2021-22 Other Games

DoubleDipper wrote:Duke lost at unranked Ohio State...VERY, VERY odd for the Blue Demons to play a non-conference game away from home other than at a neutral site...maybe 9 years ago also at Ohio St.

That game was part of the annual Big10-ACC Challenge, in which teams from the two leagues play true on-campus games. I'd guess that Duke must play a true non-conference road game at least once every 2 seasons, if only because of this Big10-ACC Challenge arrangement. For example, they played at Michigan State in 2019.

NoPoNeighbor wrote:I'd guess that Duke must play a true non-conference road game at least once every 2 seasons, if only because of this Big10-ACC Challenge arrangement. For example, they played at Michigan State in 2019.

Good point...after going 7 years without playing a true away game, Duke plays one in 2019 and one in 2021 and will now continue to play one every two years.  

StudentPilot wrote:

NoPoNeighbor wrote:I'd guess that Duke must play a true non-conference road game at least once every 2 seasons, if only because of this Big10-ACC Challenge arrangement. For example, they played at Michigan State in 2019.

Good point...after going 7 years without playing a true away game, Duke plays one in 2019 and one in 2021 and will now continue to play one every two years.  

They came to UP in 2000……


No, wait, that was a neutral site.

Geezaldinho wrote:They came to UP in 2000……

No, wait, that was a neutral site.

Yup, that was in what was then called the Rose Garden...

And then the Pilots went to Durham in 2001 and 2003 got their butts kicked by about 40 points each time.

I was once a big fan of Duke (which did not go over well when I lived in South Carolina), but it began to annoy me that such a good program wouldn't take their show on the road and play to full houses on other college campuses.

DoubleDipper wrote:I was once a big fan of Duke (which did not go over well when I lived in South Carolina), but it began to annoy me that such a good program wouldn't take their show on the road and play to full houses on other college campuses.

Oh man, I hear you.

You know what gets me? When some teams whine about having to play a team ranked 300+ in conference play, then go and willingly schedule 5 more of them in non-conference.

ASU scored a total of 29 points tonight at home against WSU...ouch!  

UCR gave UO all they could handle before bowing 71-65.

Utah Valley beat BYU in OT. Student Pilot's friend Fardaws Aimaq (who you might recall wanted to come to UP before Porter turned him down) scored 24 points and had 22 rebounds to go with his 5 steals for the Wolverines.  It was BYU's first loss of the season.

Pacific lost by 6 to Cal-Davis, a team that lost to Academy of Arts by 19 points just three days ago.  

San Diego, a team that started the season well, lost on the road by 20 to a very good Freson St. team.

Not a good night for the WCC, and not a good night for BYU when Gavin Baxter went down with an apparent ACL tear.

DoubleDipper wrote:

Geezaldinho wrote:They came to UP in 2000……

No, wait, that was a neutral site.

Yup, that was in what was then called the Rose Garden...

.

What I remember from that game is that UP shot 56% and got beat by 33 , Tim Frost went 5-9 and Shane Battier went 5-10.

Geezaldinho wrote:What I remember from that game is that UP shot 56% and got beat by 33 , Tim Frost went 5-9 and Shane Battier went 5-10.

Frost, 6-10/235 and from Klamath Falls, was an All-WCC First Team selection after his sophomore year and then transferred to Utah to play for the late Rick Majerus where he improved under better coaching and went to the NCAA Tournament.

When he left UP, he was the all-time leader in blocked shots with over a 100 in two years and was scoring close to 15 points a game.  I am sure Phil Hartwich broke his blocked shots record over four years, but Tim was among the best at UP this century, IMO.

DoubleDipper wrote:Not a good night for the WCC, and not a good night for BYU when Gavin Baxter went down with an apparent ACL tear.

Went to the BYU MBB Twitter account to see if Baxter was mentioned, and found this to be their mast head:



Seems a little "in-your-face" with two years to go, but that is typical of BYU...

StudentPilot wrote:

NoPoNeighbor wrote:I'd guess that Duke must play a true non-conference road game at least once every 2 seasons, if only because of this Big10-ACC Challenge arrangement. For example, they played at Michigan State in 2019.

Good point...after going 7 years without playing a true away game, Duke plays one in 2019 and one in 2021 and will now continue to play one every two years.  

Your overall argument is right on, but your specific point ("7 years without playing a true away game") is not. Over the last 11 seasons, Duke has challenged itself with a grand total of 5 non-conference road games. There have been gaps of 2 entire seasons without such a game (2012-13 and 2013-14; 2015-16 and 2016-17), but not a gap of 7 years.

2021: Duke @ Ohio State
2019: Duke @ Michigan State
2017: Duke @ Indiana
2014: Duke @ Wisconsin
2011: Duke @ Ohio State

Just watched a little of the recording from the Arkansas Pine Bluff vs. Iowa St. game last night...

I remember the APB coach was a no-nonsense guy when they came to Portland, and during the game last night he took out his frustrations by calling a timeout and then having his players on the court run baseline to baseline.

I guess that taught them!  Taught them they are playing for a high school coach and may want to enter the portal.

DoubleDipper wrote:Just watched a little of the recording from the Arkansas Pine Bluff vs. Iowa St. game last night...

I remember the APB coach was a no-nonsense guy when they came to Portland, and during the game last night he took out his frustrations by calling a timeout and then having his players on the court run baseline to baseline.

I guess that taught them!  Taught them they are playing for a high school coach and may want to enter the portal.

During the game? On the road, in front of the opposing team's fans? That is disgusting and degrading.

