bradley
PhD Student
Posts: 1842
Age: 74
Reg: 01-15-16
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11-23-16 10:42 AM - Post#213940
IL teams are 9-18 out of the gate with only two wins against a quality opponent. League continues to struggle winning games against top 100 teams. A few games were close but at the end of the day, IL needs to start winning some of these games to enhance reputation.
Yale is the only team that has stood out against quality competition by beating Washington and Lehigh as well as being very competitive against Pittsburgh last evening.
It is early and the games against quality opponents have been away with the exception of Lehigh vs. Yale. There is time to regroup but many of us have speculated that IL is raising the level of their game. Hopefully, IL teams start posting more wins as well as against quality opponents.
Some teams have a pretty light upcoming schedule that may help.
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GoBigGreenBasketball
Masters Student
Posts: 806
Age: 52
Reg: 05-19-16
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Re: Slow Start ---- Non-Conference
11-23-16 03:06 PM - Post#213974
In response to bradley
I like what Princeton has done with their scheduling similar to Long Beach State. You don't get better by playing lesser competition. You have to have tough games with higher ranked and top 100 ranked teams.
The Dartmouth coach said URI game was the first time that his guys had seen that type of length, strength, and athleticism. You can't simulate that in practice.
You have to take some loses against the best to know what it takes. Doesn't the saying go to be the best you gotta beat the best.
| "...no excuses - only results!†|
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SRP
Postdoc
Posts: 4911
Reg: 02-04-06
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11-23-16 09:51 PM - Post#214016
In response to GoBigGreenBasketball
Comfortable win by PU against Lafayette to stop the bleeding there at least.
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Columbia Alum
Junior
Posts: 247
Age: 38
Reg: 11-15-11
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11-24-16 05:16 PM - Post#214056
In response to SRP
Looks like we're going to have a single dance bid again this season.
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bradley
PhD Student
Posts: 1842
Age: 74
Reg: 01-15-16
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11-27-16 08:23 AM - Post#214162
In response to Columbia Alum
IL is now 13-24 with only one good win against a 1-150 ranked opponent. There have been a few "good" losses against 1-75 ranked teams but ...
Very early but Downey and Oni have probably performed the best overall which is rather amazing considering that Bruner has been injured.
Many of the early season 1st team and 2nd team projections have not been backed by strong play. A few teams have opportunity this upcoming week to turn it around. It is still early but .... Two bids????
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mrjames
Professor
Posts: 6062
Loc: Montclair, NJ
Reg: 11-21-04
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11-28-16 11:24 AM - Post#214219
In response to bradley
It's too early to feel good about definitive statements about where the league is at, though I agree that this week and next (heading into most Ivies' exam break), we'll have a better idea of our prospects, if not the quality of our teams.
Yale and Princeton have played the 10th and 39th toughest schedules in the nation, while Harvard and Cornell have played just outside a Top 100 schedule as well. Penn, Dartmouth and Brown have all played just shy of national average schedules and even Columbia's schedule is outside the Bottom 75.
Last year, the BEST non-conference schedule for the Ivy was Harvard's at No. 153. The rest of the schedules were 238, 239, 240, 275, 318, 332 and 337.
I know that many are not in the business of "moral victories," but they have predictive power and are worth looking at. Harvard's game against Holy Cross was horrific, but playing Stanford neutral to an average margin of -4.8 and UMass away to an average margin of +0.8 implies some underlying positive trends (if you want to cherry pick and leave out the HC game from your sample - buyer beware on that).
Yale's played FOUR Top 100 teams on the road to average margins of +10.1, -7.2, -3.6 and -5.4, including the best average margin against No. 1 Virginia.
I'm not going to go through all of the teams, but the league has played about as well as expected (which is why we haven't seen any significant move as a league off of where we started). There has certainly been more variance than expected. That's not surprising given that we've already seen 12 frosh play 40% or more of team minutes without Bruner and maybe one or two more that could hit that mark when healthy or over time. In 2014 and 2015, we saw 13 COMBINED and last year, which was a huge year for frosh, we had 9 (the record during the Ivy surge was 11 in 2013 but only two of those played on the top three Ivy teams, whereas six and soon to be seven and possibly more will be playing for the top three Ivy teams this year).
The problem, as mentioned, is that for two bids, the time is now. We need more scalps, and in particular, we need Princeton to win at LEAST three-of-five against VCU, Cal, St. Joe's, Monmouth and Bucknell (and one of those MUST be against VCU or Cal). And Princeton needs Yale and Harvard to be Top 100 teams, such that a neutral-site loss wouldn't be a deal-breaker.
At any rate, let's see what happens over the next two weeks, and we'll know if we have any shot after the exam break.
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PennFan10
Postdoc
Posts: 3585
Reg: 02-15-15
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11-28-16 02:37 PM - Post#214248
In response to mrjames
I assume the scheduling rankings are as of today not combined? I have to think Penn's schedule is better than "average" by the end?
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mrjames
Professor
Posts: 6062
Loc: Montclair, NJ
Reg: 11-21-04
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11-28-16 03:50 PM - Post#214256
In response to PennFan10
Yep - schedule played to this point (w/no non-D-Is).
I think Penn's schedule will improve a hair, but not a ton, as they have a lot of home games and some against bad to really bad teams. KP's new SOS calc is based on weighting toward the average team played not just an equal weighting of all teams, so a team like Penn that plays a few really tough games and a lot of average (site-adjusted) games will likely wind up close to the national average in SOS...
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