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The Other Annual January Column

This week I take my annual look at schedule issues. The full list of intended schedule strength numbers is online; here are the top twenty:

      All            Non-conf
Rank SoS   SD    Rank SoS   SD   Team

  1 115.0  7.1     2 113.3  6.9   UCLA
  2 113.9  7.5     1 113.5  7.9   Long Beach State
  3 113.7  8.3    11 111.0  8.2   Stanford
  4 113.4  7.0     7 112.1  6.1   Southern California
  5 113.2  8.0    12 110.9  7.4   California
  6 112.8  6.3     6 112.1  7.1   Cal State Fullerton
  7 112.7  7.0    16 110.0  8.0   Cal State Northridge
  8 112.2  6.4     8 111.9  5.3   UC Riverside
  9 112.1  6.9    22 108.9  8.6   Georgia
 10 112.0  7.1    13 110.5  8.4   Baylor
 11 111.9  9.2    25 108.5  8.9   Arizona State
 12 111.3  7.0    18 109.9  8.5   Texas
 13 111.2  7.5    24 108.5  6.6   UC Irvine
 14 110.9  9.6    29 107.5 10.6   UC Santa Barbara
 15 110.9  7.3    23 108.8  6.9   Pacific
 16 110.9 10.9    36 106.8 11.4   Arizona
 17 110.8  7.1     9 111.2  7.8   Loyola Marymount
 18 110.8  7.0    10 111.0  7.6   San Diego
 19 110.6  7.2    32 107.2  6.7   Texas A&M
 20 110.5  8.0    34 107.0  5.4   Washington

For the first time in a while, USC West is not playing the toughest schedule in the nation. An SEC team actually cracks the top 10 this year, although it's not the usual suspects, as LSU is taking the year off to regroup or something (OK, it's not that extreme, but their schedule has been downgraded a bit this year).

The ten toughest non-conference schedules:

 1. Long Beach State
 2. UCLA
 3. Rice
 4. San Diego State
 5. Nevada-Las Vegas
 6. Cal State Fullerton
 7. Southern California
 8. UC Riverside
 9. Loyola Marymount
10. San Diego

As usual, the non-conference series that the Pac-10 teams play against each other (I mean it, cut that out; you're hurting yourselves by limiting your number of opponents) aren't counted here, so adjust mentally as needed.

Teams with the highest standard deviation in their opponent strength (who are therefore harder to rate):

 1. Mississippi Valley State
 2. Savannah State
 3. Western Illinois
 4. Washington State
 5. Kansas State
 6. Florida A&M
 7. Manhattan
 8. Oral Roberts
 9. Jackson State
10. Virginia

Finally, the 25 teams most likely to be overrated by the RPI:

 1. Northeastern
 2. New York Tech
 3. Columbia
 4. Holy Cross
 5. Rutgers
 6. George Mason
 7. Delaware
 8. South Florida
 9. Brown
10. Wake Forest
11. Hartford
12. Georgia Tech
13. William and Mary
14. Virginia Commonwealth
15. Towson
16. Pittsburgh
17. Pennsylvania
18. North Carolina
19. James Madison
20. Harvard
21. Georgia State
22. East Carolina
23. Virginia Tech
24. Maryland-Baltimore County
25. Connecticut

And the most likely to be underrated:

 1. Western Illinois
 2. Santa Clara
 3. Nevada
 4. Hawaii
 5. Fresno State
 6. UC Davis
 7. Washington State
 8. Cal State Sacramento
 9. Gonzaga
10. Cal Poly
11. UC Santa Barbara
12. New Mexico State
13. Pacific
14. Southern Utah
15. Washington
16. Loyola Marymount
17. San Jose State
18. Brigham Young
19. Oregon State
20. San Francisco
21. St. Mary's
22. Utah
23. Utah Valley State
24. Cal State Fullerton
25. Portland

There's an interesting twist to this list this year. In past years, it's mostly consisted of Western teams, which it still does. However, in past years, it was more likely to be the big-conference Western teams. We seem to be moving toward a point, as is somewhat referenced below, where at least the bigger Western teams have the money and incentive to travel and diversify their schedule some, although the second tier is still being left behind.

The most exciting thing about this season's schedule is something that's worthy of its own column, one which is going to be a bit complex -- there's more interregional play on the board this year than any time before, and therefore it's possible that the Left Coast teams may start being treated more fairly. The RPI's still broken, but teams may be learning to work around it.

Boyd's World-> Breadcrumbs Back to Omaha-> The Other Annual January Column

About the author, Boyd Nation