Musketeer Madness

tacitus wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 19, 2021 2:44 am

Although the current state of Xavier/Big East basketball has already been conclusively described (which is why the previous thread on the topic has been "locked" for posterity), some new information has come to light.

Just to piggyback a bit on anti-homer’s spot-on assessment, adding some real-time analytics after another day of games: The situation seems to be deteriorating fast. The Big East is now 6-2 in the Gavit Games, and Steele has won his first game against a ranked NC opponent. But just because the people who get paid to analyze college basketball think the B10 is stacked this year or that OSU is good doesn’t mean jack. We all know that the post-season poll is always different than the preseason poll. (Just last year the talking heads thought, before the season, that Gonzaga was the best team in the country and Baylor was second best. I bet a lot of feet were inserted in a lot of mouths after the NC game!) Not at all. Remember, Zags beat them in the NC. I plead again, be better, and do some research! The point is, at this point in the season no one has any clue which teams are good and which teams are desperately overmatched due to poor coaching and/or a lack of talent (like Xavier). There you go bashing X again. Don't look for my hand when trying to jump back on the bandwagon. It is very likely that the BE is beating up on the Big10 this year simply because the B10 is way overrated. Our biggest problem is scheduling. Agreed, it has been that way in the past. Excellent take. Rather than banking on solid draws in the Gavit Games and Big East-Big 12 Battle, and getting into the NIT Tip Off, Steele should have been out there negotiating series with the blue bloods. Look how easily Kentucky and Duke do it! Look at Gonzaga! They have coaches who 2-3 years in advance, when scheduling begins, know exactly who the best teams will be. It isn’t that hard to predict who the best teams will be in any given season, so Steele needs to go out and schedule those teams. And why wouldn’t those teams want to schedule a home-and-home with Xavier? Really good thought provoking points. You are starting to redeem yourself. Just please stop taking unwarranted shots at X, and saying there is a lack of talent. They are sensitive young men who get no consideration at all and play solely for the pleasure of us fans. Be better, I says again!

Anti-Homer wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 19, 2021 5:46 pm

tacitus wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 19, 2021 2:44 am

Although the current state of Xavier/Big East basketball has already been conclusively described (which is why the previous thread on the topic has been "locked" for posterity), some new information has come to light.

Just to piggyback a bit on anti-homer’s spot-on assessment, adding some real-time analytics after another day of games: The situation seems to be deteriorating fast. The Big East is now 6-2 in the Gavit Games, and Steele has won his first game against a ranked NC opponent. But just because the people who get paid to analyze college basketball think the B10 is stacked this year or that OSU is good doesn’t mean jack. We all know that the post-season poll is always different than the preseason poll. (Just last year the talking heads thought, before the season, that Gonzaga was the best team in the country and Baylor was second best. I bet a lot of feet were inserted in a lot of mouths after the NC game!) Not at all. Remember, Zags beat them in the NC. I plead again, be better, and do some research! The point is, at this point in the season no one has any clue which teams are good and which teams are desperately overmatched due to poor coaching and/or a lack of talent (like Xavier). There you go bashing X again. Don't look for my hand when trying to jump back on the bandwagon. It is very likely that the BE is beating up on the Big10 this year simply because the B10 is way overrated. Our biggest problem is scheduling. Agreed, it has been that way in the past. Excellent take. Rather than banking on solid draws in the Gavit Games and Big East-Big 12 Battle, and getting into the NIT Tip Off, Steele should have been out there negotiating series with the blue bloods. Look how easily Kentucky and Duke do it! Look at Gonzaga! They have coaches who 2-3 years in advance, when scheduling begins, know exactly who the best teams will be. It isn’t that hard to predict who the best teams will be in any given season, so Steele needs to go out and schedule those teams. And why wouldn’t those teams want to schedule a home-and-home with Xavier? Really good thought provoking points. You are starting to redeem yourself. Just please stop taking unwarranted shots at X, and saying there is a lack of talent. They are sensitive young men who get no consideration at all and play solely for the pleasure of us fans. Be better, I says again!

tacitus wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 20, 2021 11:35 am

Anti-Homer wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 19, 2021 5:46 pm

tacitus wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 19, 2021 2:44 am

Although the current state of Xavier/Big East basketball has already been conclusively described (which is why the previous thread on the topic has been "locked" for posterity), some new information has come to light.

