Winning at Iowa and losing to Indiana is better than losing to Iowa and beating Indiana
It just is..why are you arguing this
It gives another q1 win as opposed to q2 and gives a quality road win
1-11 on road is a major red flag. Ive been doing this for years. It would be giving the committee a reason to leave a team out
Also not sure why you are bring up favorites and underdogs..that has nothing to do with selection...except that beating better teams builds your resume which means you need to win games you werent suppose to. RU has o e of those...SHU...it needs one on the road
There is no red flag with road losses unless the team is expected to win.
There is a human element to the selection, it's not punching keys on a keyboard and watching games matters.
Here's where you and I differ, not because of lack of knowledge or anything, it's as if you are looking for the bogeyman around the corner.
A) First it was Eugene's transfer killing the team's chances for a successful season.
B) then it was the notion that RU getting transfers, always results in a dud.....(Jacob Young shattering that notion this year)
C) Then it was the lack of OOC scheduling because you cannot rely on the B1G scheduling, as if the B1G consistently puts out a subpar product every other year....The league has sent 7 or more teams in 8 out of the last 9 seasons.
D) In the one season out of the last 10, you keep referencing Nebraska's OOC and trying to tell fans that RU is somehow in this category....compare the 2 schedules when Nebraska went 13-5 and look at the margin of victory, Q1 opportunities, what were the results in their 13-5 record that have any comparison to anyone else's schedule in the B1G this year.
E) then it was completely no acknowledgement about Yeboah fitting better in this lineup than Eugene, how the sophomores wouldn't somehow get better from last year to this year.....or it was lack of recruiting......or something else thrown on the wall to stick....
I am not an apologist for what is going on, I am very confident and happy with the progress and remain optimistic that we are at a minimum, 1 full season AHEAD of anyone's metrics or schedule as far as where the program is with recruiting, performance, player development, crowd attendance (Another sold out game) and overall momentum.
ALL of these factors result in positive press regarding the program, the coaching staff, perception of the program. To focus on a potential negative, instead of the positive items already achieved, doesn't make sense to me.
And while you don't believe metrics like pointspread don't matter, when a team covers 7 out of 8 or consecutive games in a row, that means it's exceeding someone's expectations on performance, whether it's losing by 12 instead of 15 at Michigan State or crushing the teams that many would have signed up for splits with 1 win and 2 losses with (Wisconsin, Seton Hall, Penn State). There's a reason someone picked RU 12th in the preseason, to act as if we weren't, doesn't make sense to me either.
I am not afraid of failure and embrace the learning curve of playing with expectations of winning now, home and away. I feel confident now that when we take the floor, we are improving, while playing better competition. While ignoring that or referencing what happened 2 or 3 years ago seems to be the trend, my point of view is as long as RU plays strong at home and respectable on the road, no sane person is going to look at say "well, they didn't go to Purdue, Illinois, MSU and Maryland and win, therefore, let's knock them down 3 notches...."
if there were other B1G schools picking up multiple road wins left and right, I would agree with you....until that happens, I think it's foolish to keep harping on it, especially when RU already has a conference road win, under their belts in the win column.
