Wisconsin Badgers one of several teams to ghost Miami (OH)'s schedule request

MADISON, Wis. - Miami (OH) Athletic Director David Sayler has gone on the offensive, and he's bringing receipts of all the power-conference teams that avoided playing his undefeated RedHawks basketball program this season.

One of those teams was the University of Wisconsin.

Sayler has heard the criticism all season about the validity of his men's basketball program. The RedHawks are the only undefeated team in college basketball, one of only 15 schools to start the season 30-0. The caveat is that the RedHawks play in a weak Mid-American Conference (ranked 17th out of 31 conferences) and have a nonconference strength of schedule that KenPom ranks 360th out of 365 teams.

Of Miami's 30 wins, 16 have come in Quad-4, 10 in Quad-3, three against non-Division 1 schools, one in Quad-2, and none in Quad-1.

The debate about the RedHawks took a different tone this week when former Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl said on multiple platforms that the undefeated RedHawks have to win their conference tournament to earn a berth because they're "not one of the best teams in the country" and couldn't handle a power-conference schedule.

Slayer responded by slamming the system, saying the nonconference scheduling process is more about risk management instead of competition.

"They can set their schedules. They can play all home games, maybe a neutral site game, but they don’t have to go on the road, and we do. And then at the end, when we don’t have a lot of big games, everyone says, ‘Well, you didn’t play enough big games.’ Well, nobody would play us. So it’s like this double-edged sword. You can’t win either way."

This is where the Badgers come in.

Reporter Matt Brown, the founder and editor of Extra Points, filed an open records request for emails Miami sent to other programs this past offseason about trying to schedule one-off games. He reported receiving more than 20, including an email sent to Wisconsin general manager Marc VandeWettering by Miami associate head coach Jonathan Holmes.

The May 28th email from Holmes was to gauge if Wisconsin was still looking for a buy game in either November or December, and to let him know if the Badgers had any interest in playing.

There was no record of a response from VandeWettering, who is responsible for putting together Wisconsin's nonconference schedule, in the open records request. A message seeking clarification from Wisconsin has yet to be returned.

UW wasn't the only school to dodge Miami, as BYU, Kansas, Marquette, Ohio State, and Pittsburgh were just some of the schools to reportedly say no, while other schools were only looking to schedule games against teams that were 250+ in the NET rankings.

Miami currently ranks No.53 in the NET, No.83 in Bart Torvik, and No.88 in KenPom.

Wisconsin likes to schedule a challenging nonconference slate to prepare for the rigors of a 20-game conference slate. In addition to the annual matchup with Marquette, Wisconsin played in the Rady Children's Invitational in San Diego and booked two neutral-site games against No.10 BYU in Salt Lake City and Villanova in Milwaukee.

When it released its full slate of nonconference games in July, the Badgers had four buy games in November to begin the season, done purposely to build cohesion within a rotation with seven new players against mid-major teams with different personnel and playing styles, and two in December scheduled around the holiday break.

UW ended up playing and beating three different MAC schools, Ball State, Central Michigan, and Northern Illinois, by an average of 27.7 points. None of UW's six buy ranks rank in the top 200 of the NET.

UW won the only matchup between the two schools in Madison in 1962 and is 45-12 all-time against the MAC.

With the Badgers currently projected as a No.6 seed in the NCAA Tournament and the RedHawks being projected anywhere from an eight to a 12 seed, Wisconsin may not be able to avoid Miami for much longer.