In this section I just want to focus on the non-conference portion of the schedule for each MIAA team. What you'll see is the schedule by dates, within those you'll see ' * ' which denote in-region games. I'll point out the best and worst opponents and why. At the end you'll see each schedule will get a 'score', a number on a 1-100 scale with 100 being the highest or toughest possible. The difference in highest and lowest possible scores is just taking into account tournaments where the opponents are not yet set.
I could explain the math but I'll take the Paul Ryan approach and say it would take too long to explain. Its actually fairly simple, probably not all that accurate and open to quite a bit of fluctuation given that its trying to guess how good an opponent will be this season based off last. In other words just take it with a grain of salt and realize I was just kind of looking for a general idea.
Adrian
Nov. 16 vs Otterbein* @ WoosterNov. 17 @ Wooster* or vs Carnegie-Mellon*
Nov. 20 @ Sienna Heights
Nov. 24 @ Marygrove
Nov. 26 Michigan-Dearborn
Nov. 28 Mt. Union*
Dec. 1 @ Carnegie-Mellon*
Dec. 17 Northwestern Ohio
Dec. 22 @ Lawrence Tech
Dec. 29 vs Mt. Union* @ Defiance
Dec. 30 @ Defiance* or vs Finlandia*
* denotes in-region games
Best opponents and why: @ Wooster, the Fighting Scots figure to be one of, if not the favorite in the NCAC and will once again be among the strongest programs within the Great Lakes Region. If that game doesn't take place its probably @ Defiance. I have Defiance in a group of teams right in the middle of the HCAC fighting for playoff spots, and if that game doesn't take place it would be Mt. Union, a middle of the OAC team. Its a pretty big step down from Wooster to the next toughest.
Worst opponent and why: Lawrence Tech is resurrecting its basketball program after nearly 40 years on the shelf. The Southfield, MI school will be a very young and inexperienced squad.
Adrian has the added bonus of potentially playing Cargenie-Mellon and Mt. Union twice each. This is never ideal but at least these games are in-region.
Overall impression: For a team with some designs on winning an MIAA Championship this is a very weak schedule. None of the D3 squads on the schedule will be challenging for their league's respective titles other than Wooster. In fact I think its more likely than not that Otterbein and Carnegie will be at or near the bottom of their leagues and Finlandia will be Finlandia, not very good. Three of their 4 NAIA opponents finished at the bottom of the WHAC and Lawrence Tech is in its first year and will most likely finish at the bottom of the WHAC.
The biggest positive is Adrian landing 6 in-region games and more importantly not just 6 games but potentially 5 winnable in-region games. This will benefit not only Adrian but also the MIAA reps come NCAA time.
On my scale of 100, the best possible schedule score is 48.1, lowest 41.8
Last year by comparison: 58
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Albion
Nov. 16 Manchester*Nov. 18 Wabash*
Nov. 24 @ Franklin*
Nov. 25 vs DePauw* or Purdue-North Central @ Franklin
Nov. 28 @ Heidelberg*
Dec. 1 Elmhurst
Dec. 8 Kenyon*
Dec. 18 North Park
Dec. 20 @ Spring Arbor
Dec. 28 Chicago @ CWRU
Dec. 29 @ Case Western*
* denotes in-region games
Best opponents and why: Wabash, @ DePauw, @ Spring Arbor and Chicago. A case could be made for each though some questions unanswered for each as well. Each should be in the top 3 or 4 of their respective conferences though doubtful any will win that conference.
Worst opponents and why: Purdue-North Central doesn't do well against most D3 programs, there's no reason to think they would this year. If that game doesn't take place its either Heidelberg or North Park, take your pick. Both programs were last and next to last in their respective conferences. I'd probably lean towards Heidelberg.
Overall Impressions: I like this schedule. Albion's not going out of their comfort zone much in either direction, there's a lot of games they can win here, and probably 3 or 4 potentially frustrating losses. But come MIAA time the Britons should have a decent idea of where they are as a team against similar to themselves competition which is most of the MIAA.
Albion also has either 6 or 7 in-region games, although frustratingly Chicago, North Park and Elmhurst are not among those. Adding to that I think their strength of schedule should be very good, which in the end benefits everyone.
I am pleased to see Spring Arbor return to the schedule after a one year break. 13 miles apart with similar founding histories, they should be playing each other.
