LITTLE ROCK — Rarely is failing to return a call viewed as a sign of respect. Around the Sun Belt Conference, though, unanswered messages are grudging compliments to its top women’s basketball programs.
Not that you’ll hear coaches crowing about being given the cold shoulder by potential opponents.
“It was like we couldn’t even get them to pick up the phone,” UALR Coach Jerry Foley said during Sun Belt media day last week. “It makes it tough.”
For the Trojans, who are picked to win the Western Division, reaching the final of the Sun Belt tournament and winning a first-round NCAA Tournament game made possible foes from the SEC, Big 12 and Atlantic Coast Conference leery of adding the Trojans to their slates.
In fact, the process of signing up teams to face UALR left Foley one-game short in filling out the nonconference schedule. Ultimately, Foley set dates with Big 12 teams Texas A&M and Oklahoma State in an 11-game lineup where opponents have an average Ratings Percentage Index ranking of 131.
But it’s clear where his program stands in the hierarchy: Good enough to exchange numbers, but too risky to set up a date.
“We ended up with a very tough nonconference schedule, but it wasn’t easy,” Foley said. “We’re kind of right there between. With the big dawgs, our RPI is not going to hurt them, but they still don’t want to say, ‘OK, we’ll play you guys.’ ”
Asked to describe conversations when school’s did pick up the receiver, Foley was blunt.
“Not very receptive,” he said. “It was like pulling teeth.”
But the procedure is a necessity. A season ago, the Sun Belt was No. 16 in conference RPI, trailing mid major leagues such as the America East, West Coast, Western Athletic and Colonial Athletic conferences, according to collegerpi.com, an independent website.
For fellow Sun Belt powers Western Kentucky and Middle Tennessee, whose solicitations also often go without reply, assembling a daunting nonconference slate against teams inside the RPI top 100 gives them a chance to increase their status for an NCAA Tournament bid.
A season ago, the Blue Raiders traveled to Xavier and LSU while hosting perennial power Tennessee. That helped Coach Rick Insell’s team earn its third consecutive NCAA berth and finish at No. 19 in the RPI.
“What we try do is to go in and get a three-year or four-year contract,” Insell said. “We feel it gets us ready for conference play, and we’re going to continue to do that.”
This season, Middle Tennessee faces six teams who made the NCAA Tournament last year, including East Tennesse State, Georgia Tech, Kentucky and Xavier, who reached the Elite Eight. The departure of four seniors, including Sun Belt Player of the Year Alysha Clark, made Insell’s task easier, but the schedule poses a stern test for a squad with 11 underclassmen.
“With a young team like we’ve got, you’re walking avery thin line,” he said. “If you win some games you’re not supposed to, it’s going to help you once you get into conference, but if you lose enough of them that can hurt you.”
At Western Kentucky, Coach Mary Taylor Cowles said fewer power conference teams are keen on scheduling the Hilltoppers - the prohibitive favorites in the Eastern Division -- to home-and-home series or plan a visit to Bowling Green.
While Western Kentucky’s schedule features tournament teams Duke and Michigan State, the task of finding suitable opponents is growing harder for the program, which finished at No. 83 in collegerpi.com’s ratings last season.
“This whole scheduling thing is a bear on its own,” she said. “It’s something we’re having to deal with across the board in women’s college basketball. It’s a very big issue a lot of schools are dealing with.”
Around the conference, the increasing difficulty surrounding scheduling is tinged with the familiar refrain of perceived slight. On Wednesday, Troy Coach Michael Murphy took that stance when he said the Sun Belt is overlooked when discussing which conferences feature the toughest competition night in and night out.
“Around the country, we don’t get nearly the publicity we should,” Murphy said. “When you look at the coaches, when you look at the quality of play, I think we’re second to none. That story hasn’t gotten told enough.”
Ultimately, though, Insell said midmajors have to continue to endure the indignity of unreturned messages in search of stern tests to prepare teams for potential runs in March. And scheduling them remains a risk to one’s job security.
“That’s a situation that you get in that could very well cost you your job if you don’t win enough games,” he said. “Yet, it gets us ready for the NCAA Tournament, and our goal is to take this team and this league as deep into March as we can.”
Sports, Pages 22 on 10/26/2010