Syracuse, N.Y. ― The Syracuse Orange basketball team has gotten off to a 4-0 start to the season thanks in no smart part to having played four low- to mid-majors.
Syracuse’s wins over Binghamton, Delaware State, Drexel and Monmouth compute to an early schedule that ranks 361st out of 365 Division I schools.
The question has been raised as to whether SU’s early slate of games have prepared the Orange for the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas. The Orange will open the 18-team event on Monday against No. 2-ranked Houston followed by a Tuesday game against No. 24 Kansas.
Syracuse coach Adrian Autry and the Orange players have said that they feel ready to go up against some of the nation’s best after feasting on some of the nation’s worst.
But Syracuse isn’t alone in its approach to early season scheduling.
In fact, a majority of the teams in the Players Era Festival have followed a scheduling path of least resistance that’s similar to the one that Syracuse plotted out to begin the season.
Fourteen of the 18 teams in the Players Era field, including Syracuse, have non-conference schedules that currently rank 200 or higher, through games played on Thursday, Nov. 21, per KenPom.com.
Of those, six have schedules rated 300 or higher. The six schools are: Creighton (332), Notre Dame (342), Tennessee (348), Iowa State (351), Syracuse (361) and Rutgers (364).
Alabama is the only of the 18 teams in this year’s Players Era with a non-conference schedule that currently sits in KenPom’s Top 100. The Crimson Tide’s schedule was at No. 7 nationally as of Friday morning. Alabama began the year against North Dakota, but subsequently kicked things up several notches with games against St. John’s, Purdue and Illinois.
Michigan (112), Kansas (169) and Gonzaga (170) are the only other Players Era teams with schedules currently 200 or better.
The schedules appear to be the result of schools and conferences taking a measure of how to approach the NCAA’s metrics, which reward efficiency numbers and also Wins Above the Bubble.
Schools have learned that it doesn’t pay to play games against solid (i.e. dangerous) mid-major programs and risk losing or winning by slim margins. It’s better to enhance one’s efficiency metrics by blowing out a weak opponent.
Secondly, there’s a distinct benefit; and not as much of a risk, to scheduling games against other power programs. A win is a huge boost to a school’s resume, while a loss is not devastating.
That’s why 13 teams in the Players Era have played either none or one games against a team ranked in KenPom’s Top 100.
Gonzaga and Alabama have each played three games against Top 100 teams. They are the only teams with three such games, which is interesting because Alabama and Gonzaga will meet in the tournament’s opening session on Monday.
In addition’s the Players Era Festival’s promise of at least $1 million to each participating school to disperse as NIL payments to the players, the tournamant has attracted a stacked field as these schools look to bolster their schedules with three good games in a neutral court environment.
Every single one of the 18 teams in the event currently sits in KenPom’s Top 100.
The NCAA won’t release its initial NET rankings until early December, but if the NET comes close to resembling KenPom’s numbers, it’s possible that every matchup in the Players Era Festival will go down as either a Quad 1 or Quad 2 for both teams.
According to the NCAA’s quadrant system, which the selection committee uses to select and seed teams in the tournament, a neutral court game against a team with a NET between 1 and 50 is considered a Quad 1 game.
A neutral game against a team with a NET between 51 and 100 is Quad 2.
So no matter how the schools arrived in Vegas, the odds are that their schedule ranking will look a lot better when they leave.
The only question then is will they leave with only improved numbers on their schedule or will they also be returning home with some valuable wins in their pockets?
