NEW MATH: 15=25
By Don Harnum,
Director of Athletics, Rider University
A few years ago I offered up a new equation for college
basketball. With an emphasis on RPI, I thought it was
important to note that winning 15-17 games is really the
equivalent of winning nearly 25 games.
Translation: If you play your basketball outside one of
the proverbial power conferences, having a 15-plus-win
season is comparable because you don’t have the luxury of
“buy games.”
In no way am I crying foul. All of us fully understand the
landscape that of college basketball, but I don’t think a
lot of fans understand the terrain that most division I
college basketball programs travel.
For starters there is no luxury at this level of playing
poorly and still being able to secure a win. Now that
statement can also be applied to high profile schools,
once their conference seasons begin, but it’s a different
story through November and December.
Outside the BCS borders, the idea of bringing along or
working in your young players is simply not an option.
Easing players into new roles is a luxury that teams in
power conferences have, but not at our level.
When you are playing so many of these types of non-league
contests, you simply cannot afford to hold your younger
players back, in the hopes of easing them in. As a coach,
you are forced to give them immediate on-the-job training,
essentially throwing them into the water and seeing if
they can swim.
There are many high profile programs, probably too many to
count, that rarely play more than one road game before
they begin conference play in January. These programs have
the luxury of using various rotations and testing out new
sets.
If they produce a C+ or B- performance, that is very often
good enough, when playing at home, to earn a victory.
Smaller programs must have their A-game on display in
order to even have an opportunity to win.
And it comes down to schedules.
Whether people believe it or not, Rider vs. Marist is the
equivalent to St. John's vs. Seton Hall. Furthermore there
is no difference between the top team in the Big East
facing the last place team and the MAAC’s first place club
facing the league’s last place squad.
Everything is relative, once league play begins. But that
is not so in non-league play.
For the most part, programs at our level have to play a
number of guarantee games. You are guaranteed a pay day
and you are guaranteed little or no chance in coming away
victorious. That is the drill and we all accept that, but
there are many that follow the game that don't really
understand it.
Let’s use Central Florida’s Kirk Speraw as an example.
Kirk is in his 16th season at UCF. He has averaged just
over 15 wins per season. That might be less than
impressive to some, but if you look closer you will see
that he has taken his program to four NCAA Tournaments and
he has coached 17 All-Conference players. That’s an
average of one for every season he has coached.
That’s pretty impressive for someone that has never been a
head coach at high-profile program and there are countless
coaches with similar profiles. You probably aren’t
familiar with them because they don’t have gaudy records.
There are actually a lot of outstanding coaches with
win-loss records hovering just above or even below .500
because of the parameters in which they work. Having to
play four or five “buy games” every season usually adds up
to four or five losses before you get your first win.
Given how difficult it is to succeed in any conference,
consistently entering league play with a 2-6 record
doesn’t affect your conference standings, but it does put
you in the category of the “over-looked” should you go
onto a successful conference campaign.
It’s not uncommon for team’s to stumble into league play,
where they get things turned around and compete for a
conference title. Many would assume that it’s nothing more
than a case of that particular conference being weak. More
often than not, that is simply not the case.
Again, all of us understand and accept this is reality of
where we are coaching. Nobody is making excuses. But it
would be good to see some appreciation and understanding
for what a lot of programs have in fact accomplished.
Let’s use the guidelines established by CollegeInsider.com
Mid-Major Top 25. Of the teams that are eligible to be
voted into the weekly Top 25, 67 teams finished .500 or
better last season. Eleven won 20 or more games and
another twenty teams won at least 18 games. Aside from all
finishing .500 or better, all 67 teams share something
else -- none participated in postseason.
And that does not include teams from the Atlantic 10,
Conference USA, Mountain West and WAC, which all have to
deal with similar situations.
It’s very simple, 15 wins for small-profile programs is
the equivalent of 25 wins for a high-profile school. You
can try to argue that point with coaches outside the power
conference borders, but it's an argument you will lose.
That includes a former coach, like myself.
It may not sound like a workable equation, but I would be
happy to work that out on the blackboard for anyone
interested in paying attention.
