Scheduling Haze

I reached out to my Latvian hackers the other day to see what schedules they could dig up for me as I work through the haze of what programs will be doing in the fall. It’s been hard to get much out of them lately as they seem to be concentrating on a ransomware project involving some nation’s electrical grid. I don’t pay them much so all I can say is best of luck to them in their new endeavors. They did work some overtime for me and managed to throw me some information. Typically, this is where I launch into critical analysis of team’s schedules and explain all of the ways they are doing it wrong. Occasionally I’m nice but there is so little fun in that. For this article, I was mainly interested to see what they travel looked like from an overall perspective in the West Region. In the next week or so, I’ll take a look at other regions and see what they look like. I’m also constructing a list of tournaments that are being played and, at some point, I’ll need to release that information.

My Latvian team found 14 schedules and a couple more where the IT department must have cut the feed during transfer so we only got a partial list. Not half, but a good chunk. Focusing on just general information in this article, I was initially concerned with what I was seeing in the ASC and then a lack of quality teams in some of the tournaments. As I dug through things more it all kind of evened out and I felt better about things. The other thing that struck me was how multiple schedules conflicted with other schedules. So, where we might have a team claiming to play at one school, when you check the other school, you see that they are playing a tournament out of state. I guess what I’m saying is that coaches need to be double-checking their matches. On the other hand, this should all be kind of expected in a (hopefully) post-pandemic world. There are going to be problems with travel and putting tournaments together and even when you think you have a confirmed match something could come up and change.

I did get schedules from a mix of teams and, like I wrote, I really don’t mean for this article to go into specifics. I was surprised to see a team with a poor record this spring make a trip out for a tournament. On the flip side, I was surprised that the tournament (normally a strong one) didn’t have a strong lineup other than the host. The strength of schedule impact if that tournament goes off as planned for the host could be problematic come selection time. I did see a few schedules from top programs in the West (and could piece together others) and it does appear that they will be traveling for tournaments, which is vital for NCAA Selection in our region.

Maybe I should focus more on some of the tournaments that I could piece together. One of the bigger tournaments that impacts the West Region is the East/West Challenge. The original four programs (CMS, Cal Lu, Emory and WashU) will resume the tradition on September 10^th. It looks like Saint Benedict will be part of the tournament at the expense of Juniata. Trinity will also be playing as they do every year. Good to see this important tournament on the schedule. Trinity looks to be hosting a couple of tournaments with their second one bringing in Chapman and Cal Lutheran (and Northwestern). Chapman is definitely a program I will write about in the future so I’m really thrilled they are travelling this season as they have a really good chance at selection if they take care of the wins and losses. One wacky little tournament that got me excited (too much) was Whittier’s. They are bringing in a bunch of the NWC schools and it really looks like an NWC/SCIAC Challenge. It’s not going to help nationally but it’s going to help regionally rank the two conferences. It’s going to be interesting to see if these types of tournaments help the West Region come selection time or not. I’ve advocated for an ASC/SCAC Challenge in the past where you pit your best teams against each from both conferences. Thank you to Whittier for a little case study to be evaluated at a later date. The Pacific Coast Classic (typically hosted at CMS, La Verne and Pomona-Pitzer) looks to be good for this year. Wis.-Oshkosh will be in the house and I hope Ricky Nelson will be allowed on the trip.

I only saw three NWC schedules but all three were traveling so that made me happy. Their Oregon Trail Tournament seemed a little iffy, however. I have reported in the past how some tournaments were struggling to bring teams in and this tournament typically has a tougher time than others. I saw it on one of the schedules but it included Mills College, who I don’t think is playing anymore, so it may have been a placeholder.

I didn’t see many SCAC schedules but could piece things together. Looks like my Pirates will be at UT-Dallas on the 10^th (did I mention that was my birthday). Looks like Carnegie Mellon and Aurora will be there, too, so a nice national exposure to that one. LeTourneau also looks to have an invite and frankly that’s a huge step for that program in their rise. Good to see especially when Kianna Crow has promised me in the past, she wouldn’t allow her team to beat my Pirates. (I think that’s how the conversation went.)

Overall, I think some teams will take a step back in the fall and play closer to home but a number of the top programs are traveling and that’s what I wanted to see. I’ll try to see what I see in some of the other regions and firm up these tournament invites in the weeks to come. I may do a couple of specific schedule posts for teams I’m interested in but only if I can keep it positive. Frankly, just looking over what I have now, there really isn’t a team that’s upsetting me.