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SeMO at YSU
chezmustache:
A couple of comments related to previous posts.
On the topic of YSU’s talent level, at one time I bought into the idea YSU was limited in its basketball recruiting potential by geographic location, its character as a regional institution, budget, culture as a football university, etc. These concepts were offered primarily by previous unsuccessful coaches (Stroia, Robic). The basketball success of Akron, Kent State and Cleveland State under the same or similar circumstances argued otherwise. Each has been to the NCAA tournament in the past two decades, Akron (and perhaps others) multiple times. The success of the YSU women’s program on a national level, when well coached, convinced me the aforementioned criteria were not determinant of success at Youngstown.
Coach Calhoun proved he knows what he is doing on the court. The most glaring remaining element is recruit identification and ability to convince to attend.
On the topic of YSU’s winning nonconference record, let’s take a closer look. They defeated North Carolina Central (Sagarin ranked 318 of 352 Division I universities), USC Upstate (Sagarin 331), Robert Morris (Sagarin 298) and SEMO (Sagarin 316). All Division I bottom 20% teams. A couple of the wins were close games. Let’s not be fooled by the team’s performance against an inordinately weak schedule as an indicator of success. Scheduling this many poor performing teams did not occur by accident. Not to be lost, the Penguins were defeated by Western Michigan (Sagarin 236).
YsuPride:
Under Slocum we lost some of these games. Shooting is killing us this year. in years past we were always a decent shooting 3-point team we've always been bad at free throws but the three pointers are concerning. The Horizon League stinks so we have a shot at finishing in the top four or five. Unfortunately our recruiting is not being helped by the piss poor conference we are in. Horizon League went from a mid-major to a low major in last couple of years. I believe we only have five or six wins against the MAC Conference and almost 20 losses against the Mac. Losing Butler Valparaiso and Loyola big time. We replace them with piss-poor teams.
mudclods:
I really don't think it was intentionally scheduling bad teams. USC Upstate & NC Central were part of the Global Sports Shootout with Louisville & Akron. All 4 teams played each other. Robert Morris is generally an annual game, which are usually very competitive. And this is the 2nd straight year we'll play Binghamton. The MAC games are always a good test.
When Coach Calhoun was hired he had said he wanted to play a strong non-conference schedule. He had even said he didn't like the DIII games, but the Westminster game is a good fit.
The key is to see improvement. Obviously did that last year in league play and now this should be our best non-conference season in years. YSU was predicted to finish 6th in the pre-season poll. I really think we should be at least 5th.
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