On my scale of 100, the best possible score is 65.5, lowest 60.9
Last year by comparison: 70.9
Alma
Nov 16. vs. Capital* @ WheatonNov 17. @ Wheaton
Nov 24. Ohio Northern*
Nov 25. Heidelberg*
Nov 28. @ Defiance*
Dec 1. Baldwin-Wallace*
Dec 8. @ Oberlin*
Dec 15. Spring Arbor
Dec 22 @ Cornerstone
Dec 28 @ Case Western*
Dec 29 vs Chicago @ Case Western
* denotes in-region games
Best opponents and why: Capital in game one, the Crusaders should be the favorite in the OAC and will be among the Great Lakes Regions better teams. Or, Baldwin-Wallace who I have right behind Capital in the OAC.
Worst opponent and why: Oberlin has been a weak D3 program for a number of years, though marginally better last year they'll still be at the bottom of the NCAC.
Overall Impressions: Geez! This is one tough schedule for a 6th place MIAA team. Alma should only be favored in maybe 3 games and the rest of their opponents should be around or just below Hope and Calvin in ability.
Alma bagged themselves 7 in-region games which for Alma is a lot and probably the most in this in-region era. Trouble is, Alma will probably lose a lot of them so there won't be much benefit for the league other than a team playing a strong schedule and the added score comparisons. But if they do win more than 5, the rest of the MIAA should take notice.
Alma was fairly competitive with John Carroll and Baldwin-Wallace a year ago but I don't see this schedule as one the Scots can navigate without 5 losses. As opposed to Albion the Scots may be biting off more than they can chew. Tested? Yes!
On my scale of 100, the best possible score is 73.6
Last year by comparison: 59.1
Calvin
Nov. 16 Grace BibleNov. 17 Cairn or North Park*
Nov. 20 Anderson*
Nov. 23 vs Aquinas @ Hope
Nov. 24 vs Cornerstone @ Hope
Nov. 27 @ Manchester*
Nov. 30 @ Wheaton
Dec. 1 vs Carthage @ Wheaton
Dec. 8 @ Finlandia*
Dec. 28 vs Wabash* @ Elmhurst
Dec. 29 @ Elmhurst or Ripon
* denotes in-region games
Best opponents and why: Wabash, Wheaton or Cornerstone. The two W's are probably good but rebuilding and Cornerstone should be good but not the best the WHAC has to offer. In the end Carthage may actually end up being the best but that's a big maybe. On paper though, Calvin should be better than everyone on this schedule.
Worst opponents and why: If the Knights lose the opener to Grace Bible it will surely be Cairn (formerly Philadelphia Bible) but since that won't happen its probably Finlandia with North Park a close-ish second. Bonus points for making a 10 hour trip in December to Hancock, Michigan for a game you'll probably win by 30.
Overall Impressions: Hosting your own tournament and missing the opportunity to make sure you get an in-region game with North Park is a little, well, crazy. Cairn is a softball for North Park but what if.......and Calvin misses the tournament and that one extra in-region win could have been the difference.
Also note the Knights will have 6 weeks between their Dec 20 game hosting Anderson and their first MIAA home game in early January. Everything in between is on the road.
This schedule is pretty similar to last season with an added in-region game or two and if Calvin is the tournament team they believe they are you can never have too many of those in our back pocket. Because the strength between last year and this is so similar if the expected improvement in Calvin basketball is there it should show up in the record and fairly early.
This one has some good tests and challenges though probably missing any NCAA tournament teams and is low on the cupcakes, its about what you should expect from a top line program.
On my scale of 100, the best possible score is 72.7, lowest 69
Last year by comparison: 71.8
Hope
Nov. 16 vs College of Faith @ North CentralNov. 17 @ North Central*
Nov. 23 Cornerstone
Nov. 24 Aquinas
Nov. 30 vs Carthage @ Wheaton
Dec. 1 @ Wheaton*
Dec. 7 Covenant*
Dec. 8 Spring Arbor or Grace Bible
Dec. 20 vs Mississippi College* @ Orlando, FL
Dec. 22 vs Illinois Wesleyan @ Orlando, FL
Dec. 29 Aurora*
* denotes in-region game
Best opponents and why: North Central is the CCIW favorite and will be going for a third straight conference title. Illinois Wesleyan the CCIW #2 favorite and because of epic double-overtime recent game played. I'm also going to add Mississippi College, the Choctaws are heading to D2 and have 22 players on their roster who spent time at either another college or junior college. Reminder to Hope fans of Ohio Dominican who Hope also caught the year before they headed to D2 Maybe a similar situation, but if not, strike this.
Worst opponents and why: College of Faith and that shouldn't even be debated......like maybe ever. If that game isn't counted like it should, then Covenant gets the nod, a recent D3 addition.
