Schedule 22-23

[ORU40]

14 hours ago, Keenan Henderson said:

The four non D1 games give coach a chance to see if the young guys like Cam and Herron are ready to contribute this year.

I hate to disagree with you Keenan, but these 4 NAIA are of no value whatsoever! Coach can get a much better measure of Cam & Herron in practice against Max and Isaac or DJ and Kareem than he ever will against Rodgers St or OK Baptist!

We have some good games, St Mary's, Houston and Utah St and TX Southern are good games in Nov and Mo St and Liberty are OK, but as a former player I think these 4 NAIA games are embarrassing!! There is no reason to be playing Bacone, we talk like we want to be a big-time program and improve our recruiting these games aren't going to get it done.

ORU basketball is better than this, our fans deserve better our players deserve better and our proud basketball tradition deserves better!!! Coach, the AD and the President need to stop these games in the future. ORU basketball wasn't build playing pitiful NAIA games!

[Old Titan]

It's surprising to me how polarizing these non-D1 games at home are.

My take:

• ORU would schedule bigger schools at home if they could.
• Trying to get bigger schools to come play in the Mabee Center has been a challenge for decades, for a variety of well-documented reasons.
• Unless you want to go full-blown Chicago State and play on the road every game until January, the ORU's of the world are left with scheduling whoever they can at home in November and December.
• A typical ORU schedule under Scott Sutton might have 8-10 non-conference road games and perhaps only 1 or 2 D1 opponents in the Mabee Center.
• This year's schedule has NINE home games before January 1st; show me an ORU schedule that has ever had more?
• I'm looking forward to seeing as many of those nine home games as I can, regardless of the opponent.

[Keenan Henderson]

The schedule also brings up another question: besides the Houston game, does ORU winning on the road against any of the other teams really move the needle for the Eagles?  Nothing against Utah State, St. Mary's or Texas Southern (all good mid majors).  If ORU wins any of these games, then outside of maybe the Summit League, does anyone really pay any attention?  In other words, they are nice wins but nothing really else.  Could be wrong.

We got spoiled in the Sutton era with wins over: Arkansas, Oklahoma State, Kansas, Missouri, and USC (plus quite a few other big-name schools).

[Old Titan]

18 minutes ago, Keenan Henderson said:

The schedule also brings up another question: besides the Houston game, does ORU winning on the road against any of the other teams really move the needle for the Eagles?  Nothing against Utah State, St. Mary's or Texas Southern (all good mid majors).  If ORU wins any of these games, then outside of maybe the Summit League, does anyone really pay any attention?  In other words, they are nice wins but nothing really else.  Could be wrong.

We got spoiled in the Sutton era with wins over: Arkansas, Oklahoma State, Kansas, Missouri, and USC (plus quite a few other big-name schools).

Here's who pays attention to ALL road wins:  the NET rankings computer that can mean the difference between a 15 Seed and a 12 Seed.

[dave]

I’m sure the staff did all they could to schedule good opponents. And I also understand why p5 teams don’t want to come to MC since we are an improving program and not a perceived push over. But that is why Johnson and Mills get the “ big bucks”. As far as I am concerned more mid majors would be good gets just like Liberty. I’m sure it’s a tough job. God bless ‘em. 

[dave]

One more thing. Does anyone know if the Texas Southern, Utah State and St. Mary’s games are home and home? Or are they just one off’s?

[GoldenEagleFan]

3 hours ago, Keenan Henderson said:

The schedule also brings up another question: besides the Houston game, does ORU winning on the road against any of the other teams really move the needle for the Eagles?  Nothing against Utah State, St. Mary's or Texas Southern (all good mid majors).  If ORU wins any of these games, then outside of maybe the Summit League, does anyone really pay any attention? 

St Mary’s finished with a net rating of 19 last season. Higher than TCU, OSU, OU, etc. 
Utah State finished with a net rating of 66 last year. Both teams would be considered a Quad 1 game for ORU (Top 75 on the road). 
 

