Saturday, January 12, 2008

Strength of schedule

Bill Koch mentioned the Bearcats' tough schedule in a post today. He actually mentions how Mick talks about the non-conference schedule a lot. Let's go to Pomeroy's ratings.

He has Cincinnati's non-conference strength of schedule (NCSOS) at 55. Believe it or not, that's third in the Big East behind Syracuse (shocker, ey? ... they're at 25) and Depaul (35). The 55th hardest SOS may or may not initially be impressive, but when you compare it to the rest of the Big East teams, you see that a lot of them go with a really easy non-conference slate. West Virginia, Seton Hall, Rutgers, Villanova, and Notre Dame are all over 200 in NCSOS.

So, Mick is pretty spot on talking about his team's tough out of conference schedule. I mean, I know some people don't give a crap about strength of schedule and all of these different ratings, but I don't see how you can't at least acknowledge it in someway, especially if you accept the ratings.

Anyway, Cincinnati's overall SOS sits at 16 right now, and I'm guessing it's not going to go down much form here. This could be a big factor when selection day comes around ... of course, we've got a long way to go before really becoming a major player there.

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