PDA

View Full Version : Duke's Schedule Historic?



CoSprings
01-28-2015, 02:12 PM
Wondering aloud how this year's schedule compares to years past. Especially in light of our 4 true road games against top 10 opponents, and that we will have played 12 games against the top 50 RPI by the first of March, not counting Temple at 54 and Wofford at 51. Am I making to much of the 'our schedule is brutal' narrative?

Kedsy
01-28-2015, 03:17 PM
Wondering aloud how this year's schedule compares to years past. Especially in light of our 4 true road games against top 10 opponents, and that we will have played 12 games against the top 50 RPI by the first of March, not counting Temple at 54 and Wofford at 51. Am I making to much of the 'our schedule is brutal' narrative?

Our schedule is not historic at all and, yes, I believe you're making way too much of the narrative.

Part of the debate is whether schedule strength should count the entire schedule or just the best teams on it, but according to Pomeroy, our non-conference schedule is the weakest schedule Duke has had since 2003. And while the top of the ACC is tough, the bottom is less tough than usual.

If you want to go by how many top 50 RPI teams we've had on our schedule, then it's a teeny bit better than usual lately, but certainly not historic. I'd also caution that the RPI is not necessarily the best metric for judging how good an opponent is. In any event, going back 10 years, here's how many top 50 RPI teams we've played (using end-of-season pre-NCAAT RPI numbers):

2014: 10
2013: 11
2012: 11
2011: 10
2010: 11
2009: 11
2008: 10
2007: 15
2006: 10
2005: 11

So, only one of the past ten years has had more than this year's 12 top 50 RPI teams, but they've all had at least 10. Considering how uncharacteristically poor the middle/bottom of our schedule is this season, I'd say objectively this year's overall schedule is no stronger than a typical Duke schedule, and probably a little weaker.

superdave
01-28-2015, 04:53 PM
Interesting that the 2007 Duke team played so many strong RPI teams. The out of conference schedule included Davidson, Temple, St John's, Gonzaga and Indiana. All good but not really good. Of note, a young Steph Curry was 2-9 for 5 points in 23 minutes vs. Duke.

Even the eyeball test here shows that the number of top 50 RPI teams you play does not mean a whole lot. You could be a top 5 team and never play any RPI team better than #35 but still play a lot of Top 50 games and never be challenged much. Perhaps a better gauge would be to count up the number of teams we played ranked in the AP top 25 at the time of tipoff.

But even that does not tell the full story. For example, that 2007 Duke team was ranked #12 in the AP preseason poll, #11 in the week 10 poll, #26 in the week 15 poll and #27 in the postseason poll. That team had plenty of talent but was young and tripped their way through the end of the season. Some teams grow and some dont.

CDu
01-28-2015, 05:24 PM
There have been PLENTY of years in which we played at least 4 games against top-10 teams. See Maryland and UNC, Wake and UNC, etc in conference and a strong preseason opponent or two (ACC/Big 10 and a tourney foe, for example). This is nothing new.

Edit: I realize the key was road games. That trims the list down, but not completely.