As the Illinois State men's basketball team prepares for one of its most anticipated seasons in years, head coach Ryan Pedon says he's frustrated that schools like ISU have a tough time getting schools from major conferences to play them.
The Redbirds play at Northwestern on Wednesday night. It's their second exhibition against a school from the Big 10, one of the so-called Power 4 conferences [which also includes the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big 12 and the Southeastern Conference]. ISU lost to Illinois, 92-65, on Oct. 19 in Champaign.
These games don’t threaten a program’s NCAA Tournament resume, since they are preseason and aren't included in won-loss records.
Pedon says games against major college programs offer a great learning experience for his team, but the current system rewards schools that play only major programs — unless they take on a mid-major school they are almost certain to beat.
“I’m going to fight for the mid-majors here because I have been on the other side and a really good team in our conference is a hell of a lot better than a 8-12 team in the Big Ten or the SEC or the Big 12,” Pedon said during a recent media call with reporters, referring to his time as an assistant coach at Ohio State, before coming to ISU.
Pedon said his efforts to fill a non-conference schedule often stretch well into summer, partly because expanded conference schedules, in-season tournaments and neutral site showcase games have greatly reduced the number of potential opponents looking for games.
“Our scheduling now, it goes into July and August. To me, what a waste of energy,” Pedon said.
The only major conference that has agreed to play ISU this season was Southern Cal, on a neutral site — the Intuit Dome — less than 10 miles from USC’s campus, Pedon noted.
The Redbirds are the preseason favorite to win to the Missouri Valley Conference this season, due in part to several key returnees, including All-MVC First Team selection Chase Walker and All-MVC Second Team honoree Johnny Kinzinger.
Pedon said high expectations only make it harder to find teams willing to risk losing to a mid-major school.
“We’re not the only ones in our conference, you look at any of the teams that are projected upper-half, I’ll bet you they share the same exact frustrations that I had,” Pedon said.
Pedon added he'd like to see the NCAA Tournament expand to give more mid-majors programs a chance to play in the postseason, but he’s skeptical it will happen.
“I think the national pundits are all using the narrative that it’s a terrible thing to expand the tournament and they are spreading that like poison,” Pedon said.
The so-called Big Dance is currently 68 schools and typically only includes a handful of mid-major programs that receive at-large bids. A new proposal would expand the tournament to 76 schools.
