ARMY: HOW EMBARASSING

This article sums things up pretty nicely about the Black Knights' upcoming season: "Games with perennial postseason teams Temple and Connecticut highlight an Army men's basketball schedule that offers very little else to get excited about...Army went 3-24 last season, its wins coming against Polytechnic, SUNY Maritime and the home game with Navy. It was the worst record in the 103-year history of the program."

Here's why you should root for Army: They're the reason the Patriot League wasn't a legit 2 bid league last year.

RPI is basicaly calculated as 25% team winning percentage, 50% opponents' average winning percentage, and 25% opponents' opponents' average winning percentage (that is, who the teams you play have played/do play). There is some adjustment for home/away games now, but that's how it basically works.

Note that only DI games are included in that, so Army really only had ONE WIN last year in calculating RPI. Now look at who they played. Other than Notre Dame, they played a bunch of lousy to mediocre teams and lost to them.

That KILLS the RPI of every team in the league, since they each play Army twice.

Playing the 327th best team in basketball once will mess up your numbers, but playing them TWICE will destroy you. (Yes, I know other teams in the league have lousy RPIs too, but Army is the worst of the worst)

So what's on tap for this year? More of the same.

2005-6 ARMY OOC SCHEDULE

Here's the schedule for Army this year, with the opponent's RPI and W/L from 2004-5.

vs. Temple (Preseason NIT) RPI 102 16-13 (A10) - The final score of this game might be 32-20.

Preseason NIT Second Round: Umm...

POLYTECHNIC DIII - As the article above notes, they came in LAST in their D3 conference.

at VMI - RPI 316 7-18 (Big South) - It's nice that VMI and Liberty are in the same conference, so that I can group the teams I root against easier. VMI is the worst team in a league full of bad teams.

Preseason NIT Semifinals: Uh huh..

Preseason NIT Finals: I'll give them this: the Army media folks are optimistic putting this on the schedule.

THE CITADEL - RPI 296 8-16 (Southern) - Now if only the Citadel would join the Big South, we'd have a trifecta of schools whose ideologies I disagree with.

at Connecticut - RPI 13 22-7 (Big East) - Some PT for the third stringers on UConn.

at Columbia - RPI 273 12-15 (Ivy)

at Sacred Heart - RPI 325 4-23 (NEC) - They were 3 points better than Army on the RPI last year, by virtue of winning 4 games.

VMI - No, this isn't a typo. They're playing VMI twice in an effort to create the lowest RPI of all time.

NEW YORK MARITIME - Another D3.

at Cornell - RPI 210 12-14 (Ivy) - Beat Army last year. Will beat Army this year.

BROWN - RPI 228 12-16 (Ivy) - A nice school, but who really wants to live in Providence?

DARTMOUTH - RPI 256 9-17 (Ivy) - Three Ivy league schools in a row are playing Army. It's like liberal college war protesters vs. people going to war. Except not.

The average RPI of the teams Army is playing is 233. That's including UConn, which boosts it quite a bit. And yet: "We have a very challenging schedule, both at home and away, non-conference and conference," Crews said.  @ 11:10 AM