Beware the Bottom Feeders
In lieu of a prediction for tomorrow’s game between Wake Forest and Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, I’ll forecast what will happen if the Hokies lose.
Virginia Tech will then win either two or three of its remaining six games (counting the first round of the ACC Tournament) and present a resume of a 23-8 or 22-9 overall mark with a conference mark of either 10-6 or 9-7. And when the NCAA Tournament selection committee leaves the Hokies home for the sixth time in Seth Greenberg’s seven seasons as head coach, we’ll all hear Greenberg grumble to high heavens.
But he’ll have only himself to blame.
Greenberg needs to grasp what Coach Dino Gaudio of Wake Forest learned two seasons ago. That was the year the Deacons were 17-13 overall and 7-9 in the ACC and couldn’t even get an invite to the NIT. Their problem was they played N.C. Central, Winston-Salem State, USC Upstate and Presbyterian all in the same season and it trashed their strength of schedule. Every team plays over-matched non-conference opponents, but the key is to play over-matched teams ranked by the ratings percentage index between 100 and 200 and not those ranked between 200 and the final spot of 347.
Truth is, a Wake Forest or Virginia Tech should be able win a home game against Appalachian State (No. 121 in the most recent RPI). So schedule Appalachian State instead of clogging your slate with N.C. Central (No. 343), Maryland-Baltimore County (No. 338), VMI (No. 316), Charleston Southern (No. 280), Longwood (No. 259), UNC-Greensboro (No. 253), Brown (No. 228), and Delaware (No. 205)—all of whom decorate (to use the term loosely) the 2009-10 Virginia Tech schedule.
I don’t discount the element of luck. Schedules have to be made out a year or two in advance, so you can’t always help it when a team you expect to be decent actually crashes and burns. There have been seasons when Greenberg could expect to get more credit for beating Penn State (No. 225), and it was the ACC that paired Virginia Tech with Iowa (No. 182) in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge.
Wake Forest has played Winston-Salem State (No. 298), Elon (No. 264), UNC-Greensboro), High Point (No. 239), UNC-Wilmington (No. 228) and East Carolina (No. 215), but none except for WSSU, Elon and UNC-Greensboro are among the 100 worst-ranked teams. And Gaudio balanced it out by playing Gonzaga (No. 19) and Purdue (No. 10) on the road and Oral Roberts (No. 130), Richmond (No. 27), William & Mary (No. 51) and Xavier (No. 20) at home.
You can make the case that Wake’s schedule should be harder. After watching the Deacons play East Carolina, High Point and WSSU in succession in November, I might have agreed with you. But Gaudio hasn’t painted his team into a corner with a schedule that requires 25 wins to make the NCAA Tournament.
I imagine Greenberg has been warned of what can happen to teams that plays too many cream puffs, but apparently the lesson has yet to take.