Geezaldinho wrote:

StudentPilot wrote:

NoPoNeighbor wrote:I'd guess that Duke must play a true non-conference road game at least once every 2 seasons, if only because of this Big10-ACC Challenge arrangement. For example, they played at Michigan State in 2019.

Good point...after going 7 years without playing a true away game, Duke plays one in 2019 and one in 2021 and will now continue to play one every two years.  

They came to UP in 2000……


No, wait, that was a neutral site.

And it was during winter break so limited students were around.

A few observations from the Kenpom rankings...

The top-50 toughest non-conference schedules include only three teams from the top seven ranked conferences. And all three of those are from the Big10:
#13 Michigan State
#24 Ohio State
#50 Michigan

Despite playing Duke, UCLA and Texas already, Gonzaga's non-conference strength of schedule is #212 in the nation. As Dean alluded to earlier, good thing they swapped out WCC games against Portland and San Diego in order to bolster their schedule with Dixie State and Merrimack.

There are currently nine teams with winning records in the bottom 100 of Kenpom. Six of those, including the Pilots, still have winning records when you only consider DI foes:

#266 Norfolk State (9-1; 6-1 vs DI competition)
#268 Jacksonville (3-2; 1-2 DI)
#274 Presbyterian (5-3; 5-3 DI)
#277 Air Force (6-1, 6-1 DI)
#280 UNC Asheville (4-3, 2-3 DI)
#287 Texas-San Antonio (5-3, 3-2 DI)
#291 Portland (7-2, 6-2 DI)
#302 North Alabama (4-3, 2-3 DI)
#327 Texas A&M Corpus Christi (6-1, 4-1 DI)

In other words, the Pilots hold the dubious honor of being the nation's second-worst team with a winning DI record.

dholcombe wrote:And it was during winter break so limited students were around.

The Dukies really lucked out there! The UP student section could have made all the difference if they'd been out in full force.

NoPoNeighbor wrote:In other words, the Pilots hold the dubious honor of being the nation's second-worst team with a winning DI record.

At this point I think it's quite apparent that the Pilots are underrated by Kenpom. They have beaten the Kenpom spread in all eight D1 games so far, and even more telling the Vegas odds are beginning to consistently shift 2, 3, 4, or 5 points towards the Pilots from the Kenpom spread.

I'm guessing if the NCAA NET rankings came out tomorrow, they'd have Portland in the 175 to 225 range.

Dean Murdoch wrote:

NoPoNeighbor wrote:In other words, the Pilots hold the dubious honor of being the nation's second-worst team with a winning DI record.

At this point I think it's quite apparent that the Pilots are underrated by Kenpom. They have beaten the Kenpom spread in all eight D1 games so far, and even more telling the Vegas odds are beginning to consistently shift 2, 3, 4, or 5 points towards the Pilots from the Kenpom spread.

I'm guessing if the NCAA NET rankings came out tomorrow, they'd have Portland in the 175 to 225 range.

https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/rankings/net/

321 unofficially. NET gives less credit for home wins which make up the majority of the Pilots wins. They also have not generally been winning by a large margin. They have up some late points in games where they could have had blowouts. The old RPI system is likely to rank them highest at this point.

dholcombe wrote:https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/rankings/net/

321 unofficially.

That is last year’s final NET ranking with this year’s records.

https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/basketball-men/d1/ncaa-mens-basketball-net-rankings

Well that's.... Dumb. First time I looked at it so I didn't realize it wasn't changing over time.

dholcombe wrote:Well that's.... Dumb. First time I looked at it so I didn't realize it wasn't changing over time.

Honestly I wouldn't have known either, except I was listening to ESPNU on the drive home from work yesterday and the guy was talking specifically about Duke being at 49 NET. That sounded wrong to me so I looked it up when I got home and realized he was going off of last year's rankings. So when I saw Duke at 49 on your list I was able to put 2 and 2 together... it really does look like a current ranking, not sure why they don't make that more obvious that it's not.

Dean Murdoch wrote:... it really does look like a current ranking, not sure why they don't make that more obvious that it's not.

Well, just a stab here, but because it is run by the NCAA, perhaps.

Joe Lunardi has the WCC as a 4-bid league on his new Bracketology this morning.

https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/page/bracketology/ncaa-bracketology-projecting-2022-march-madness-men-field

GU - #1 seed
BYU - #7 seed
SMC - #10 seed
USF - #11 seed (play-in)

Of the others, only Santa Clara has done enough to warrant NIT consideration at this point.

SMC helped itself last night winning a very entertaining game, 60-58, over Utah St. in Logan.

Of course, Bennett did his best blow-by moves in the hand shaking line afterwards even though the Utah St. coach, Ryan Odom, wanted to stop and chat.  I would like to think it was "just" a COVID thing, but it was just Randy being Randy as he riled up the opposing crowed with his arm waving as he left the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum.

Good to see SMC hitting the road for some good games this season...tomorrow they are in Ft. Collins for an even better matchup against Colorado St.  The Rams are favored by 1.

USF is undefeated (8-0) and expected to remain so throughout the preseason with only one away game on their entire preseason schedule, ASU on December 19.

USF's first conference games are against SMC at home and GU on the road...it should be fun.

Good thing BYU won because scores from WCC games yesterday could drive a coach to drink.

GU lost to Alabama in Seattle; SMC got rolled by 16 points by Colorado St. in Ft. Collins; SCU lost at home to La. Tech; and UOP lost by 9 at CS Fullerton.

As mentioned, #12 BYU held on and won by 6 at Missouri St.; LMU won by 3 at Long Beach; and USF, now 9-0 on the season with a clear road ahead, beat UNLV by 21 on the Hilltop.

The closest thing to a big game over the next week is BYU hosting Utah St.