NCAA Basketball: Modern-day scheduling is a puzzling art for coaches
Some programs have used outside sources to facilitate games
As scheduling has become more of an involved process, some teams have reached out to outside sources in helping them facilitate games. One of those sources has been Rocco Miller who began projecting brackets years ago.
"“That continuous decades-long process led to a deeper understanding of what it takes to be a tournament team as an at-large bid selection. Fast forward to a handful of years ago and I started referring and recommending particular teams to play and also worked on organizers to push to allow more opportunities for events containing quality teams. Once Covid started, I took on a role of pairing teams on the fly just to try and get a game scheduled following an opponent being shut down for an extended period of time. Coming out of the Covid seasons, it quickly became more of a strategic role to look at the entire non-conference schedule for each program and help them find opponents to fit their scheduling formula.”"
He began by helping out some non-power conference teams but then he says, “Eventually it became all 32 leagues in CBB over the course of time. Also helps that I cover games nationally during the season, which contributes to several programs and I am constantly being in touch about plans.”
As a result, Miller has helped with over 200 programs and has a strong idea of what works and what doesn’t for teams. I asked him what he would change about scheduling and among the interesting answers was the one he gave about road games.
"“I’d like to see every power six school play at least two true road games per year. Likely a pipe dream, but there are just way too many recent examples of teams not even playing a road game until league play. As a bracketologist/analyst, I can’t learn that much about the quality of a team until they are tested on the road. I also think it is good for the sport to give common mid-level schools the opportunity to host a power six team every so often. That has become impossible for nearly all non-power programs.”"
Next. Ranking 2023 ACC/SEC Challenge matchups. dark
Miller has done a great job with his growing national reach helping teams maximize their scheduling opportunities. Maybe an outside source is something the sport needs to help with the scheduling puzzle.