I don't have nearly as much a problem with the net as many of our fans. I'm still not sold on the Quads for home opponents being qualitatively aligned. SJU and VCU, our most recent and next opponent, on a blind resume (I know, HAHA at us being an AL candidate) would fall in the same bucket as a pair of home games against IUPUFW and UDEL.
I just don't see it. I don't see oddsmakers giving us a close to equal chance against the former vs the latter. I am depending on res to correct me if I am wrong.
I like NET for the most part. The quad system is better than using arbitrary cutoffs to determine which games are goods wins and which aren't. A win over a top 100 team should have never been a metric, whereas saying you have 3,4 or 5 Q1 wins is measurable.
People seem to hate NET because of the large moves teams experience after big wins and losses, but I think it's fair for the most part. I also think the committee is mostly consistent with which bubble teams make it and don't. There's no real reason why the A10 can't be a 3-4 bid conference most years.
Dayton, VCU, SLU, Richmond and even Saint Joe's have the facilities, MBB budget and fan support to make the tourney most years. If you compare budgets between the MWC and A10, it makes the growing disparity between the two even more puzzling. Add in the fact some of the MWC schools are pretty isolated, so getting good home games OOC has to be more expensive compared to A10 schools.
Top MWC budget with their national ranking:
(1,89) Utah State - $4.80M
(2,92) SDSU - $4.26M
(3,96) UNLV - $4.02M
(4,103) Col. State - $3.68M
Top A10 budgets with their national ranking:
(1,72) Dayton - $5.9M
(2,74) VCU - $5.89M
(3,75) SLU - $5.79M
(4,93) Richmond - $4.2M
(5,94) Saint Joe's - $4.14M
(6,98) Duquesne - $3.96M
(7,100) Loyola - $3.83M
(8,102) George Mason - $3.69M
(9,107) Rhode Island - $3.63M
(10,108) Fordham - $3.57M
These numbers are from 2022, so Schmidt's increase in salary is not even included here.
SBU checked in at 120th in the country here at $2.99M which was higher than Boise State, Fresno State, San Jose State and presumably Air Force. Bona was only ~$9,000 behind Wyoming and $200,000 behind both New Mexico and Nevada.
With 2024 figures, there's a fair chance that SBU's MBB budget in the MWC would be fifth out of the 11 schools.