After watching Neb-Minnesota last night I think we all can all agree that winning on the road against decent competition is tough no matter how good you are. So just for fun imagine us as a full time Big 10 or A10 member who played 18 league games in both (half in the ARC). We would also have to imagine a random selection of home vs road opponents and which teams we might have to face twice.
What do you believe would have been our best case and worst case records in both?
I'd say BiG worst 5-13 best 9-9. For the A-10 I would say worst case 8-10 and best case 12-6. Thoughts?
Way too many variables here. I will exclude the top 3 teams at the moment (IU, UM, and OSU) and I think 6-12 sounds about right. I am thinking they win one of the three I have marked as questions.
MSU (H/A) L/L
Wisco L/L
Ill L/L
Minn ?/L
Iowa ?/L
Purdue ?/L
Nebraska W/L (this data point exists)
NW W/W
PSU W/W
OK I get it. Not enough specifics leads to nobody wanting to respond. Now I obviously do not think that being a member of either the B10 or A10 is either realistic or desirable but if we had been able to take our deep veteran team against great competition on an equal playing field (half the games at the ARC) we would have had some level of success. What that level of success would have been for this one season is the purpose of this topic.
So say for B10 we have Ind, PU, Wis, Minn, NWU, and Neb both home and road while playing Mich St, Ill, and Penn St on the road and Mich, Ohio S, and Iowa at home. By doing it this way I have already revised my top win number down to 8 but my minimum win number might now be at 6 instead of 5. No I do not think that an 8-10 record with this bunch of seniors would be that much of a dream.
For the A10 lets say for old times sake that we play Butler and Xavier both home and road, while playing VCU, LaSalle, UMass, Charlotte, Richmond, George Wash, and Fordham away while SLU, Temple, St Joe, Dayton, St Bon, R.I., and Duquesne come to the ARC. Looking at this schedule I would revise my original best result estimation down to 11-7 (from 12-6) and leave my worst case at 8-10.
There are no wrong answers so feel free to jump in with your take on it or maybe you can all line up and take turns calling me a fool. (again) Whatever.
I just don't see Valpo surving the grind of the Big 10. They might have had a better record than Penn State, but that's about it. The Big Ten is just so strong this year, with so many good teams night in night out.
This question is excellent.
I tend to agree with milan re: the Big Ten. I think we would be no better than 3-15 (winning one against Nebraska, a home game against a mid-level team, and a huge upset against a top team). As for the A-10...we would beat Butler at least once (we have their number!) and would probably finish around 9-9.
I really don't think that this year's team could do any better than the stats above. They don't have the quickness or strength to survive the Big Ten, and they turn the ball over far too much to be a force in the A-10. However, I never thought Butler would be atop the A-10 this year...but Clarke has been one of the top guards in the nation, and that's all it took to put Butler ahead. I only wish that our transfers were even remotely as good as Clarke. I think Peters and Yeo will display Clarke-esque shooting prowess in a couple of years. I can't wait to see them play together.
If you're looking for a comparison to Yeo, watch number 4 Jarran Young on Tuesday night. He's the most comparable player to Clay Yeo (size, athleticism, shooting) to any player in the league.