By Mark Bennett
LARAMIE, Wyo. -- Maybe the Grinch created
the RPI.
Mid-major teams hoping to live among college
basketball's elite in March have two choices -- gain a NCAA Tournament
berth automatically by winning their conference tournament, or
play into the Christmas season against a rugged non-conference
slate of opponents in hopes of giving their national Ratings
Percentage Index ranking a jolt with some impressive victories.
Otherwise, once the twinkling holiday lights
have been peeled off the gutters and full-scale conference play
begins, RPI opportunities turn bleak for those teams. The RPIs
typically move less dramatically when the mid-majors begin playing
each other.
Indiana State has decided to take on the Grinch.
The Sycamores entered the weekend with the
stiffest schedule in the Missouri Valley Conference, according
to computer power rankings guru Jeff Sagarin of USA Today. According
to Sagarin, only 11 of the nation's 327 Division I teams had
a rougher schedule. The next toughest MVC schedules belonged
to Northern Iowa at No. 65 and Illinois State at No. 68.
Sycamore Coach Royce Waltman deserves credit
for running one of his least experienced teams through perhaps
the most difficult non-conference schedule in ISU history. Wednesday's
72-58 loss at Wyoming was a perfect example. Though the Cowboys
aren't high on the RPI charts now, they've played in the postseason
two of the last three years, and they don't lose often in their
Dome of Doom, where 7,676 fans who drove God knows how many miles
to get there loudly cheered them from start to finish whether
UW trailed or led.
Agreeing to play in that atmosphere -- 7,220
feet above sea level, no less -- probably took a tad bit more
courage than Michigan deciding to play a home game against Indiana-Purdue-Fort
Wayne.
And yet though none of Waltman's previous
four Sycamore teams entered Christmas with a losing record, he's
not blaming the rugged schedule for his current team's 2-7 predicament.
"I'm sure it was a little bit [of the
cause], and if we'd lost some of these games by close margins,
I might have second-guessed [choosing a tough non-conference
schedule]. We really don't have a gimme on our schedule,"
Waltman said during a rough three-game road swing from Drake
to Creighton to Wyoming. "But the way we're playing, I don't
think we can say that."
There isn't a marquee game on this season's
ISU schedule against Indiana or Purdue. But most of the Sycamores'
non-conference opponents know what it's like to play in March
. . . Valparaiso, Butler, Eastern Illinois, Murray State, Ball
State and Bowling Green.
And that's exactly what MVC Commissioner Doug
Elgin had in mind when he instituted a get-tough scheduling policy
for the league's 10 teams. Beginning this season, the three-year
average RPI for a MVC team's opponents must be 149 or better
if that school wants its share of a $500,000 incentive pool.
Rougher non-conference schedules boost RPI rankings and, in theory,
increase the MVC's chances of landing more than one team in the
NCAA Tournament.
ISU has met that scheduling standard. So has
Northern Iowa, facing the likes of Iowa, Butler and Iowa State.
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While watching Indiana State lose 70-46 at
Creighton last Sunday at Omaha, Elgin said it was too early to
tell if all MVC non-conference schedules are tougher in 2001-02
than last year.
"I'm not sure that we know that yet,
until we step back and analyze all the non-conference games we've
played," Elgin said. "What has seemed to happen is
we're winning games we might not have expected to win necessarily,
and we're having more losses against teams that we traditionally
have won games against."
For example, the MVC won five of its first
six games against Big 12 Conference teams this season. Southern
Illinois beat Indiana, just as Indiana State did last year and
the year before that. But Missouri Valley teams have also suffered
losses this season to solid opponents from rival mid-major conferences,
such as Butler, Eastern Illinois and Missouri-Kansas City.
Last season's Sycamore team beat Butler in
an overtime thriller. The current ISU squad lost by 20 to the
Bulldogs in Hinkle Fieldhouse. By contrast, teams that traditionally
finish near the bottom of the MVC such as Northern Iowa, Wichita
State and Drake are off to strong starts with victories over
in-state rivals from power conferences. The Panthers upset Iowa,
the Bulldogs surprised Iowa State, and Wichita State beat Kansas
State.
"I think you're going to see some of
the programs that were toward the bottom of our league the last
couple years building toward championship contention," Elgin
said.
Meanwhile, traditional frontrunners Creighton
and Indiana State are learning to play without former stars.
"I'm sure you'll see teams like Indiana State and Creighton
retool," Elgin said. "When you consider what those
two teams lost, the great seniors they had last year, naturally
you're going to see those teams in a rebuilding mode."
"Retooling" sounds more comfortable
than the real frustration Waltman and the Sycamores are feeling
as they actually live through this uncharacteristic situation.
In Wednesday's loss, though, the Sycamores made progress by working
to stay in the game after Wyoming began to pull away in the second
half. That hadn't happened in some earlier games.
If the league's usual upper tier of Creighton,
Indiana State and Bradley drop, the rise by Northern Iowa and
Drake may only thicken the middle of the MVC pack. Big Virginia
Tech transfer Rolan Roberts could lead Southern Illinois on a
runaway sweep of the conference. Improved as Northern Iowa and
Drake may be, they might also require 20 victories and a top-75
RPI ranking for a NCAA at-large berth. Right now, the Salukis
appear to be the Missouri Valley's only at-large possibility,
though they looked quite vulnerable in a lopsided 80-62 loss
at Colorado State last Friday.
So if Elgin hopes to achieve his goal of multiple
NCAA berths for the conference, the only chance might be if some
underdog knocks off the top seed in the MVC Tournament.
The Sycamores know how that process works.
And the fact that Waltman and his players brought winning basketball
back to Terre Haute with last season's MVC Tournament championship
and the Valley regular-season championship the year before should
be enough for their fans to show up for Saturday's Ball State
game. They deserve at least that much.
Besides, a win might boost their RPI.
Mark Bennett can be reached by telephone
at 1-800-783-8742, Ext. 377, by e-mail at mark.bennett@tribstar.com
or by fax at (812) 231-4321.
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