I’m pretty sure lots of talking heads would take notice, especially considering both of those schools’ home records over the last several years are pretty amazing. 

[Old Titan]

1 hour ago, dave said:

One more thing. Does anyone know if the Texas Southern, Utah State and St. Mary’s games are home and home? Or are they just one off’s?

• Texas Southern is a three-team round-robin with Houston for (I think) only this season. 
• Not sure whether St. Marys' and Utah State are returning games in the Mabee Center, but I highly doubt it since nothing has been announced.
• Pretty sure Liberty is a buy game:  writing them a check with no return game in Lynchburg.

[theeagleman5]

Sorry but TheEagleman feels those 4 non D-1 home games are a disgrace. Yeah...one maybe two.....but this is not acceptable....

[ORUalum11]

1 hour ago, theeagleman5 said:

Sorry but TheEagleman feels those 4 non D-1 home games are a disgrace. Yeah...one maybe two.....but this is not acceptable....

+1. This is no way to build a fan base. Home schedule shows you where our program really is. 

[GoldenEagleFan]

2 hours ago, theeagleman5 said:

Sorry but TheEagleman feels those 4 non D-1 home games are a disgrace. Yeah...one maybe two.....but this is not acceptable....

Would you rather play 2 less games than play 2 home games against non D-1?
 

From every interview I have heard Coach Mills give, non D-1 games do not count against your net rating. And playing Quad 4 teams at home (which make up about a fourth of the summit league) actually hurts your net rating way more, even if you win. 

[GoldenEagleFan]

11 hours ago, ORU40 said:

ORU basketball is better than this, our fans deserve better our players deserve better and our proud basketball tradition deserves better!!! Coach, the AD and the President need to stop these games in the future. ORU basketball wasn't build playing pitiful NAIA games!

Completely disagree. The purpose of a non conference schedule for a team in a 1-bid league is to give you the highest seed possible in the NCAA tournament. The weakness of the Summit League demands that ORU must schedule as many Quad 1 / Quad 2 / Non D1 teams in the non conference, and as few Quad 3 / Quad 4 teams as possible. (Non D1 teams don’t count against the net rating).

If this was a multi-bid league and you weren’t concerned about winning the conference tournament and then being “rewarded” with playing a #1 or #2 seed in the opening round of the NCAA tournament, then play all the quad 3 and quad 4s that you want to in the non conference. The fact of the matter is, the bottom teams of the Summit League bring the strength of the league down so much that it makes much more sense to either:

1) play only 29 total games (instead of the 31 youre allowed) 

or

2) play 2 extra non D-1 games to get to 31 total games, and not get hurt in the net ratings. 

[jmg1984]

3 hours ago, theeagleman5 said:

Sorry but TheEagleman feels those 4 non D-1 home games are a disgrace. Yeah...one maybe two.....but this is not acceptable....

Truth what other teams have this schedule!

[theeagleman5]

ORU paying Liberty U. to make the trip to Tulsa for a one and done? Why would we not want to give them a return game in Lynchburg in 2023? That just makes no sense because we could be paying the Flames to come in and beat us....

[Old Titan]

12 hours ago, GoldenEagleFan said:

Completely disagree. The purpose of a non conference schedule for a team in a 1-bid league is to give you the highest seed possible in the NCAA tournament. The weakness of the Summit League demands that ORU must schedule as many Quad 1 / Quad 2 / Non D1 teams in the non conference, and as few Quad 3 / Quad 4 teams as possible. (Non D1 teams don’t count against the net rating).

If this was a multi-bid league and you weren’t concerned about winning the conference tournament and then being “rewarded” with playing a #1 or #2 seed in the opening round of the NCAA tournament, then play all the quad 3 and quad 4s that you want to in the non conference. The fact of the matter is, the bottom teams of the Summit League bring the strength of the league down so much that it makes much more sense to either:

1) play only 29 total games (instead of the 31 youre allowed) 

or

2) play 2 extra non D-1 games to get to 31 total games, and not get hurt in the net ratings. 

Coach Mills went into great detail explaining this scheduling philosophy in one of his coach’s shows early last season. 

