West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

Hummm...And how did IUP's tough schedule work out for them??

Not talking about IUP. Specifically, WL and getting bumped last year.

[boatcapt]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

On the flip side your soft schedule last year DID cost you hosting the regional despite your regular season record. VSU got rewarded last year for having a far-superior SOS.

Hummm...And how did IUP's tough schedule work out for them??

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

On the flip side your soft schedule last year DID cost you hosting the regional despite your regular season record. VSU got rewarded last year for having a far-superior SOS.

[boatcapt]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

AGREE WITH THIS, NORRIS!

The bump in SOS will be big, no matter what WL final record is...

We also get to play 2-0 Kings College later in the season. But that's OK...They have ONLY beaten Flagler College and Columbus State so they should be no problem since we played to stronger teams and should be better for it.

Plenty of teams with really good SOS miss the playoffs every year. I'm sure their fan base is really understanding when their coach says - "Yea, but at least we played tough teams."

[boatcapt]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

AGREE WITH THIS, NORRIS!

The bump in SOS will be big, no matter what WL final record is...

And if we finish the regular season with 4 losses on the season vice 2 and a #3 seed as opposed to a legit chance to host the region, what have we really gotten besides the ability to say we played two tough games to open the season?

What going 1-1 to start the season vs the usual 2-0 has done is open the possibilities for a bunch of teams to host the region which is exactly what outsiders want. If WLU scheduling easy to open the season has become such a hamstring on WLU hosting the region, you would think that fans of other programs would want WLU to continue to do just that. Fact that so many fans of other teams have advocated for years for WLU to play tough early season games should tell WLU fans something. I personally want IUP to open the season vs the #1 and #2 ranked teams in the country...not because I want IUP to be better, but because I want them to be 0-2 and that increases MY teams chances of hosting the Regionals. If there is a team in my region that consistently goes through the season with 2 losses, I'm going to want them to play harder teams not because I want them to be stronger, but because I want them to have more losses which increases MY teams chances (that is, unless my team gives in to pressure and schedules and losses hard games ourselves).

Anytime a fan of a competitor program advocates for my team to change what has proven to be a successful formula for hosting and winning the Region and having deep playoff runs with multiple final four appearances, I'm a little skeptical that they truly have my teams best interest at heart.

[Columbuseer]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

Playing an easy early schedule will not make a so-so team better. It seems that the WLU fans who are complaining about playing solid teams early (these are not national contender type teams) are simply admitting that they prefere to inflate their wins and then claim entitlement to the #1 seed in the regional. I mean no disrespect, but to be complaining about opening the seson at home against Kutztown (who turned around and lost to W.V. Wesleyan) is very nearly laughable.

I tend to agree your point about so-so teams. I think the dilemma comes when you have a very young team that is talented. I agree on no cup-cakes. But is it better to play decent teams early rather than top-tier teams for a young team? I though Kutztown was very well coached and played very good defense.

WLU started 2 freshman, 2 sophs and 1 senior. The question in my mind is how does a particularly young team handle a loss against a tough team early? WLU passed with flying colors against West Chester, leading by 20 in both halves. However, they may lose more games than typical years. I expect wide variation in performance on a given night for a young team.

BTW, Kutztown had WV Wesleyan beaten for most of the game, leading by 5 to 10 points. Seemed like they got tired and lost focus very late in the game with turnovers and bad offensive looks.

[IUP Extra Mile]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

Playing an easy early schedule will not make a so-so team better. It seems that the WLU fans who are complaining about playing solid teams early (these are not national contender type teams) are simply admitting that they prefere to inflate their wins and then claim entitlement to the #1 seed in the regional. I mean no disrespect, but to be complaining about opening the seson at home against Kutztown (who turned around and lost to W.V. Wesleyan) is very nearly laughable.

Agreed, Knightmoves!! and I back the Hilltoppers...Play the tough games...

[IUP Extra Mile]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

AGREE WITH THIS, NORRIS!

The bump in SOS will be big, no matter what WL final record is...

[PSAC76]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

Playing an easy early schedule will not make a so-so team better. It seems that the WLU fans who are complaining about playing solid teams early (these are not national contender type teams) are simply admitting that they prefere to inflate their wins and then claim entitlement to the #1 seed in the regional. I mean no disrespect, but to be complaining about opening the seson at home against Kutztown (who turned around and lost to W.V. Wesleyan) is very nearly laughable.

Careful Knight, if you say ANYTHING that isn't over the top complimentary about WL, you will have 20 posts about it over the next 2 months calling you a hater or that you don't know what you're talking about. You'll also have your words twisted; just giving you the spoiler alert

[Knightmoves]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

Playing an easy early schedule will not make a so-so team better. It seems that the WLU fans who are complaining about playing solid teams early (these are not national contender type teams) are simply admitting that they prefere to inflate their wins and then claim entitlement to the #1 seed in the regional. I mean no disrespect, but to be complaining about opening the seson at home against Kutztown (who turned around and lost to W.V. Wesleyan) is very nearly laughable.

