A Genius Plan to Game the NET
I can't believe no one's ever tried this before!
The NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) rules all in college basketball scheduling. As (allegedly) one of the primary factors considered by the Selection Committee in determining the field of 68, it leads programs to do some pretty silly things to make sure the algorithm views them in the best possible light.
This past season, there was a whole war between fanbases in the ACC and Big 12, with the former accusing the latter’s schools of gaming the NET by scheduling a bunch of cupcakes at home in November and December and beating them by 30+. They insist that the formula doesn’t correctly diminish overperformance against very bad teams and that Big 12 schools know this and seek out these games on purpose.
There’s also been a notable uptick in neutral-site games juuuust far enough away from one of the two schools involved to be considered a neutral-site game. Arizona perfected this strategy this past season. In consecutive games, they played Purdue in Indianapolis, then came back to Arizona to play Alabama in Phoenix, and finally jaunted a couple hundred miles north to Las Vegas to take on Florida Atlantic, who had flown thousands of miles for the pleasure. All three were considered neutral-site games.
These games have drawn a lot of scorn for taking would-be home games away from the campuses and students who do so much to support the teams involved. But I have another issue with it: they’re not going far enough.
I mean, if you’re gonna game the NET, go ahead and game the NET, right? There’s no reason you should ever play a game on your home court. Matter of fact, you shouldn’t even have a home court! That way, there’s no way any of your games could be counted as a home game by any stretch of the imagination, allowing you to claim the majority of your games were played on neutral courts and making you look much better than you actually are, according to Big Math.
For reference, here are the official NCAA rules on what qualifies as a home venue:1
Is the regular home site for your team
Is rented by your team, which—regardless of the opponent—arranges for officials, controls ticket sales (and the game is part of the season ticket package), and is responsible for game operations
Is in the same city or a reasonable distance within the metropolitan area of your team, and your opponent is from outside the metro area
Is in the same city or a reasonable distance within the metropolitan area of both teams and your team is designated as the home team and includes the game in the season ticket package
Is in the same area as your team and your team plays some or several home games there each season, oftentimes included in the season ticket package
Is in a city close by your team and your team designates the game as a home game that will count in its home attendance, also including the game in the season ticket package
Is a temporary home site while your regular home site is being renovated
Is a nearby temporary emergency site while your regular home site is being repaired
Meanwhile, one of the rules on what qualifies as a neutral venue is that it “is a venue other than your or your opponent’s home venue and is hosted and organized by a third party”.
Armed with this information, I have devised a genius plan to game the NET, and I intend to test its viability. For this to work, I’ll need to take over a bad program in a city large enough to have at least 20 suitable venues for a college basketball game.
Hello DePaul!
Here’s how this is gonna work.
The Plan
As I teased above, we’re going to have zero home games this coming season. We’re still going to play most of our games in the Chicago metro area (colloquially known as Chicagoland), but all of them are going to qualify as neutral-site games because we will have no home site at all. Here’s how were going to get away with this:
We make some calls on the down low and get a third-party scheduling firm established primarily for our use. Also on the down low, we’ll need to convince other schools to contract the firm so it’s not plainly obvious that we’re puppeting them.
Through that third party, we schedule all of our “home” games at various distinct locations throughout Chicagoland. We never repeat a venue, lest anyone think that venue is our “regular home site”.
Both of DePaul’s brick and mortar campuses are within Chicago proper, but—like most schools in this day and age—they also offer online degrees. This is our out. If we never play at any facilities owned or operated by DePaul University, we can try to convince the powers that be that we do not have a primary campus and that we are only playing most of our games in Chicagoland because all of our players happen to be living at the Lincoln Park campus. This way, we don’t have a “home” city or metro to be used in determining how to qualify the venue.
We schedule as many road games against other Chicagoland teams as possible; they’re more neutral environments than your average road game, but the way the NET works, we might as well be playing Hawai’i in the middle of the ocean.
We play in a three-game, neutral-site MTE to reduce our—er, I mean…our third party’s—scheduling obligations.
We throw in a few “home” games against horrible opponents and run up the score as much as we possibly can.
Will the NCAA see right through this plan for the bullshit that it is? Oh, almost certainly. But we have at least a somewhat reasonable argument in our favor and we have to try something. We’re DePaul.
Non-Conference Schedule
The maximum number of regular season games allowed by the NCAA is 31. Our Big East conference schedule is 20 games long, so we have 11 dates to book—preferably eight standalone games and a three-game MTE.
