Utah has played the toughest PAC12 schedule to date

Basketball
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Utah’s in conference schedule is ranked #18 in the country, the toughest in the PAC12 so far. Going forward Utah’s remaining strength of schedule is ranked #83, with lots of Quad 2 and 3 winnable games. IMO Utah wins 6-8 more games, and is on the bubble for an NIT invite. Don’t expect any wins from this team in the PAC12 tournament no matter where Utah finishes up.

Not coincidentally Stanford and USC, both 4-1 in conference, have both played two of the easiest PAC schedules to date (Stanford the easiest, USC the 4th easiest). Utah is going to have lots of opportunities to get wins from here on out if they can stay focused. It starts this week with a very winnable game vs Washington and a must win vs Washington St, who play late Thursday in Boulder then travel to SLC for a 5 o’clock Saturday game. Losing to UW would be disappointing, losing to Wazzou would be almost unforgivable. I’m expecting 2 Ws.

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One of the mathematical truths about “strength of schedule” is that bad teams don’t get to play against themselves, and good teams don’t have to play against themselves. This is not a critique of your comment, it is just something that pops into my mind whenever someone mentions strength of schedule over a pretty short run.

It is common that in a league where everybody plays everybody else (MLB & NBA), the better teams have “softer” schedules, and vice versa. It especially becomes true when you start talking about small groups like an NFL division, where almost 40% of your games are against the other three teams in your division.

Just food for thought.

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