I use to work at Murray State, and they try to create their schedule in sports for recruitment advantage of students as well and cost of travel. MSU recruits students (not athletes) in pretty much a 5 state region (IN, IL, MO, TN, KY) because of where we are located in the western part of the state we are just about as close to those state capitals as we are our own. With that in mind they would rather play UK, Mizz, Illi, TN, etc because it will be shown locally in those markets for sure and help in getting the name out to students in that region who may have never heard of Murray. That is why the football team has played UL, UK, Mizz, Memphis, etc. Not completely sure why the b-ball team hasn't played most of those teams, but I doubt it is due to MSU being scared of getting beat by any of them. I mean if UL beats Murray it isn't going to hurt Murray any now is it?
Murray State - NIT
- Thread starter Free_Salato_Blue
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Other small school/mid majors schedule each other & find a way to play a quality schedule, which begs the question...
Is it just Murray State that all these teams are supposedly scared of?
Murray is not like other mid majors. They have 28 straight winning seasons - behind only Syracuse, Kansas, and Arizona. ESPN ranked them as the 28th best basketball program over the last 50 years - ahead of such programs as Florida, Illinois, Notre Dame, NC State. They have beat 3-4 seeds on 2 occasions and took Mich State (1 seed) to OT - closest a 16 has ever come to beating a 1.
Scheduling quality non conference games is tough when non of the major schools are going to come to Murray and non of them want to risk a loss to Murray on their home floor when their conference schedule is hard enough.
Is it just Murray State that all these teams are supposedly scared of?
Murray is not like other mid majors. They have 28 straight winning seasons - behind only Syracuse, Kansas, and Arizona. ESPN ranked them as the 28th best basketball program over the last 50 years - ahead of such programs as Florida, Illinois, Notre Dame, NC State. They have beat 3-4 seeds on 2 occasions and took Mich State (1 seed) to OT - closest a 16 has ever come to beating a 1.
Scheduling quality non conference games is tough when non of the major schools are going to come to Murray and non of them want to risk a loss to Murray on their home floor when their conference schedule is hard enough.
MSU has passed the "eye test" every time I have seen them play, even when they lost to Belmont, which was a fluke.
Agreed. They caught Belmont on a night where it seemed like they could close their eyes and still hit threes.
I wasn't kidding when I said if Belmont had shot that well against Virginia they would have won. Belmont hit 15 3's against Murray, some mildly contested, some heavily contested. They only hit 8 against Virginia and it wasn't necessarily due to better perimeter defense. They missed some WIDE OPEN looks from their best shooters. Taylor Barnette went 1-7 on the night and is a 40% 3-pt shooter... That resulted in an 8 point loss in a game that was even closer than that number suggests.
Belmont had a similar shooting performance to the Virginia game when they played Murray the first time (although they hit 11 threes) and Murray ran away with it in a 20 point blowout. Barnette was 5-10 in that game, but it didn't matter because Murray had it under control. Obviously I'm not saying Murray is better than Virginia, but I am suggesting that these top OVC schools aren't the weak mid-majors that everyone thinks they are.
Imagine if UL had to play the Big West regular season champ UC Davis instead.
UC Davis beat Irvine by 20 in both meetings.
UC Davis beat Irvine by 20 in both meetings.
It's easy to pass the eye-test when you play the following teams (last 10 games)
(RPI 105) Belmont
201 Morehead
177 Tn Martin
173 E Illinois
318 Austin Peay
289 SEMO
292 SIUE
304 Jacksonville State
Seriously, they've played exactly one game vs. the RPI top 100 since November. One. Florida has played 23 in the same time frame. I wonder how good they'd look in the eye test playing that level of competition.
OVC is a good league. Everyone has already talked about Murray and Belmont. EKU plays a style that allows them to beat most anyone if they are hitting threes (like Miami-FL). Of course, the flip side of that means they can lose to the likes of Florida Atlantic, Jacksonville State, and Tennessee Tech. They were like second in the nation in turnover margin, only West Virginia had a better margin. They probably should have beaten Murray in Murray in the regular season, Murray ended up winning by like 7 in OT.
Morehead could physically bang with anyone, they were within an eyelash of upsetting Murray in the OVC tournament semifinals. Eastern Illinois and UT-Martin had very good years.
Top half of the SEC is 7th or better..Murray could probably do that. I wouldn't say "easily", but they are definitely the caliber of an middle of the road SEC team, like Tennessee, Vandy, or Florida were this year. Payne is a future NBA player, he is probably the best player on the floor most nights, even in the NIT late rounds.
The OVC is doing so well in the CIT this year (the tournament Murray won last year) that they put EKU and UT-Martin paired against each other in the quarterfinals in Richmond for tomorrow night. Hopefully EKU can win the CIT and Murray can get to New York and do some damage.
Morehead could physically bang with anyone, they were within an eyelash of upsetting Murray in the OVC tournament semifinals. Eastern Illinois and UT-Martin had very good years.
Top half of the SEC is 7th or better..Murray could probably do that. I wouldn't say "easily", but they are definitely the caliber of an middle of the road SEC team, like Tennessee, Vandy, or Florida were this year. Payne is a future NBA player, he is probably the best player on the floor most nights, even in the NIT late rounds.
The OVC is doing so well in the CIT this year (the tournament Murray won last year) that they put EKU and UT-Martin paired against each other in the quarterfinals in Richmond for tomorrow night. Hopefully EKU can win the CIT and Murray can get to New York and do some damage.
I think Tulsa was 46 rpi, and MSU just beat them by like 25 and their starting pg hardly played the 2nd half. Just like you probably get mad when other fans say that UK hasn't played anyone since December because the SEC is weak...which looking at how well the SEC did in the tourney is true.