Game 1
vs. IU Indianapolis | Tuesday, November 5
Jacoby Dickens Center | Chicago, Illinois
Even in a city as large and sprawling as Chicago, we’re gonna have to play in some pretty weird venues if we want this to work. We’ll start with a relatively tame one. The 2,500-seat Jacoby Dickens Center hosted Chicago State basketball until 2006, when their current venue—the Emil and Patricia Jones Convocation Center—replaced it. A struggling Chicago State has allowed us to use it just this once in return for a portion of the buy game fee. This will do us well for an Opening Night game between one of the worst high major programs and one of the worst D1 programs.
Game 2
at Northwestern | Saturday, November 9
Welsh-Ryan Arena | Evanston, Illinois
The Gavitt Games might be dead, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still land a Big Ten opponent. Chris Collins is pretty sure his team can beat us on any floor, so he said yes before we even finished asking the question.
Game 3
at UIC | Saturday, November 16
Credit Union 1 Arena | Chicago, Illinois
UIC also agrees to play us. They’re still kind of starstruck by being invited to the Missouri Valley Conference and incorrectly see this as a local high major program finally taking them seriously in their new digs. They have no idea what our plan is.
Game 4
vs. Alabama A&M | Tuesday, November 19
Lake Forest College Sports and Recreation Center | Lake Forest, Illinois
We need one more buy game before our Feast Week MTE. Let’s have our third party call SWAC schools in alphabetical order until someone says yes. Ope, that was quick! The first school on the list agreed to come play us at Lake Forest, one of the Big Ten’s founding fathers. The gym only holds 1,200, but it’s got that rustic charm that might as well count for 1,200 more.
Game 5
vs. Minnesota | Saturday, November 23
United Center | Chicago, Illinois
Ben Johnson speaks our language. Last year, he scheduled San Francisco in their local NBA arena. His team lost the game badly but he thinks he’s unlocked some sort of cheat code. He proposes a “home-and-home”. He’ll play us at the United Center this year as long as we’ll take him on at Target Center next season.
Games 6-8
Feast Week MTE | Thanksgiving Week
Location TBD
The most important factor for us in choosing an MTE is that it must have three neutral-site games—the only time this season we will play more than one game on the same court. None of this nonsense with two four-team brackets and a campus site game because, y’know, we don’t have a campus site. Otherwise, I don’t care who we play or where. Personally, I’m gonna petition for our third party to bring back the Great Alaska Shootout.
Game 9
at Texas Tech | Wednesday, December 4
United Supermarkets Arena | Lubbock, Texas
As much as I’d love to stuff the schedule exclusively with Chicagoland games, the Big East Conference requires us to play some games on the road. Our first such commitment comes before conference play even begins, as the Big East–Big 12 Battle pits us against a Big 12 school of “similar strength”. The way it worked out this year, we got Texas Tech on the road. We’re just gonna have to try our best.
(Conference Game 1)
vs. Creighton | Saturday, December 7
Swanson Gymnasium | Summit, Illinois
The Big East has recently been scheduling some stray conference games in December, weeks prior to the remainder of the conference slate. This year, ours is a “home” game against Creighton. We’ll play it at a 2,450-seat high school out in the suburbs. It’s a 17-mile drive from DePaul’s campus, but hey, it’s Saturday at a non-football school; if the students want to make the trek, they will.
Game 10
at Loyola Chicago | Saturday, December 14
Joseph J. Gentile Arena | Chicago, Illinois
Drew Valentine chuckles in baffled amusement when we ask to schedule a game on his home court. He agrees to what he thinks will be an easy win, but it’s accompanied by a skeptical glare. He knows we’re cooking something; he just can’t tell what.
Game 11
at Chicago State | Saturday, December 21
Emil and Patricia Jones Convocation Center | Chicago, Illinois
In addition to renting their previous home court, we’ve also asked Chicago State if they wanted to host us for a game in December. They were so excited at the idea that they proposed a three-year series with two games at their place and one at ours. They remembered Roy Williams doing this with the College of Charleston a few years ago, evidently forgetting that North Carolina is a blue blood and they’re Chicago State. In any case, we tell them there’s no need for a return game. We’ll just play there twice if that’s okay with them.
And that does it for the 11-game non-conference schedule…and one Big East game.
Now we just need to find venues for the other nine Big East home games.
