the president looking at horror

The president and first lady confront the realities of Towson basketball.

Iona is this year's controversial selection for the NCAA tournament. They booted Drexel and a few other schools based on their nonconference strength of schedule despite Drexel playing better in a better league—the CAA is Kenpom's #13 conference, the MAAC #20—and seeming to have a shinier resume. At some level, this is well and good. Teams should be punished for scheduling cupcakes.

It's just that… well…

When you look at the actual resumes instead of simply the non-conference strength of schedule, Drexel trumps Iona in just about every way possible. But they "only" played Cleveland State, Virginia, St. Joseph's, Princeton and six cupcakes ranked 200th or worse in RPI in non-conference, while Iona played Purdue, Marshall, Nevada, St. Joseph's, Long Island and four teams ranked 200th or worse.

…the NCAA's SOS measure took that data and spat out #43 for Iona's nonconference SOS and #222 for Drexel's. This seems deeply flawed, but when you hop over to Kenpom to see the Real Numbers, he's got the exact same gap. Iona is #36, Drexel #213.

Now let's look at three teams' nonconference schedules ranked from toughest to easiest. Each of these teams went 9-3 in the twelve games listed. Losses are in italics. Tourney teams are in bold with their seed in parens after:

DREXEL			IONA			MICHIGAN
KP	Team		KP	Team		KP	Team
26	Virginia (10)		24	Purdue (10)		9	Memphis (8)
65	Saint Joseph's		65	Saint Joseph's		17	Duke (2)
82	Cleveland St.		74	Marshall		26	Virginia (10)
89	Princeton		78	Denver		30	Iowa St. (8)
104	Fairfield		105	Richmond		48	UCLA
202	Rider		112	Nevada		133	Arkansas
213	Norfolk St. (15)		120	Vermont		156	Oakland
237	Niagara		124	Maryland		174	Western Illinois
257	Winthrop		165	Long Island		268	Bradley
268	Bradley		181	Western Michigan		327	Arkansas Pine Bluff
308	St. Francis PA		221	Hofstra		338	Towson
343	Binghamton		287	William & Mary		340	Alabama A&M

Which of these teams has by far the strongest nonconference schedule? Michigan. Drexel and Iona played one team capable of acquiring an at-large bid each; Michigan played four plus a middling Pac-12 team and not so good SEC team. From the perspective of the good teams that expect to get in the tournament, any differences at the bottom are meaningless.

Is Michigan's nonconference SOS a lot better than both these teams? No.

Is it better than Drexel's atrocious number? Barely. Michigan has the #181 nonconference strength of schedule to Kenpom, #173 to the NCAA($).

The reason for this is the bottom end. Michigan didn't just play some bad teams, they played some unbelievably bad teams. Towson won once all year. The two SWAC teams weren't even good SWAC teams: Alabama A&M went 7-21, Arkansas Pine Bluff 11-22. These SOS measures just jam a bunch of wins and losses together without taking the fact that there's not much difference between 1-31 Towson and 18-14 Western Illinois from the perspective of the tourney aspirant being evaluated. This places a high priority on avoiding truly wretched teams in favor of merely bad ones.

This isn't just a matter of concern for potential at-large bids. Missouri almost fell to off the two line because their nonconference SOS fell apart:

When asked about Missouri's status as a potential 1-seed following the revealing of the bracket, Hathaway said, simply, that they were not only out of consideration for a No. 1, but they were the lowest-ranked No. 2 because of their strength of schedule. It didn't matter that they had as many wins (11) versus the RPI Top 50 as anybody else in the Field of 68; it only mattered that they didn't try hard enough to schedule better teams in non-conference … even if, technically, they had.

That's Bill Connolly arguing that the NCAA should dump NCSOS from consideration. Sippin' on Purple has a similar argument. I agree that the model needs to change. Either dump it entirely and eyeball it or to a probability-of-victory model where a random collection of 5'9" guys from nowhere is functionally equivalent to an organized collection of 5'10" guys from nowhere. Calculate an average tournament team's average record against a collection of nonconference teams and use that as your SOS metric.

If that happens, great. Until it does Michigan should learn from the tables above and adopt the following policies:

• Never play a team from a conference that never gets off the 16 line. Looking at you, SWAC.
• Don't play a team coming off a 4-26 year. Towson, other completely terrible nonentities under 300 from random minor conferences.
• Do schedule quality programs from minor conferences. Find out who's supposed to be the first, second or third place team in conference X and play them. Oakland is actually a fantastic matchup here for SOS purposes. Michigan should play more MAC teams than no MAC teams. If you're going to play a mid-major, make it a mid-major.
• Play Notre Dame annually. This has nothing to do with anything. It's just that Michigan should play ND every year. I don't understand why this doesn't happen.

It is true that Michigan's had some narrow escapes against middling or worse teams in tourney years (Harvard by 3 last year, the vague threat when WIU got within four right at the end this year, OT against Savannah St in 2009), but the first two tourney teams were bubble battlers. Going forward Michigan hopes its teams are going to be big and athletic enough to crush poor competition without much thought.

If Michigan thinks it's going to be a big dog as soon as Little Big Dog and company arrive next year, it should schedule like a big dog should. Aim higher with your cupcakes and get the boost. Even if it only gives Michigan a higher seed every once in a while, it's a low-cost way to up the program's profile. Schedule smart by playing teams who'll have shiny records against dodgy competition by the end of the year. The dogs have got to go.