MBB: Landmark Conference

[Pat Coleman]

Even the bottom at-large teams are still better than many of the automatic bids out there, and there are more than 40 automatics.

[Matt Letourneau]

Gotta give congratulations to CUA's players as this tournament appearance is down to their hard work and determination throughout the season. After the debacle of last season, they came back determined to play better and more as a team and they accomplished that.

I have to say I was not confident CUA would get in, and I really hope their at-large birth does not confirm to the coaching staff that how they scheduled this year was good enough, as that would be a dangerous precedent to set. Also, just a curious question in case anyone knows, does the NCAA consider the games played on Thursday as "play-in" games per se? What I mean is does the NCAA look at CUA and say "you're one of the last teams in the tournament and so you get to play the #1 team in the country if you win." DO NOT take this as a complaint, as I have no problem with the draw as CUA was probably team 18 or 19 selected, I'm really just curious how the NCAA sees the teams for the Thursday games.

I think this is a little unfair in terms of SOS.  You are playing 16 league games, plus 1-2 league tournament games.  That doesn't leave a ton of games left for your non-conference schedule.  In Catholic's case, they always host a holiday tournament, so that's 2 more games, and one of those was a solid Guilford team.  They also played in the Hoopsville tournament, and that's 2 more non-conference games.  Quite frankly, they got unlucky.  Both teams they played end up underperforming, but that could not have been known when the games were scheduled.  Gwynedd-Mercy ended up having a decent year but not as good as it could have been.  Another 2 non-conference games were a solid DeSales team and a very good St. Vincent team on the road that ended up in the tournament. 

Sure, maybe you can argue that they shouldn't play a D-1 game to begin the season, but its a good experience for the guys, it helps recruiting, and a trip like they help brings the team together. 

I guess the point is that scheduling isn't an exact science, and its hard to predict months out exactly who is going to be good and who isn't, within reason. I'm not saying they should or should not try to schedule tough opponents, just that it isn't as easy as its made out to be.   

[Pat Coleman]

Gotta give congratulations to CUA's players as this tournament appearance is down to their hard work and determination throughout the season. After the debacle of last season, they came back determined to play better and more as a team and they accomplished that.

I have to say I was not confident CUA would get in, and I really hope their at-large birth does not confirm to the coaching staff that how they scheduled this year was good enough, as that would be a dangerous precedent to set. Also, just a curious question in case anyone knows, does the NCAA consider the games played on Thursday as "play-in" games per se? What I mean is does the NCAA look at CUA and say "you're one of the last teams in the tournament and so you get to play the #1 team in the country if you win." DO NOT take this as a complaint, as I have no problem with the draw as CUA was probably team 18 or 19 selected, I'm really just curious how the NCAA sees the teams for the Thursday games.

I think this is a little unfair in terms of SOS.  You are playing 16 league games, plus 1-2 league tournament games.  That doesn't leave a ton of games left for your non-conference schedule. 

It does leave nine games. That's pretty ordinary, to have nine or 11.

I think one of the issues is that you have to want to schedule to get into the tournament. There's evidence that CUA doesn't look at this stuff. (Hoopsville interview earlier this season.) I don't think you can afford not to look at the selection criteria and at least consider them.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

If anyone is following this... Leonard Trevino at Goucher has resigned after 25 years (along with Didi Cotton after ten years).

[ronk]

If anyone is following this... Leonard Trevino at Goucher has resigned after 25 years (along with Didi Cotton after ten years).

Coach Cotton didn't give me any inkling of this when I talked with her 2 1/2 weeks ago. Shakeup in the Landmark with 3 HC changes now.

[CardsFan]

If anyone is following this... Leonard Trevino at Goucher has resigned after 25 years (along with Didi Cotton after ten years).

That's too bad about Coach Trevino. I remember fondly those Goucher-CUA battles in the CAC in the late 90s and early 2000s. It's going to be strange seeing someone else patrolling the sideline for the Gophers. In regards to his resignation:

a) is it due to him being the coach for over 20 years and looking for something else?
b) was he looking for more support from the school administration and they didn't see things the same as him and so he resigned?
c) is the school administration looking to take the men's and women's programs in a different direction and so they decided to clean house, but allowed the coaches to "resign" rather than fire them?

The timing seems strange that both coaches would resign on the same day, both having been there for a long time.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Well... I don't know how much light I can shed on anything, especially officially, but I can give you my gut feelings:

- As much as it was a surprise, I think this was building. I think both coaches resigning seems odd, but both programs have been struggling. I wonder if this is a move by both to allow both programs to start fresh.
- The timing isn't quite the same day. I have learned Didi made the decision last week and Leonard made it yesterday.

I really don't think there is anything bad going on behind the scenes... I think it may be a mutual thing for all parties. These programs had been struggling for a long time (men had two winning seasons since they last made the NCAA tournament in 1999 and the women hadn't had better than a seven-win season under Didi) and I think all parties appreciated the fact the programs' history was a distant memory.