Just to piggyback a bit on anti-homer’s spot-on assessment, adding some real-time analytics after another day of games: The situation seems to be deteriorating fast. The Big East is now 6-2 in the Gavit Games, and Steele has won his first game against a ranked NC opponent. But just because the people who get paid to analyze college basketball think the B10 is stacked this year or that OSU is good doesn’t mean jack. We all know that the post-season poll is always different than the preseason poll. (Just last year the talking heads thought, before the season, that Gonzaga was the best team in the country and Baylor was second best. I bet a lot of feet were inserted in a lot of mouths after the NC game!) Not at all. Remember, Zags beat them in the NC. I plead again, be better, and do some research! The point is, at this point in the season no one has any clue which teams are good and which teams are desperately overmatched due to poor coaching and/or a lack of talent (like Xavier). There you go bashing X again. Don't look for my hand when trying to jump back on the bandwagon. It is very likely that the BE is beating up on the Big10 this year simply because the B10 is way overrated. Our biggest problem is scheduling. Agreed, it has been that way in the past. Excellent take. Rather than banking on solid draws in the Gavit Games and Big East-Big 12 Battle, and getting into the NIT Tip Off, Steele should have been out there negotiating series with the blue bloods. Look how easily Kentucky and Duke do it! Look at Gonzaga! They have coaches who 2-3 years in advance, when scheduling begins, know exactly who the best teams will be. It isn’t that hard to predict who the best teams will be in any given season, so Steele needs to go out and schedule those teams. And why wouldn’t those teams want to schedule a home-and-home with Xavier? Really good thought provoking points. You are starting to redeem yourself. Just please stop taking unwarranted shots at X, and saying there is a lack of talent. They are sensitive young men who get no consideration at all and play solely for the pleasure of us fans. Be better, I says again!

My apologies. I am still very new to this line of reasoning. So just to confirm: 1) The team with the fewest points wins the game. 2) It's okay to explicitly bash the coach and to belittle the talent of certain players (such as Jason Carter), but you just cannot bash the whole team. 3) The Big East is not a good conference, it is just that the Big 10 is even worse this year, and this was also true any other time the BE has had a winning record against the B10. 4) It is really easy to put together a non-conference schedule that consists mostly of ranked teams (at the end of the season, not the beginning, because early season polls don't count) and any failure to do so is entirely the fault of the coach. 5) If I take all of this, and probably much more, into consideration, then I will "be better".

Thank you!

Anti-Homer wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 20, 2021 5:12 pm

Good catch on the Zags. Yea, I errored and meant to put Baylor, but it didn’t change the fact that the preseason prognosticators were pretty darn accurate, did it? I think they actually did pretty well. Re: point 2, I was just trying to keep up with your witty sarcasm. I think it is perfectly fine to criticize or praise any player’s or coach’s performance, especially on a fan forum. Does the concept of a message board escape you? I especially think it is ok to do it to a coach who has taken selective, passive aggressive shots against his players, and has a history of consistently not practicing what he preaches.

I also respectfully disagree with your third point. The BE early on seems to be much better than anticipated, and I also think the B10 will be a top three conference when all is said and done, with two potential FF teams. However, I appreciate the fact that you disagree.

Once again, I also respectfully disagree with point 4. I think it is rather difficult to put together a non-conference schedule that consists mainly of ranked teams. In fact, it would be unwise to do so, unless you play in a poor league. BTW, who stated X should? X’s non-conference schedule has been putrid relative to the rest of the better teams in the league during Steele’s tenure. How many good, non-conference wins can you name during his time as HC? I have consistently opined that the caliber of teams X should play in their NC schedule should be predominantly 75 or better RPI teams. A top 75 team is considerably different than a ranked team. I contend this because imo, playing multiple sub 200 teams is a poor risk benefit strategy, because the loss to one of those can offset a couple of good wins on one’s tourney resume.

Also, as far as putting together a non-conference schedule, whose responsibility should it be if not the coach’s? He is the CEO who gets paid seven figures to oversee the heck out of all facets of the program no?