Overall Impressions: Hope has five in-region games which is more than most years. They should be applauded for their trip to North Central and for grabbing Mississippi College and Covenant, two schools way, way far away that have no business being in-region games but for some reason are.....I'm sure someone somewhere will find a reason to criticize this.
While not as overall strong as last year (not even close actually) it still contains about 7 pretty challenging games. Once again more than half of these opponents should be better than 3/4's of the MIAA. Unfortunately it contains a cupcake that other cupcakes consider a cupcake and that is a big drag on the overall score. Without that College of Faith game this schedule is about 5 points higher in difficulty.
On my scale of 100, the best possible score is 68.1, lowest 66.3
Last year by comparison: 88.2
Kalamazoo
Nov. 24 vs Manchester* @ EarlhamNov. 25 @ Earlham*
Nov. 28 @ Oberlin*
Dec. 1 Chicago*
Dec. 2 North Central*
Dec. 5 @ Bluffton*
Dec. 9 Case Western*
Dec. 13 @ Defiance*
Dec. 19 @ DePauw*
Dec. 21 vs York, Pa. @ Rhodes
Dec. 22 vs Knox* or @ Rhodes*
* denotes in-region game
Best Opponents and why: North Central is the CCIW favorite and will be going for a third straight CCIW title. After that I think its DePauw and Chicago, top 3 or 4 of their respective league teams.
Worst Opponent and why: Earlham has won a total of 10 games the last 4 seasons, just 2 last season.
Overall Impressions: Once again Kzoo pulls in the prize for most in-region contests among the MIAA. Its a challenging schedule for the Hornets one made even more so with all the question marks surrounding a coaching change.
Kzoo will play a diverse group of D3 programs from conference Champion and Atlanta hopefuls all the way down to bottom of the region teams. Strength wise I think its similar to last year, so it should be a good measure of just how much they'll miss Joe Prepolec.
I'm not crazy about the no game between Christmas and their first MIAA contest. It would seem difficult to jump right into conference play after a nearly 3 week layoff.
On my scale of 100, the best possible score is 63.6, lowest 61.8
Last year by comparison: 62.7
Olivet
Nov. 16 @ Central MichiganNov. 17 @ Mt. St. Joseph*
Nov. 18 vs Thomas More* @ Mt. St. Joseph
Nov. 20 @ Union, Ky
Nov. 24 Purdue-Calumet
Dec. 4 @ Spring Arbor
Dec. 9 @ Illinois Tech
Dec. 12 Lawrence Tech
Dec. 15 @ Bethany*
Dec. 17 @ Baldwin-Wallace*
Dec. 28 vs Marygrove at The Palace of Auburn Hills
* denotes in-region game
Best Opponents and why: Hey Chris Coles congratulations on being hired at Olivet, your first game is against Central Michigan. Oh and you get to play 4 games in 5 days, in 3 different states to start your career. On the D3 side of things the back-to-back games at Bethany and Baldwin-Wallace figure to be tough, both should be challenging for their respective conference titles.
Worst Opponent and why: Illinois Tech and Lawrence Tech are both resurrecting dormant basketball programs, neither figures to be very good. Purdue-Calumet should consider going dormant, no really they shouldn't be good.
Overall Impressions: Uh yeah, this schedule is tough to understand what was trying to be accomplished. Its never a great idea to play a real game against a D1 at this level. But to then take your team on the road the very next day almost 400 miles away and play the next two days seems almost suicidal. The game at Union should finish the job.
In between the weirdest road trip I've seen and 2 games with Bethany and Baldwin-Wallace is a stretch of 4 games in which they play 3 teams that would normally be considered cupcakes. But when you're coming off a season where you were the cupcake having a chance to win some games probably isn't a bad thing.
The Comets end up with 4 in-region games, 2 are near certain losses and I'm sketchy about the other two. In-region won't matter much for Olivet and they probably won't help the league much. Olivet's schedule was much too difficult for them last year, even with D1 CMU added its been toned down quite a bit this year. Olivet could get 5 or 6 wins if things go really well.
Bonus points for the most interesting game of the year being played at The Palace against Marygrove. I have no idea how this was pulled off but congratulations on what should be a cool experience. The Pistons play the Miami Heat afterwards......I'll leave out commentary on which should be the better game.