[CardsFan]

Gotta give congratulations to CUA's players as this tournament appearance is down to their hard work and determination throughout the season. After the debacle of last season, they came back determined to play better and more as a team and they accomplished that.

I have to say I was not confident CUA would get in, and I really hope their at-large birth does not confirm to the coaching staff that how they scheduled this year was good enough, as that would be a dangerous precedent to set. Also, just a curious question in case anyone knows, does the NCAA consider the games played on Thursday as "play-in" games per se? What I mean is does the NCAA look at CUA and say "you're one of the last teams in the tournament and so you get to play the #1 team in the country if you win." DO NOT take this as a complaint, as I have no problem with the draw as CUA was probably team 18 or 19 selected, I'm really just curious how the NCAA sees the teams for the Thursday games.

I think this is a little unfair in terms of SOS.  You are playing 16 league games, plus 1-2 league tournament games.  That doesn't leave a ton of games left for your non-conference schedule.  In Catholic's case, they always host a holiday tournament, so that's 2 more games, and one of those was a solid Guilford team.  They also played in the Hoopsville tournament, and that's 2 more non-conference games.  Quite frankly, they got unlucky.  Both teams they played end up underperforming, but that could not have been known when the games were scheduled.  Gwynedd-Mercy ended up having a decent year but not as good as it could have been.  Another 2 non-conference games were a solid DeSales team and a very good St. Vincent team on the road that ended up in the tournament. 

Sure, maybe you can argue that they shouldn't play a D-1 game to begin the season, but its a good experience for the guys, it helps recruiting, and a trip like they help brings the team together. 

I guess the point is that scheduling isn't an exact science, and its hard to predict months out exactly who is going to be good and who isn't, within reason. I'm not saying they should or should not try to schedule tough opponents, just that it isn't as easy as its made out to be.   

I completely agree that scheduling is far from an exact science, evidenced this year especially by what happened with injuries to Purchase and Gwynedd-Mercy not having the season many expected.

My feeling about the scheduling is that after 8 seasons of Landmark play, the CUA coaching staff HAS to know that conference play will do them no favors in the SOS department (this season 5 Landmark teams finished with SOS below .500, and still only 3 teams could finish the season with a winning record). To compensate, they have to do better out of conference. Guilford was a good opponent, but they scheduled a York (Pa.) team first that is 17-59 over the last 3 seasons, so it's no surprise that they were poor, along with W&L and Frostburg, neither of whom have had a winning season since 2011. I would like to see CUA start playing the teams at the top of the CAC (e.g. SMCM, Salisbury, CNU).

The option the coaches seem to have chosen though, is to put all their eggs in the basket of winning the conference tournament. Unfortunately, on the evidence of Saturday, that doesn't seem a consistent, viable option for success at the moment. So the options would seem to be a) raise the level of play to begin beating Scranton consistently, or b) make the team as good a Pool C candidate as it can be year in and year out by improving SOS out of conference.

Also, I'm not suggesting CUA go full Tampa Bay Rays and hire a full-time analytics department, but Coach Howes' comments about not paying any attention to the "numbers" is naïve at best, and someone there needs to change that starting next season. No guarantees that a .506 SOS will consistently get to the table come Selection time.

[CardsFan]

Well... I don't know how much light I can shed on anything, especially officially, but I can give you my gut feelings:

- As much as it was a surprise, I think this was building. I think both coaches resigning seems odd, but both programs have been struggling. I wonder if this is a move by both to allow both programs to start fresh.
- The timing isn't quite the same day. I have learned Didi made the decision last week and Leonard made it yesterday.

I really don't think there is anything bad going on behind the scenes... I think it may be a mutual thing for all parties. These programs had been struggling for a long time (men had two winning seasons since they last made the NCAA tournament in 1999 and the women hadn't had better than a seven-win season under Didi) and I think all parties appreciated the fact the programs' history was a distant memory.

Each school is different. I'm perfectly okay with schools having athletics and not pouring resources into making them national or regional contenders. That's for each school's administration to decide what they want to be. I'll be interested to see what path Goucher takes in "starting fresh." I just hope it was a mutual decision.

[Matt Letourneau]

I really need to address this because the myth keeps perpetuating.

I implore everyone--CardsFan, Pat, D-Mac, to please go back and listen to the interview with Coach Howes in which he supposedly indicated that he pays no attention to "numbers" because the comments he made do not imply in any way anything close to what has been insinuated.

If you won't do that, then I will paraphrase.  He was asked a question at the end of the interview, which occurred a week before the Regional Rankings were released, about how he thought the Cardinals would fare.  Quite frankly, it was sort of an afterthought, and his response was basically to laugh it off, make a joke about math, and say that he hoped they would fare well but right now he's not paying much attention to it because he's trying to coach his time.  I really don't know what he's supposed to say there.  It was not the place--at the very end of a 20 minute interview--to launch into a treatise on his scheduling philosophy.  He was politely trying to say "I'm not going to guess, it doesn't do me any good, but I think I have a good team and hopefully the rankings will reflect that."

