CAA Tired of Going Stag to NCAA's Big Dance

To find a league that has landed in "not quite zero" territory, look toward the Missouri Valley Conference, which several CAA coaches and administrators mentioned as a potential model. Last year, the Missouri Valley sent three teams to the NCAA tournament, including Northern Iowa, which received an at-large berth despite finishing tied for third in the regular season. The Missouri Valley has had multiple teams in the NCAA tournament seven straight years, and 10 of the last 12.

"The yardstick of success, the measurement of success for us every year is multiple berths, and obviously along with that, success in the tournament," MVC Commissioner Doug Elgin said.

And at least part of the MVC's success in postseason placement comes from November and December scheduling. The league encourages its teams to schedule top nonconference opponents, giving them the chance to earn marquee wins and bolster their RPI. While its rebuilding teams might take a less ambitious approach, they still attempt to schedule opponents that are likely to have winning records, even if they hail from lesser leagues. MVC teams have also mimicked national powers by offering opponents guaranteed money to land more home games, further propping up their nonconference performance.

If every MVC team enters league play with a winning record and a respectable RPI, the theory goes, teams hoping to land an NCAA berth won't be as heavily punished in the RPI for playing weaker conference foes.

There is much more behind the MVC's success, including decades of tradition, fewer professional and major college programs to leech fan support and widespread coaching stability. Still, entering last weekend, the scheduling philosophy had helped MVC teams achieve a combined record of 67-22 in nonconference games, with all 10 teams at or above .500.

Yeager used to think all CAA teams should play comparable schedules, but he now advocates a varied approach, and tells coaches with postseason aspirations to establish their credentials with difficult nonconference games. The CAA's top teams this year have played what Lunardi called "dramatically better" schedules -- Old Dominion, for example, has already faced Georgia, Wisconsin, DePaul and Alabama-Birmingham, and will play Virginia Tech on Friday night. And the weaker teams?

"Just win games, really," Yeager said. "I don't care who you beat, just win games."

There are other ways to emerge, at least temporarily, from one-bid land. The West Coast Conference has benefited from Gonzaga's transformation into an NCAA tournament mainstay. League parity might be nice for fans, but leagues such as the CAA and Missouri Valley often benefit from the opposite: two or three teams that dominate league play and fashion themselves into attractive candidates for the postseason. With six or seven competitive CAA teams this season, coaches said, it will be nearly impossible to achieve such separation.

"Here's a problem we will have: Our top teams are going to have losses in conference; nobody's going to run the table," Old Dominion Coach Blaine Taylor said. "I don't think Gonzaga would get through our league unscathed, I think they'd get bopped repeatedly. They'd do well, they'd win a lot of games, but it'd be hard for them."

In the end, analysts said, a second CAA bid will require better teams, better players and better schedules. And it will likely require a team to perform well against difficult competition in November and December and dominate league play before getting tripped up in the CAA tournament.

"I'll take it any way it comes, because right now we've got to get the monkey off our back," Yeager said. "That'll be the final piece in breaking out."