On my scale of 100, the best possible score is 52.7
Last year by comparison: 72.7
Trine
Nov. 16 @ Heidelberg*
Nov. 17 vs Miami-Middletown or Akron-Wayne @ Heidelberg
Nov. 24 @ Earlham*
Nov. 25 vs Manchester* @ Earlham
Dec. 1 North Central*
Dec. 4 Wabash*
Dec. 8 @ North Park*
Dec. 14 Mt. Vernon Nazarene
Dec. 17 @ Franklin*
Dec. 28 vs PSU-Behrend* @ Otterbein
Dec. 29 vs MSOE or @ Otterbein*
* denotes in-region game
Best Opponents and why: North Central makes their third appearance as a best opponent, if you don't know why by now you haven't been paying attention. Wabash, while rebuilding should still be pretty good. Miami-Middletown, they won 26 games last against a lot of schools I've never heard of, probably shouldn't be here but 26 wins is 26 wins I guess.
Worst Opponent and why: Earlham has won 10 games total the last 4 seasons. But, Akron-Wayne is the same level as Miami-Hamilton and did not win 26 games.
Overall Impressions: The D3 portion of this schedule is actually pretty balanced with North Central at the top, Earlham at the bottom. But everyone else should be on about the same level as Trine. I don't think Trine is reaching for wins here, they should do well against this schedule.
The nine in-region game are nice to have especially if Trine ends up an improved team over last season. I especially like the game with PSU-Behrend, one of two Great Lakes Region teams from the AMCC. Nice to have a comparative score there.
Overall though this schedule might end up being a touch weak and I'll think they wish they had a couple games more against a little higher level competition.
On my scale of 100, the best possible score is 60, lowest 51.8
Last year by comparison: 52.7
Lets stack those ratings up to each other
Alma 73.6
Calvin 72.7-69
Hope 68.2-66.3
Albion 65.5-60.9
Kzoo 63.6-61.8
Trine 60-51.8
Olivet 52.7
Adrian 48.1-41.8
Looking at it this way its easy to see why I'm so disappointed in Adrian's weak schedule and so impressed with Alma's. These two should be reversed and no one would question either.
Overall, strictly by points this years schedules are a touch weaker for the league although Hope and Olivet account for nearly 125% of that drop itself. So maybe not for the rest of the league.
Here's what the league has done out of conference since 2005, I think somewhere between 45 and 50 wins seems reasonable. Under 42 wins I might start to worry.
Year W-L W%
2005 46-38 .548
2006 52-34 .605
2007 27-51 .346
2008 34-44 .386
2009 35-46 .432
2010 38-50 .432
2011 43-43 .500
2012 44-43 .506
Breaking it down
vs HCAC 13 scheduled, potentially 15
vs CCIW 12 scheduled, potentially 14
vs OAC 9 scheduled, potentially 10
vs NCAC 8 scheduled, potentially 10
vs PAC 2
vs UAA 7 scheduled (all Chicago, Case Western, Carnegie-Mellon)
vs oth D3 7 scheduled, potentially 11
There is an increase of about 12 games vs D3 competition this year and its spread out pretty evenly across our neighbor conferences. Its still very frustrating to see most of our games against D3 have to come vs opponents outside the Great Lakes Region.
The biggest news is the staggering increase in in-region games. Last year the league played 33 games that counted as in-region, in 2013 the league will play 51 or 52 in-region games. A stunning increase from a year ago. Every MIAA team has increased the number of in-region games this year.
Why? Beats me, my only guess is the coming change to a 70% minimum for all D3 games to count is forcing the hand of many athletic directors to get out there and schedule in-region games. Lord knows with 11 non-conference games to fill, MIAA teams are available.
Time will tell if this is just a one year aberration or if there is genuine collaboration between the conferences going on here that will continue to help MIAA teams get in-region games. Its not going to be easy, ever, and we'll rarely see a team fill its full schedule with D3 or in-region games. With having to fill 11 games and a virtual black-hole of D3 opponents available the first 3 weeks of December its just always going to be tough.
I'm encouraged by this years increase, but in the long run its still going to take an awful lot of creativity for certain schools to get those coveted games on the schedule.
What to watch for
- Watch those in-region games, those are the most important for everyone
- Nineteen games against NAIA, most winnable
- The first weekend features games against Capital, North Central, Wabash and potentially Wooster. All high profile match-ups
- MIAA/CCIW Challenge goes across the lake to Wheaton this year where Hope/Calvin have not fared well. These games could be the difference in a winning or losing overall conference record
- Watch for improvement in Calvin's overall record, if its not there...panic. Please panic.
- I won't get excited about anything Adrian does until the MIAA season, unless they beat Wooster
- If Alma wins more than 5 non-conference games you would be wise to take note
- Hope is not going 11-0 or 10-1 out of conference this season, just put that thought to bed right now. But if they do, the rest of the league should panic.
- Trine's W/L record probably won't really tell you much about them
- Albion will be better because they are Albion, they could also go 5-6 because they are Albion
- Above .500 or bust!
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