And I apologize if I overreacted to your initial post.
Again, however, you seem to be playing sample size games with your "we've lost 6 of 8 road games." We won the two before that, making us 4 and 4 in conference road games last year, and .500 on the road in the ACC is actually pretty darn good.
Of our four late road losses last season, three of them were to top 10 teams, and only one (Clemson) was a train wreck. We were not a bad road team last year.
Are we a bad road team this year? I don't know. I agree with other posters who have said neither the Wisconsin loss nor the Georgia Tech loss were bad losses. But even if we are a bad road team, I don't believe it's because K scheduled only one pre-conference road game instead of two. That's only my opinion, of course.
Fun (and admittedly OT) facts:
Only eight coaches in the history of the ACC have career winning records in road conference games.
Of those eight, seven coached at UNC or Duke. Two coached at schools other than UNC or Duke (not a misprint!).
Coach K is fourth on the list at 129-85 (.603). Roy Williams is first at 33-16 (.673), though I'm betting he'll be behind Vic Bubas (46-23, .667) after this year.
Dean Smith, the career leader in ACC victories, won at a nearly 25% higher clip at home (.838) than on the road (.591) in conference games. (K's winning %s are .783 and .603, respectively).
Came across some road win breakdowns of the top 10 on SI as follows
Texas (3): Rice, Arkansas, Iowa State
Kentucky (3): Indiana, Florida, Auburn
Kansas (3): UCLA, Temple, Nebraska
Villanova (3): Marquette, Louisville, Rutgers
Syracuse (4): Seton Hall, Rutgers, West Virginia, Notre Dame
Michigan State (3): The Citadel, Northwestern, Iowa
Duke (0)
Tennessee (2): Memphis, Alabama
Pittsburgh (3): Syracuse, Cincinnati, UConn
Kansas State (1): Colorado
I know some like to nitpick about other teams road wins but when in fact we have not one road win to date, we have no basis to complain about being bumped out of the Top 10, moved down to a 3 or 4 seed on someone's bracket projection or left out of the national championship debate. Now, remember this is as of today and there is a lot of schedule left. This can all change, just as the same that anyone can win the championship since it's one and done and is the great equalizer come Tourney time.
I saw that same breakdown (it's in Luke Winn's power ratings). Winn makes a big deal of Duke having the worst road resume followed by KState. Frankly based on that list I'm not impressed by Texas or Michigan State either. Tennessee's win over Memphis doesn't impress me too much as Memphis has yet to beat a team in the Pomeroy top 100. Kansas at least has a solid road thumping of a good Temple squad.
Well,i see 4-4 road record and a 8-0 or 7-1 home record as an acc winning formula this year(jmo).I can see the acc regular season winner having atleast 4-5 losses easy(again jmo)I don't see the relevance of winning anymore road games than that(other than as a fan i'd love to win them all) as no ACC or NCAA tournament games are on the other teams home court(guess reason behind k's scheduling of neutral site non-conference games huh).When it comes down to it players have to step-up on the road.I don't see that as Coack K's fault for he's scheduling.This is bad. I kinda laughed and never thought that a poor shooting Singler was an issue when DBR was going bonkers. However, not being able to play away is indeed a concern. Anyone who thinks it's not, I'd love to hear your views.
Thankfully our road resume in January, after 3 games, doesn't mean a whole lot. This will become a concern for me if we end up with 6 or more road losses. Until then, it's more about what we can do with the next 7 road games than what we've done so far, since we can do something about the former and precisely bupkis about the latter.
Just be you. You is enough. - K, 4/5/10, 0:13.8 to play, 60-59 Duke.
You're all jealous hypocrites. - Titus on Laettner
You see those guys? Animals. They're animals. - SIU Coach Chris Lowery, on Duke
I find that hard to believe. Complaining about weak non-conference road schedule is the 3rd favorite complaint of DBRenizens.* Are you sure that no one agreed with you?
*After (1) failing to give playing time to the absolute stud sitting on the bench, and (2) failing to recruit stud big men, probably because Wojo coaches the bigs.
Getting back to the original question of this thread, are the above top teams succeeding on the road because they played a bunch of pre-conference road games? I took a look:
Texas (2 pre-conf road games): Rice, Arkansas
Kentucky (1): Indiana
Kansas (3): UCLA, Temple, Tennessee (Lost)
Villanova (1): Temple (Lost); also played Maryland in Washington (not a "true" road game)
Syracuse (0): (played Florida in St. Pete -- not a "true" road game)
Michigan State (3): UNC (Lost), Citadel, Texas (Lost)
Duke (1): Wisconsin (Lost)
Tennessee (2): Memphis, USC (Lost)
Pittsburgh (0)
Kansas State (0?): Played UNLV in Vegas and Alabama at South Alabama, but neither in opponent's home gym and neither counted in list above)
So, to sum up:
Kansas and Michigan State each played 3 pre-conference road games (Mich State lost two of theirs, and their other one was against Pomeroy's #200 ranked team, Kansas lost one of theirs);
Texas and Tennessee played 2 (Texas's two were against Pomeroy's #130 and #246 rated teams, Tennessee lost one of theirs);
Duke, Kentucky, and Villanova played 1 (Duke and Villanova lost theirs, Kentucky played Pomeroy's #125 team)
Syracuse, Pitt, and Kansas State played 0
Funny that Syracuse has 4 road wins and Pitt, Villanova, and Kentucky have 3 each, but none of them played more pre-conference road games than Duke did. And this is without even delving into whether Texas's two road games against bottom-tier teams or Michigan State's trip to the Citadel is better experience than Duke's game at Wisconsin.
It seems clear to me that the pre-conference schedule is a non-factor, or at most a very minor one.
Last edited by Kedsy; 01-21-2010 at 05:40 PM.