However, I should just cede to your opinion considering your moniker. Self adulate much?

tacitus wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 23, 2021 9:50 am

Anti-Homer wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 20, 2021 5:12 pm

Good catch on the Zags. Yea, I errored and meant to put Baylor, but it didn’t change the fact that the preseason prognosticators were pretty darn accurate, did it? I think they actually did pretty well. Re: point 2, I was just trying to keep up with your witty sarcasm. I think it is perfectly fine to criticize or praise any player’s or coach’s performance, especially on a fan forum. Does the concept of a message board escape you? I especially think it is ok to do it to a coach who has taken selective, passive aggressive shots against his players, and has a history of consistently not practicing what he preaches.

I also respectfully disagree with your third point. The BE early on seems to be much better than anticipated, and I also think the B10 will be a top three conference when all is said and done, with two potential FF teams. However, I appreciate the fact that you disagree.

Once again, I also respectfully disagree with point 4. I think it is rather difficult to put together a non-conference schedule that consists mainly of ranked teams. In fact, it would be unwise to do so, unless you play in a poor league. BTW, who stated X should? X’s non-conference schedule has been putrid relative to the rest of the better teams in the league during Steele’s tenure. How many good, non-conference wins can you name during his time as HC? I have consistently opined that the caliber of teams X should play in their NC schedule should be predominantly 75 or better RPI teams. A top 75 team is considerably different than a ranked team. I contend this because imo, playing multiple sub 200 teams is a poor risk benefit strategy, because the loss to one of those can offset a couple of good wins on one’s tourney resume.

Also, as far as putting together a non-conference schedule, whose responsibility should it be if not the coach’s? He is the CEO who gets paid seven figures to oversee the heck out of all facets of the program no?

However, I should just cede to your opinion considering your moniker. Self adulate much?

I feel like we are getting somewhere with the main point.

So your point isn't so much that our NC schedule is weak this year. It is that it has ALWAYS been weak under Steele. You think he should do a better job at scheduling teams that are in the top 75 of RPI, and this year is just another example of his failure in that regard.

First, how is scheduling teams predominantly in the top 75 of the RPI (and/or NET), any easier than scheduling 2-3 opponents that are ranked when you play them, especially when scheduling starts two years or more in advance and considering that the RPI (or NET) rank of your opponents doesn't really matter until March? It might even be a more difficult standard to maintain, honestly.

Second, with the exception of last year, the NC schedules under Steele have not been "elite", by any measure, but they have not been as abysmal as you seem to recall. In fact, they would have been more than sufficient to secure an at-large bid, had we won more of the games.

I agree that last year was pretty weak. We set ourselves up for disaster. The Xavier invitational was really a waste of our early season tournament. And we almost lost two of those games!! (I cannot remember how that whole thing came about...)

Still... the strategy paid off at first. After going 10-0 against that schedule we were ranked in the AP poll and it looked like we had real momentum. Then the reality of covid protocols and the discrepancy between or non-conference and conference schedules set in. So, you are right, a tougher schedule may have better prepared us for the conference and may have given us a couple good wins for the resume. Who knows.

But other than last year the schedules in 2020 and 2019 were not the problem, our records against the schedules were!

These are the best NC wins by Xavier since Steele took over, per RPI:
2022: TBD, but so far probably OSU
2021: Oklahoma 54
2020: Connecticut 69
2019: Ohio 144

The schedule in 2021 was exceptionally weak. If you take away our draw in the Big East-Big 12 battle, a very sub-par UC was the only opponent of note.

But if you look more closely at 2020 and 2019: we did schedule quite a few notable teams, but either they had a down year or we lost to them. In addition to UCONN, in 2020 we played: Missouri W, Florida L, Cincinnati L and Wake Forrest L. In 2019 we played Wisconsin L, #8 Auburn L, (a very good) San Diego St. L, Illinois W, Cincinnati L, Missouri L. Those are all teams that typically have talented rosters (also evidenced by our record against them!). Unfortunately, the ones we managed to beat were not that good that year, and we lost most of them.

I originally responded to your assertion that the schedule this year is too weak. My point has been that the schedule this year is not only the toughest since Steele took over, but one of the toughest ever for Xavier.

Hopefully we both agree that if we get through it with only a couple losses, then we will have a nice boost to our resume which will give us a little bit of a cushion to bear a few inevitable losses in the Big East! I am 100% aligned with you on this.