[Old Titan]

9 hours ago, theeagleman5 said:

ORU paying Liberty U. to make the trip to Tulsa for a one and done? Why would we not want to give them a return game in Lynchburg in 2023? That just makes no sense because we could be paying the Flames to come in and beat us....

In a traditional home-and-home arrangement, no money typically changes hands. 

Liberty apparently prefers the six-figure check from ORU for coming to Tulsa, rather than a return game in Lynchburg. 

What’s unprecedented in recent years is ORU ponying up the money for them to play here. 

[ORU40]

14 hours ago, GoldenEagleFan said:

Completely disagree. The purpose of a non conference schedule for a team in a 1-bid league is to give you the highest seed possible in the NCAA tournament. The weakness of the Summit League demands that ORU must schedule as many Quad 1 / Quad 2 / Non D1 teams in the non conference, and as few Quad 3 / Quad 4 teams as possible. (Non D1 teams don’t count against the net rating).

If this was a multi-bid league and you weren’t concerned about winning the conference tournament and then being “rewarded” with playing a #1 or #2 seed in the opening round of the NCAA tournament, then play all the quad 3 and quad 4s that you want to in the non conference. The fact of the matter is, the bottom teams of the Summit League bring the strength of the league down so much that it makes much more sense to either:

The argument that we should be determining our OOC schedule based on our NET rating for NCAA seeding purposes is laughable!! We have been to the NCAA tournament once in the last 15 years and that was due to a miraculous 4 game run by a 14-10 team!!

We should be scheduling for the true purpose of the OOC games, to give you good competitive games to improve your team to give you a chance to win the conference and conf. tourney, which should be our primary goal. Our 2nd goal as a program should be to play good teams that will excite our fans and generate interest and attendance. When was the last time we won the summit regular season and conference tourney in the same year, let's start by doing that consistently!!

For us to be so presumptive as to be concerned over our NCAA seed is ludicrous!! We aren't at that stage as a program and our league is so poorly ranked whoever our conf champ is will be a 15 to 13 seed at best, SDSU won 30 games last year, they were a 13 seed.

Play some games our fans want to see, play teams that will challenge us and help us improve- beating 4 NAIA teams by 50 doesn't help you improve and usually just allows bad habits to develop (what you get away with against Rodgers St. will not work in the conference tourney!!! 

We need to be realistic, do the hard work to build our program into a consistent conference winner, not putting the cart in front of the horse and worrying about our seeding.  We lost by 20 in the conf tourney semi's last year- so out NET rating meant nothing!! What was our signature win last year? Who was the best team we beat? Again, let's be realistic about where our program is not where it was 2 seasons ago!  We beat 3 Div 1 teams that were above 500 last year, maybe if we start playing some good non conf games, which is the real reason for OOC games, we can improve and then start worrying about our NET rating and tourney seeding!!! 

[GoldenEagleFan]

7 hours ago, ORU40 said:

maybe if we start playing some good non conf games, which is the real reason for OOC games, we can improve

2017-18… #10 toughest
2018-19… #56 toughest
2019-20… #6 toughest
2020-21… #4 toughest
2021-22… #82 toughest

For anyone to question whether or not ORU plays a hard non conference schedule, just look at where they have ranked in Coach Mills’ 5 seasons. Top 30 toughest schedule (average) in the country in 5 years. 

It sounds like you would be perfectly content winning the conference tournament and playing a 1 or 2 seed in the NCAA tournament, when you could win the exact same conference tournament and be a 12-13 seed based on strategic scheduling. 

If you read the reasoning behind 2 extra non D1 games, you would realize that ORU is not replacing Quad 1 and Quad 2 teams with non d1 teams. They are replacing Quad 4 teams (ranked 300 and higher) with non D1 teams.
 

At the end of the day, ORU is going to be favored by double digits against a Quad 4 team at home, and get hurt on the net ranking. Or they can be favored by double digits against a non D1 team at home, and not get hurt on the net ranking.  Why would anyone choose the former?