Big East Schedule
Game 2
vs. Georgetown | Tuesday, December 31
Advocate Center | Chicago, Illinois
A perfect storm here. The two worst, least interesting teams in the league face off on a weeknight during winter break in a game no one is sure to attend, so we can get away with playing in a zero-capacity building. The Bulls allowed us access to their practice facility, the Advocate Center, when we agreed to play Minnesota across the street at the United Center. They’re on a road trip right now, so I’m sure they won’t mind if our third party sneaks the FS2 crew in there tonight.
Game 3
vs. Seton Hall | Friday, January 3
Ratner Athletics Center | Chicago, Illinois
When we told UChicago the defending NIT champs were coming to town, they tripped over themselves to host the game. The last time they were nationally relevant, the NIT was still the most prestigious postseason tournament.
Game 4
vs. Villanova | Saturday, January 11
Physical Education Complex | Chicago, Illinois
If you’re not familiar with Northeastern Illinois University, it’s probably because they haven’t sponsored intercollegiate athletics at any level since 1998. But, for 11 years prior to that decision, they played all the way up in Division I. This building, the Physical Education Complex, is their former home court, now converted to an all-purpose gym for student recreation and intramurals. It’s actually available to rent, even to those unaffiliated with NEIU. Let’s have our third party take them up on that offer.
Game 5
vs. St. John’s | Tuesday, January 14
Dyett High School | Chicago, Illinois
The idea here is that the New Yorkers from St. John’s will see all of the pilfered Philadelphia Eagles logos around the facility and cower in fear.2 I’d also like to imagine some distraction from outdoors affects St. John’s at a critical moment and Rick Pitino goes off on us in the press conference.
Game 6
vs. Marquette | Wednesday, January 22
DeVos Athletics and Recreation Complex | Palos Heights, Illinois
With Marquette coming to town on a weeknight, we made sure to put this game on the southern end of Chicagoland so that any Sconnies thinking about crashing this game would have to fight traffic through the entire metro. When our third party saw that there was a school in that area (Trinity Christian College) whose nickname was the Trolls, they just had to.
Game 7
vs. Butler | Saturday, February 1
North Park Gymnasium | Chicago, Illinois
The same idea in reverse for Butler, though this is a weekend game, so we might still get infiltrated. In any case, this nice, 1,500-seat gym on the Far North Side looks like a great place for some 11am Saturday action.
Game 8
vs. UConn | Tuesday, February 11
Goodman Center | Chicago, Illinois
Here, we’re doing our buddy Dan Hurley a favor and letting him coach a game in the home of the Lakers. Maybe if he likes it enough, he’ll get the hell out of this league already.
Game 9
vs. Xavier | Saturday, February 22
Shannon Center | Chicago, Illinois
We’re gonna try a little reverse psychology here: Xavier sees their name all over the arena here at Saint Xavier University and lulls themself into a false sense of security, and that’s when we strike. Just as likely is the scenario that this backfires horribly, but hey, trial and error.
Game 10
vs. Providence | Wednesday, February 26
Igini Sports Forum | River Forest, Illinois
Providence is a Dominican school, so our third party booked the gym of suburban Dominican University as a show of good faith following last year’s Divine Providence incident, in which one of our fans created a documentary that drew so much unexpected and unnecessary ire that it got deleted from the entire internet. We hope Providence accepts this olive branch.
Final Thoughts
Personally, I see no way this plan doesn’t work, because it is ironproof and foolclad. Er…strike that, reverse it.
But, on the off chance it somehow doesn’t, we simply amend our plan next year to do on a grander scale what the Arizonas of the world already do: play all our “neutral-site” games in nearby cities unambiguously outside of Chicagoland. The actual students of the universities that these teams purportedly represent, the local fans who serve as the lifeblood of the program…I’m sure they’ll understand.
They’ll understand why we’re doing this when we finally bring the Blue Demons back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2004, where they can play even more neutral-site games that the fans will have to shell out hundreds to attend.
With the NET as our guiding star, we will make DePaul the cream of the crop in Chicagoland, the Big East, and eventually the entire country. We’ll make so much money from our postseason appearances that the university will be able to afford to cut their scheduled tuition hike from 5.5% to 4.5%. Blue chips the world over will finally start making Joe Tipton list DePaul on their “respect my decision” graphics. We will become a powerhouse as soon as we can get the NET to agree.
Either that or nobody will attend our games and we’ll go 0-20 again.
Bottom of page 8 is where the relevant information begins.
The Giants are 8-26 against the Eagles since 2008.
do you know if anyone has a version of divine providence uploaded anywhere, i never got to see it but someone has to have downloaded it right