November and December will deliver eleven teams to the doorstep of conference play. Several are in the earliest stages of wholesale rebuilding projects, a couple are consensus locks for the upper tier of the conference and late March dancing, and then there is a vast middle scrum of teams of significant, but more elusive potential that will make this year’s Big Ten race a fascinating spectacle. Time will tell many tales as we move into winter, but several teams will enter the new year with at least one distinct advantage over their conference brethren.
The Role Of Smart Scheduling
The teams that have challenged themselves with quality pre-conference scheduling will have an early leg up. And those that have largely ducked tough competition, while in some instances a justified protection for fragile, youth-laden rosters, will find the jump from multi-directionals and Cadwalladers to serious competition uncomfortable if not demoralizing.
In a conference where a team’s ability to snatch a few big wins on the road is the factor that separates the wheat from the chafe, it seems a wise strategy to use November and December, in part, to plop your developing ballclub into a few hostile environments. Whether in victory or defeat these kind of early road tests are team unifying, team clarifying experiences that pay exponential dividends for the season to come. As the obvious logic goes, the fastest way to get better is to keep good competition.
The Gold Standard
The perennial gold standard of muscular non-conference scheduling is Tom Izzo’s Michigan State. This year’s gauntlet included the recent visits to one of the nation’s toughest home floors at Bradley followed by this weekend’s trip to the thin air of Salt Lake City for a date with another NCAA caliber club in BYU. Consider also the Spartans’ regular participation in a quality early tournament. This year it was the CBE Classic where his team faced a ruthless back-to-back against Missouri (in Kansas City) and UCLA. In a few weeks they resume the standing annual reservation with Texas.
Granted, Izzo has a championship caliber roster this season, but this kind of rigorous early scheduling is typical even with his less inevitable teams. This year’s version has answered the challenge with mostly wins, but in past seasons it has sometimes meant the Spartans rang in the New Year with more than a few bruises. And by the end of the season it can sometimes result in an Izzo team that has double digit losses.
This fact sometimes causes certain fact-challenged pundits to undervalue the Spartans’ NCAA tournament resume. But an Izzo team with double digit losses is routinely proven to be better than many other teams with more lopsided win totals. Or to put it another way, an Izzo team with twelve losses was always far superior to one of Amaker’s Michigan clubs even when the final records were similar. Izzo scheduled heavyweights, Amaker preferred fattening up his win totals with patsies.
Silver And Scrap Metal
While no other Big Ten coach schedules with the same ferocity as Izzo, there are several who understand the value of throwing their teams to the wolves a few times in the first two months. The invitation to Maui is less elective, but Weber’s Illini will benefit from the outings there against Arizona State, Duke, and Oklahoma State. The Arizona loss Saturday, while hard to stomach, and the upcoming resumption of the series with Missouri, are also the kind of games that have and will be extremely important teaching and development tools.
Similarly, Indiana’s contests against Xavier (in Chicago) and at Southern Illinois, Ohio State’s recent trip to Hinkle Fieldhouse, Purdue’s game at Missouri, and Wisconsin’s regular tilt with Marquette are fine pieces of scheduling that have or will speak volumes about the Big Ten ballclubs in question.
Considerably less impressive, in addition to Amaker’s soft scheduling at Michigan, have been the recent and current non-conference slates at Minnesota and Iowa. Further indictments of the program leadership of Dan Monson and Steve Alford, both programs have made a habit of feeding on a pre-Big Ten diet of empty calorie creampuffs. This year’s Iowa and Minnesota under Lickliter and Smith are in rebuilds and will benefit from the lighter early loads. Assured, too, is that both new coaches will correct the scheduling deficiencies as their programs make strides.
Also still a fragile program after seven years, Carmody’s Northwestern typically lards its first two months with plenty of fat, including a now two-year tradition of playing a Division III school. Until Carmody notches an NIT bid, which would be monstrous for this program, his strategy may be merited. But it does often make for some rough adjustments to Big Ten play in January.
Izzo did pick a couple good fights against Bradley and BYU (although I may not feel the same way if we had lost!). I really like MSU’s nonconference schedule this season. Not just the usual 2-3 top-10 match-ups–some good mid-level teams, as well. I think it will serve the team well in conference play.
Left by spartanblogger on December 9th, 2007