How we got from there to Pat Coleman citing "evidence" that "CUA doesn't look at this stuff" when they schedule is beyond me.  Coach Howes most certainly never said that.  Again--please--just go listen to it yourself if you don't believe me.

The fact is that if a few of the teams that were on this year's schedule had played as well as everybody expected, we would never be having this discussion because Catholic's SOS would have been much better.  But it wasn't that great, a few of the teams had bad seasons or weren't quite as good as expected, and here we are. 

[Pat Coleman]

Well, I took it on Dave's word. Maybe it was an off-camera conversation or maybe it took place at the Hoopsville Classic or at Catholic's game at Goucher. I'm not privy to everything in Dave's head (thank goodness!) but he talks to Howes more than I do. Maybe more than you do, too, I don't know.

[NEPAFAN]

Cards and Royals both ranked this week.


DMAC when is the Trevino story going to be official via news release?

[CardsFan]

I really need to address this because the myth keeps perpetuating.

I implore everyone--CardsFan, Pat, D-Mac, to please go back and listen to the interview with Coach Howes in which he supposedly indicated that he pays no attention to "numbers" because the comments he made do not imply in any way anything close to what has been insinuated.

If you won't do that, then I will paraphrase.  He was asked a question at the end of the interview, which occurred a week before the Regional Rankings were released, about how he thought the Cardinals would fare.  Quite frankly, it was sort of an afterthought, and his response was basically to laugh it off, make a joke about math, and say that he hoped they would fare well but right now he's not paying much attention to it because he's trying to coach his time.  I really don't know what he's supposed to say there.  It was not the place--at the very end of a 20 minute interview--to launch into a treatise on his scheduling philosophy.  He was politely trying to say "I'm not going to guess, it doesn't do me any good, but I think I have a good team and hopefully the rankings will reflect that."

How we got from there to Pat Coleman citing "evidence" that "CUA doesn't look at this stuff" when they schedule is beyond me.  Coach Howes most certainly never said that.  Again--please--just go listen to it yourself if you don't believe me.

The fact is that if a few of the teams that were on this year's schedule had played as well as everybody expected, we would never be having this discussion because Catholic's SOS would have been much better.  But it wasn't that great, a few of the teams had bad seasons or weren't quite as good as expected, and here we are.

Matt, I went back and listened to Howes' interview again while I still don't completely agree with you that he was just "laughing it off", I will admit that I had forgotten that the interview was before Regional Rankings had been released and so he did not yet know how CUA's numbers would compare with the rest of the region. So in the small picture of this season, you are 100% right that the team was unlucky with Gwynedd-Mercy and Purchase and if they had been at full strength all season, the numbers would have been better. Also, with so little experience returning this season I'm not sure scheduling a real tough non-conference would have been wise.

My comments are more aimed at the larger, season by season, picture. The team still needs to schedule better. I'm fine with playing a D1 opponent as an exhibition that doesn't count towards W-L. I'm 100% against it as long as it counts. Over the last 3 seasons in games that CUA had control of scheduling they've only played Randolph-Macon (twice), DeSales (3x), Dickinson, and Guilford that directly help SOS. Games against Transylvania, St. Mary's, and Eastern Conn. were not scheduled by CUA. I wonder if the team would have played opponents of that quality left to their own devices?

I would keep DeSales (even though neither team can win in the other's gym), consistently put at least 1 team that's better than CUA in their holiday tournament, minimize games against teams that have had multiple 20-loss seasons in recent history, and personally, I would like to see them play the other programs in the MD-VA area. Stevenson is much improved, St. Mary's is always good, and Salisbury appears to be on the rise. These teams are all reasonably close.

Yes I realize it sounds real good in print here and it is very, very difficult to schedule consistently and I'm glad it's not me having to do that work. Going forward, CUA has 2 fewer non-conference games to play now, so they become even more important as long as Coach Howes continues to pursue his stated goals of 20 wins and an NCAA appearance every season.

[Pat Coleman]

Cards and Royals both ranked this week.


DMAC when is the Trevino story going to be official via news release?

It's in our Coaching Carousel:
http://www.d3hoops.com/notables/coaching-carousel

[Matt Letourneau]

Well, I took it on Dave's word. Maybe it was an off-camera conversation or maybe it took place at the Hoopsville Classic or at Catholic's game at Goucher. I'm not privy to everything in Dave's head (thank goodness!) but he talks to Howes more than I do. Maybe more than you do, too, I don't know.

I don't believe that was the case. If its going to be repeated as gospel across multiple shows and platforms...then...its not asking too much to be sure that's actually what was said.