Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 15, 1990 TAG: 9003152093
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Bill Brill
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Virginia Tech's basketball coach wants to tone down his schedule. "I think we were overscheduled [this season]," he told Scott Blanchard of this newspaper.
The computer rankings in USA Today, provided by Jeff Sagarin, aren't exactly the ones used by the NCAA, but they're close.
Sagarin rates Tech's schedule 85th in difficulty, behind such schools as Butler, Pacific, Indiana State and Central Michigan.
Allen's real problem is that Tech (13-18) finished 142nd in the computer ratings, barely above the Division I midway point, and beneath the likes of Florida (7-21), Montana, Monmouth and Eastern Washington.
"Regardless of what other people think of the Metro Conference, I think it's damn good," Allen told Blanchard. "Our league is tough. When you're playing the kind of schedule we're playing outside of the league, it's damn tough."
That might have been true in the past, and likely will in the future if the Metro is a viable conference. But not this season, when the Hokies finished seventh in an eight-team league that was ninth in Sagarin's computer rankings.
That placed the Metro behind the Western Athletic and Big West conferences and barely ahead of the Southwest.
The Metro got two teams into the NCAA Tournament field - champion Louisville and Southern Miss, No. 77 on the Sagarin computer. Nobody on the NCAA's selection committee ever will say which was the final at-large team chosen, but Southern Miss was the lowest rated, a No. 13 seed.
Allen's team played a solid, but not overwhelming, schedule. The most legitimate beef the coach has concerns Georgetown, which Tech played for the second straight year at the Capital Centre in Landover, Md. He is accurate in stating the Hoyas aren't about to come to Cassell Coliseum.
All told, Tech played nine games against teams that will appear in the NCAA Tournament - beating Alabama by a point at home and losing to Southern Miss (three times), Louisville (twice), Georgetown, Richmond and Virginia. Only the first Southern Miss game and the Richmond game were close.
Allen wants to cut back on games against state teams. It says here that would be a mistake. The Hokies, playing in a league whose members don't inspire much interest hereabouts except for Louisville and Memphis State, sold out one home game - Bimbo Coles' finale. If the fans don't fill the Cassell to see state teams, imagine how they'd turn out for lesser foes.
Allen's problem is not the schedule, but his team, which was rated behind UVa, James Madison, Old Dominion and Richmond.
There is no comparison between Tech's schedule and the one played by Virginia, which annually faces some good non-league opponents. UVa was 9-6 against teams in the NCAA field, and its overall schedule rating was 19th. Not once did Terry Holland ever suggest that his squad was overscheduled, although he did talk about the constant challenge.
Outside the ACC, which had five NCAA teams and would have had a sixth if N.C. State had not been on probation, UVa faced Louisville and Houston at home, Villanova and Richmond on neutral courts and Vanderbilt and Marquette, two NIT teams with significant home-court advantages, in their buildings.
Allen would be better served if he had Lefty Driesell's attitude. JMU's coach, trying to promote interest in an improving program, played North Carolina, Oklahoma, Florida (when the Gators had Dwayne Schintzius and Livingston Chatman) and West Virginia, all away from home. The Dukes had just 10 home games, one of the lower totals in the nation.
After his team had lost to Richmond in the Colonial tournament final, Driesell - campaigning for the NCAA bid that didn't come - said his non-conference schedule had been ranked fourth-toughest nationally, "And I'd play the toughest if they'd play me."
Next season, Lefty brings LSU and Oklahoma to the Capital Centre, and you can be assured those games will: (a) draw; and, (b) be televised.
Lefty thinks big. He knows that to create interest, he's got to seek out the big boys.
Allen is talking small, and it demeans the coach and his program. He needs better players, not a softer schedule.
by CNB