, accurate, and spot on.

However, Softball has shown you can overcome (to a degree) being in an awful conference by scheduling the #1 rated schedule in the country with the independant portion of your schedule.

[Cajunsmike]

A6 is a red herring when it comes to basketball scheduling potential.

In football there are 60 P5 schools, and only half of those can help your image.

With football you have a pool of 131 teams overall in order to find 4 independant games.

There are over 300 schools to choose from in basketball. Meaning there are a lot more teams in the upper half of the hair splitting spectrum.

In basketball you have as many as as 12 independant games to enhance your schedule. That's as many as the entire football schedule.

Four vs twelve, P5/A6 does not apply here.

If success really comes down to 3 games in March, it doesn't matter what happens in Nov. Dec. play the toughest schedule year in and year out and solid teams will be lining up to come to the Cajundome.

Instead of just playing Baylor to start the season, plan on 4 or 5 years where you are nothing but road warriors. Scheduling Baylor,
Kansas, Gonzaga, Dayton, Florida State, San Diego State, Creighton, Kentucky, SEC, Michigan State, Villanova... and the like.

Those teams need 10 or so independent games every year.

As soon as they realize playing Louisiana helps their RPI scheduling home games against top-100 schools won't be a problem.

Being a road warrior and playing lots of money games would improve the RPI. If we go to 20 conference games and get into the MTE tournaments, we could do something similar to that. The MTE deal allows you to get to 31 total games vs the normal 29. This year we were unable to get to 31 despite that. That is probably an anomaly however. With 20 conference games you have 11 in non conference in an MTE year. Try to get 3 D1 home games and play eight on the road. Say three of those eight may be the road game of regional home and home deals. That would still allow 5 money road games. I think the Learfield contract requires 14 home games however. I think your point is that if we did that for a few years our RPI would naturally go up so that half a decade from now we may be able to attract better non conference opponents at home. One key to all that however is having some success in all those road games. Winning matters in everything.

[JayWalker]

Yeah, not really.

I gave the formula 15 years ago.

Three appearance fee games and use the money from two of them to finance bringing in decent opponents.

The subsequent ticket sales will pad the books as well.

The problem with that is you're already playing 2-3 guarantee games and that money is going into the operating budget, not to buy games.

[JayWalker]

Let's look at some of the home schedules around the league this year:

ARK ST Morehead St, Kansas City, Air Force, UCA, 2 non D-1
Arkansas State has some home and home contracts against teams that don't move the needle from an RPI or fan standpoint. They get home and home because traditionally they aren't good and teams see a chance for a road W

APP--ETSU, Charlotte +3 This is like us playing UNO and Tech. Both are within two hours of Boone

CCU--Winthrop, Mercer, Wofford, South Carolina +2 I'm guessing SCar is a two for one. The others are from the Southern Conference and fit geography. CCU can usually get teams to come in. Myrtle Beach vs. Holly Beach

GA SO--Ball State +3 Ouch
GAST Northeastern, Tennessee State +3
ULM--Northwestern State, Southern Miss +3
UTA--Abilene Christian, Nevada, Lamar +2 (Nice get in Nevada)
TXST--Denver, Lamar +3
Troy--Jacksonville St., Southeastern LA, ALabama A&M +3
South ALabama--Southern MIss, Tarleton State, SIU-Edwardsville +4
LR--Southern Illinois, Missouri St., Jacksonville State +3

Everyone in the league is fighting the same issue.

[Cajunsmike]

The problem with that is you're already playing 2-3 guarantee games and that money is going into the operating budget, not to buy games.

I think we used guarantee money to buy lower level home games in the 2 years before the pandemic. Since then our economic situation has changed for the worse and we can't afford to do that. We are paying less than 10 grand to the non D1 teams according to your podcast. The non D1 games do not impact your RPI. You contrast that to paying 40 grand plus to the lower level D1 teams. They can hurt your RPI regardless of how you do against them. That is why the AD approved playing 3 of the non D1 games. Now, the lower level D1 games may do a better job of preparing you for conference than the non D1 games so I think you should try to buy at least one. You should also try to play the best non D1 competition you can. Loyola fits that bill this year as they recently beat UNO in an exhibition game and went very far in the NAIA last year. Hopefully we can go back to a lower amount of non D1 games next season. Everyone in the program is pushing for that to happen. That goes for administrators, coaches, players, and fans.

[CajunNation]

… The non D1 games do not impact your RPI…

….unless you lose.

[Cajunsmike]

….unless you lose.

A loss to a non D1 does not impact your computer generated RPI but it sure creates a negative impression.