Great out of conference schedule Jessie
Could the Ragin’ Cajuns of Louisiana RPI still be climbing?
So far I haven't found listing with RPI or SOS ranking for all the teams with post season included, but I guarantee you if there is one, the Ragin' Cajuns of Louisiana are climbing by leaps and bounds.
During the regular season it was hard to recognize how good the out of conference schedule really was, or what the 5 resulting losses really meant.
Who knew the month of December would see the Ragin' Cajuns facing 4 March Madness teams, 3 in consecutive road games, consecutive games for that matter.
The win over Big Dance participant Valparaiso and the games vs. Arizona, Dayton, and NIT Rice if calculated would all raise UL's RPI and SOS respectively. This is because it's not only who you play but who your opponents play. All the tournament teams faced great RPI boosting competition.
Who knew against Xavier that a still shorthanded Louisiana squad was leading an Elite-8 team by 10 points with 17:57 left in the game? Xavier is truly and excellent member of UL's RPI booster club.
We all knew in November that Georgia Tech was good -VERY GOOD- but all the experts were predicting their ultra hot start would die down once they faced ACC competition. Most including me attributed their blowout win over the Cajuns to Louisiana's being half handed, not to GT being a final-4 team. Georgia Tech a Ragin' Cajun RPI/SOS rocket in flight.
I tell you even with the Cajuns out, the Big Dance is fun a lot longer when you have an out of conference schedule as good as Jessie scheduled for the Cajuns in 2003-04.
To bad I can’t find where they keep tabulating the Strength of Schedule and RPI indexes.
The only thing that would have been better than the opponents boost for Louisiana’s post season RPI was if the referees bogus calls on Dwayne Mitchell hadn’t turned the UL of March, into the UL of Nov. - Dec.
Still, great out of conference schedule Jessie. Thanks.
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