WVU Hoop Schedule Puts it in Great Shape Heading Into Big 12 Play

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Scheduling is a difficult deal. 
 
There is a effective line between placing collectively a fantastic schedule that helps you on the finish of the season and getting your self buried, particularly when you play in a Power 5 convention just like the Big 12.
 
Through video games as of Dec. 25, the Big 12 at present has all 10 of its males’s basketball groups ranked in the highest 60 in this week’s NCAA NET Rankings.
 
For West Virginia, meaning all 19 video games left on its schedule are going to be performed in opposition to high 60 groups – as of at the moment.
 
That means two video games in opposition to No. 5 Kansas, two video games in opposition to No. 9 Texas, two video games in opposition to No. 19 Baylor, two video games in opposition to No. 32 Iowa State, two video games in opposition to No. 33 Kansas State, two video games in opposition to No. 46 Oklahoma State, two video games in opposition to No. 47 Oklahoma, two video games in opposition to No. 55 Texas Tech, two video games in opposition to No. 60 TCU and a recreation in opposition to No. 28 Auburn in the Big 12 SEC-Challenge.
 
Therefore, primarily based on the NCAA’s Quadrant 1 standards of house video games in opposition to high 30 groups and highway video games versus to 75 groups, WVU may probably have 13 of its 19 remaining video games in opposition to Quadrant 1 competitors.
 
Now, it doubtless will not find yourself that method as a result of groups will beat one another in convention play and a few of them will finally fall beneath 75, however when Bob Huggins talks about dealing with some of the troublesome schedules in college historical past, he isn’t kidding.
 
The web site SportsReference.com lists the common power of schedules for every West Virginia males’s basketball season courting again to 1950. The score represents a denomination in factors above or beneath common, with zero being common. Non-Division I video games are excluded.
 
There have been six situations when West Virginia’s schedule was rated a ten.0 or larger – all six occurring since 2011 when the (*12*) had been nonetheless taking part in in the Big East. According to this, West Virginia’s 2010-11 schedule was thought-about the hardest in college historical past with an 11.03 score.
 
Four of the six have come since West Virginia joined the Big 12, together with final 12 months’s 10.74 power of schedule score, which represents the second-most troublesome in college historical past. The weakest slate WVU has confronted since becoming a member of the Big 12 was in 2013-14 (8.02) and that’s nonetheless far past something the (*12*) ever confronted after they performed as Independents in the Atlantic 10 or in the Southern Conference.
 
In reality, throughout the so-called “Golden Era” of Mountaineer basketball in the Fifties and early Sixties, West Virginia constantly confronted schedules that had been thought-about beneath common, and in the case of 1954 (-7.90), 1952 (-7.40), 1951 (-7.11), 1953 (-5.81), 1956 (-5.67) and 1968 (-5.35), far beneath common.
 
In 1989, when West Virginia gained 26 of 31 video games and almost upset Duke in the second spherical of the NCAA Tournament, the (*12*) had a beneath common schedule score of -0.86. In 1982, when West Virginia gained 23 straight video games and climbed to No. 6 in the polls, that was in opposition to a schedule rated West Virginia’s 14^th best since 1950 at -1.34.
 
You may go on and on cherry selecting completely different profitable seasons to show a degree, however the backside line is schedules do matter. How you schedule can decide a number of issues, equivalent to wins and losses with common groups to NCAA Tournament seedings with above common groups.
 
Nobody understands the numbers higher than Huggins, who used to devour the Sagarin Ratings revealed in the USA Today when he coached at Akron.
 
His formulation for fulfillment there was to determine the groups he thought he had the perfect probability to beat with the very best Sagarin Rating on the finish of the 12 months. Why go and hunt for one huge win at a serious college when you’ve gotten a possibility to get a bunch of stable victories in opposition to mid-level faculties on extra equal phrases?
 
That was principally Huggins’ rationale.
 
“I was smarter than the average bear because I knew we couldn’t go beat some of those people, so why would we go get beat by those people when we could play somebody who was at least at our level or maybe a little better – somewhere between us and the big boys,” he defined just a few weeks in the past. “If you go back and look at who I scheduled and people were like, ‘Why would you play them?’ Back then it was pretty much all the Sagarin. Well, I did everything I could do to continue to rise in the Sagarin ratings without getting our brains beat in.”
 
During the 5 seasons he coached at Akron, he performed at Ohio State throughout the 1986 season, at Pitt in 1987 and 1988, and at NC State and in opposition to Kansas State in 1989. That’s it. The relaxation had been in opposition to groups he had an inexpensive probability of beating.
 
When he received to a Cincinnati, the place issues had been extra equal, he started to play a lot tougher schedules. That pattern has continued at West Virginia.
 
With one nonconference recreation remaining in opposition to No. 28 Auburn, West Virginia has already put itself in nice place with the groups it has confronted by way of Dec. 23. Yes, even the (*12*)’ lackluster efficiency in opposition to Stony Brook final Thursday night time did not hurt them an excessive amount of in the NET.
 
West Virginia’s NET rating dropped to simply 11^th, which means the (*12*) are in nice form if they’ll maintain enterprise in convention play. If you take a look at what West Virginia has performed to date this 12 months, there’s a number of superb and good, and never a number of unhealthy and really unhealthy.
 
This was by design.
 
“That was the plan going in,” Huggins defined. “A variety of occasions it does not work out that method. We knew we had been going to play folks in the PK85, so you have form of received that in the bag and then you definately attempt to schedule non-conference, however it’s exhausting. It’s develop into tougher and tougher with the arrival of all these (preseason tournaments). It was you had a few these tournaments and now they’re in all places.
 
“Your schedule is a lot harder to make because of all of the opportunities that people have to go and play places,” he added.
 
The backside line with scheduling is you have to strike a stability between taking part in a slate that appeals to the numbers and metrics, but additionally provides you an opportunity for fulfillment.
 
“Where we are at the Power 5 level, we’re not going to run from anybody … and I think that’s how most Power 5 people look at things, but when you are that notch below you’ve got to be careful. You can beat yourself to death,” Huggins concluded.