[IUP24]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

The pragmatic goal is to win conference tournament and host regional. Playing tough teams early with young team is risky. Injuries in Jan and feb can result in unexpected losses. Early losses to good teams, while better than late losses, reduce margin of error for making tourney simply due to number of losses much less hosting. Iup fans might weigh in based on last year.
Imho This year iup looks to be the team in the Atlantic and can play anyone early. West Chester has some chemistry issues imho.

I believe there needs to be a systematic overhaul of how we view wins and losses against SOS in college athletics across the board, specifically when it comes to football and basketball. For years, West Liberty didn't play "risky" games they had the potential of losing. That paid off for them by most years serving as the regional host. On the opposite extreme, IUP has played a murders row of a non-conference schedule the last 3-4 years. They haven't hosted a region. Hell, they haven't even won the PSAC. They've missed two of the last three tournaments and have won one tournament game the last three years. That's the opposite end. There needs to be something in between.

I think for a lot of people, they always viewed the non-conference cupcakes as a cop out to a degree. You don't count or expect West Liberty to ever lose more than 2, maybe 3 games in the regular season. So automatically, there you go, you can almost guarantee who will be hosting in March. And yeah, I know Fairmont has hosted, and a few others, but you see my point. For a PSAC team to host given how West Liberty has typically scheduled and performed, they can't lose more than 1, maybe 2 games. East Stroudsburg is exhibit A of that.

I think my point is that people only value wins and losses, and I think that's wrong. Nobody cares if you played the best 6 teams in the country if you went 3-3 in those games. But if you played 6 of the worst squads in the nation, in the eyes of many fans, you should be rewarded because you won those games and the other team should be punished for splitting 6 games against elite competition.

The same problem exists in FBS football currently. I'm a Pitt football fan, and sure they've been a tire fire for my lifetime, but oh well. Pitt is 6-4, unranked, and is considered a punchline when people talk about them playing in the ACC Championship. Syracuse, who Pitt beat, is 8-2 and is ranked 13th in the country. While Pitt played and lost to Penn State, Notre Dame, and UCF, Syracuse went out and beat Wagner, Uconn, and Western Michigan. Pitt is playing great football right now, but nobody really cares because they see they're 6-4. Watching both of them play, I can assure you that Pitt is a better football team than Syracuse is, but.... Syracuse has two more wins because they played more cupcakes. Therefore, they get to be in the national conversation. When you look at it like that, apply that to the debate between West Liberty playing nobody versus other schools in the region playing challenging competition. Why should West Liberty be more deserving to host if they go 30-3 playing nobody out of conference over Fairmont, IUP, West Chester, etc, who goes out and plays a challenging schedule and finishes the year 27-5?

I hope I didn't stray far from what the intent of your post was, but I think we need to view things differently in college athletics when it comes to this stuff. I think teams should schedule a combination of winnable games to "work out the kinks" while also scheduling challenges out of conference that are fun for both the fans and players alike. I wish IUP wouldn't schedule as heavy as they do. On the same token, I think WLU should be more ambitious than they are most years with their non-conference schedule. Needs to be a balance, and how the committee seeds should reflect that. A team shouldn't get to host a region every year based on the sole fact that they win two more games than everybody else when it's clear what their agenda and intent was in their non-conference schedule.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

Keep this in mind (before Boat storms Ben's office):

Fairmont already has 2 losses.

Slippery Rock already has 2 losses.

Concord is 1-1.

Virginia State is 0-2

West Chester is 0-2

Kutztown is 1-1

East Stroudsburg (defending champ) is 0-1

[Columbuseer]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

Several points:
1. The ooc options are not just terrible teams ( cheyney) or experienced top tier teams (iup). There is a big fat middle of bell curve that are solid but not great teams.
2. While not a conspiracy, it is reasonable for ncaa to spread out hosting locations unless there is a clear leader in Atlantic in terms of record and strength of schedule.
3. I have sensed that ooc strength is playing a tie breaker role.

4. Mec is tougher conference than it was but to prove that u need to have these inter-conference showdowns like this weekend.


Typical high risk , high reward dilemma.


I'm for strategy that gets us into tournament and best prepares us to win against tough competition

[Chuck Norris]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

I guess we'll see this season. We now have started the year with two very good teams and went 1-1 were we typically are 2-0. By somes measure, that should make us tougher come tourney time. Given as how we have gotten to the NC game playing it Crutch's way, this early hard sched should result in a NC victory. Of course, we now have a loss and will need to come close to running the table from here on out to host the Regional tourney and maximize our chances of getting to the Elite 8 and ultimately the NC.

Guess we'll find out if two hard games in early November equal a National Championship five month later in March.

When has WLU been 4 or 5 games clear of the SR1 field??

[boatcapt]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

I guess we'll see this season. We now have started the year with two very good teams and went 1-1 were we typically are 2-0. By somes measure, that should make us tougher come tourney time. Given as how we have gotten to the NC game playing it Crutch's way, this early hard sched should result in a NC victory. Of course, we now have a loss and will need to come close to running the table from here on out to host the Regional tourney and maximize our chances of getting to the Elite 8 and ultimately the NC.

Guess we'll find out if two hard games in early November equal a National Championship five month later in March.

When has WLU been 4 or 5 games clear of the SR1 field??