They also won all of those games, along with just beating #96 UTEP and #85 Tulsa (Pomeroy rankings) by an average margin of 18 pts. So there's two Top 100 teams within a week and they smoked them both... Not to mention Florida suffered a 12 point loss to #213 Missouri just a few weeks ago.
You can bash on them for their non-conf schedule if you want, but there's nothing they can do about the teams in their conference except win every game, and that's exactly what they did. After their loss to Valpo in November, their chance at an at-large bid was officially over. Just two weeks into the season, it was already settled that they had to win the conference to get in. Missing starters for injuries, a couple bad games, or whatever it may be that cost them games in those first two weeks set the table for the rest of the season. While the 25 game winning streak was great, it didn't matter in the least. They could have lost them all and it wouldn't have changed anything because if they win the OVC tourney they are in, and if they lose it they are out. The rest of the season was just a filler to get them to the week that mattered in terms of making the NCAA tourney, and they couldn't get it done.
This post was edited on 3/24 3:26 PM by UKCatsFan10
As a UK fan, I couldn't care less how "the rest of the SEC" fared in the tournament.
One flaw in your argument is that, while the SEC is weak, it's still on a different level than the OVC.
Another is that UKs non conference schedule included Kansas, UCLA, North Carolina, Texas, Louisville & Providence...
So, MSU129.....you were saying?
One flaw in your argument is that, while the SEC is weak, it's still on a different level than the OVC.
Another is that UKs non conference schedule included Kansas, UCLA, North Carolina, Texas, Louisville & Providence...
So, MSU129.....you were saying?
The NCAA does not require conferences to play tournaments. Conferences decide to play a tournament. Mid major conferences have the choice not to play a conference tournament or not. The Ivy League is the last conference not to go to a conference tournament. The Big Ten was the last major conference to go to one (I believe in the late 90's).
This is actually an excellent point and example.
I think the majority of the people in this thread that are arguing in favor of Murray have acknowledged they see why MSU did not make the tournament based on the selection criteria.
My argument is that Murray is a better team and would (not could) beat numerous at large teams that made the field. Some of you can spew all the metrics you want, but Murray is more than good enough to be in this tournnament. If you have watched them (I suspect many arguing against them haven't) and still say they are not good enough, then you don't know anything more about basketball than what you can look up online.
A
anon_013cn8yrfncx2
Guest
"After the Belmont loss, the house built on sand crumbled and everyone saw through them."
Is this the same Belmont who, after all, turned out to be quite competitive with UVA? We understand the numbers argument but to suggest they somehow don't pass the eye test has to be agenda driven.
Is this the same Belmont who, after all, turned out to be quite competitive with UVA? We understand the numbers argument but to suggest they somehow don't pass the eye test has to be agenda driven.
These games are honestly completely irrelevent to whether or not Murray deserved to be in the NCAA tournament. If Murray State wins the NIT, they still don't deserve to get into the NCAA. All that matters is their resume on selection Sunday, unless they win their conference tournament. Just like I still don't feel UCLA deserves to still be playing in the NCAA tournament, no matter what they do will change my mind.
And you really shouldn't compare the OVC to the SEC. One is at least a high major the other is a low major. Murray had their chance against 3 slightly below average teams and went 1-2.
If Vandy and Murray keep winning they will play. I will be cheering for MSU with every ounce of energy I can muster. I think Vandy will handle them relatively easy. The Murray guards are probably better, but the problems with most OVC teams when competing with high major teams is the quality of the bigs. MSU will have no answer for Jones. I hope I am wrong and I will come on here and eat crow.
Would likely be a great game. I'd take Murray honestly, although Vandy has played well at the end of the year. Their guard duo of Payne and Sapp is incredible, but you are right about the bigs. That would present a problem for them, but primarily just on the defensive end as far as limiting offensive rebounds and second chance points. Murray doesn't rely on scoring in the paint much, and has 4 guys that all shoot 38% or better from 3 with 50+ makes on the year from each of the four. Last night they only had 12 points in the paint and scored 83 on the game.
Would be an interesting game to watch. Could be a revenge game for Vandy from 2010.
yes it is, and unlike way too many college teams these days, Murray State is FUN to watch! They do not fool around.
Murray takes on Old Dominion tonight.
Monarchs beat VCU earlier this year and LSU by 9 on a neutral court.
Guess we'll see the Racers metal.
G'luck Racers
Monarchs beat VCU earlier this year and LSU by 9 on a neutral court.
Guess we'll see the Racers metal.
G'luck Racers
The discussion as to whether or not the Racers should/shouldn't have been in the NCAA tourney is over. They have a team worthy of being in the tournament. They don't have a resume worthy of being in the tournament. They are better than multiple teams that are in the tournament, but the NCAA isn't about getting the 68 best teams. It's about getting conference winners and then teams that deserved to get in. The Racers didn't qualify for either of those metrics.
That said, ODU is currently holding on to a 23 game home winning streak, so I think a win by the Racers tonight would certainly be impressive. They have proven themselves this season, so it's not like they need this win to validate that they are a good team, and whether they are better than VCU or LSU doesn't matter. Sure, those teams couldn't win when they went to ODU so it's the best metric we have to go by, but we are back to cross comparing scores which is a marginal method at best.
That said, ODU is currently holding on to a 23 game home winning streak, so I think a win by the Racers tonight would certainly be impressive. They have proven themselves this season, so it's not like they need this win to validate that they are a good team, and whether they are better than VCU or LSU doesn't matter. Sure, those teams couldn't win when they went to ODU so it's the best metric we have to go by, but we are back to cross comparing scores which is a marginal method at best.
Ah man why do you have to be my Debbie Downer?
LaTech is also getting a rematch vs Temple tonight.
They also are regular season C-USA champs but lost in their tourney to UAB.