OPENING TIPS Ratings and datings, weights and slates, knees and media freeze MEAN SEASONS
EVER SINCE HE WAS A STUDENT AT MIAMI OF OHIO IN THE MID-'50S,
GORDON Wise, now a marketing professor at Wright State in Dayton, has
been fascinated with the question of how to objectively assess a
college basketball schedule. Over the years, Wise's obsession has
evolved into complex statistical science. He begins with a
season-long composite of the weekly poll rankings, which allows him
to develop power ratings for each conference; these in turn are used
to assess the individual teams based on their conference finish. Each
team's schedule is then examined and points are awarded based on the
difficulty of opponents and the number of away games. All this allows
Wise to develop a ranking for every Division I team.
The lists below include Wise's rankings of the 10 toughest
schedules for last season, based on all games played. As a point of
comparison, we have included the NCAA's schedule rankings, which are
based only on nonconference games through March 9 (these rankings are
made for use by the tournament selection committee). Since teams have
no choice regarding their conference schedules, the NCAA's rankings
show just who actually elects to play the tough teams. The third
column lists Wise's top 10 for the past five seasons. And in case
you're wondering, the weakest schedule in the Wise ratings over the
past five seasons belongs to Samford, and the weakest schedule last
season was the one played by Brown.
WISE'S TOUGHEST 10 IN 1987-88
(all games)
1)Maryland
2)Colorado
3)Illinois
4)Michigan State
5)Kansas
LSU (tie)
7)North Carolina
8)Virginia
9)Duke
10)Northwestern
NCAA'S TOUGHEST 10 IN 1987-88
(nonconference games only)
1)Temple
2)West Virginia
3)Louisville
4)Utah State
5)Cal State-Long Beach
6)Arizona
7)Pennsylvania
8)Providence
9)UCLA
10)North Carolina
WISE'S TOUGHEST 10 OVER PAST FIVE YEARS
(all games)
1)Virginia
2)Maryland
3)North Carolina
Northwestern (tie)
5)Indiana
6)Georgia Tech
7)Wake Forest
8)N.C. State
9)Villanova
10)Michigan State