VT4700 said:

1. Agree. We need to get in MTEs with majors.
2. That is a big ask. We would need to go at least 11-2 OOC to get to 80+%. I know, I know....here come the "4700 has low expectations" replies.
3. Our schedule bothered me last year. Every team has cupcakes, but we had way too many, and even lost to some.
4. Agree.

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3. As we are the cupcake, why can’t we get better opponents? We should have a lot of q1 and 2s

inviting us and maybe pay us for their home games.

MrTbone said:

So if it’s an us issue, and a regular enough one, what is the answer?

It’s not to schedule easier. But no one wants to seem to address the elephant in the room.

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I realize I made this point once but it bears repeating imo. It’s quite amusing that the “Extend Mooney” crowd is always in the “we just need to win more” crowd. & against soft schedules no less. Maybe it goes over their heads.

spiderstudent17 said:

The Auburn game was talked about for all the wrong reasons lol. We were debating whether we were going to lose by 40 or 50. I am going with the strategy that going into conference play 11-2 with wins over teams like Clemson, Vanderbilt (hypothetically) and being in contention for at-large, maybe getting AP votes in poll will do more for our program visibility and national reputation than getting getting embarrassed by a national contender like Auburn. So we should schedule accordingly to give us that opportunity.

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Wait…that’s a real choice between the 2 options? Yeah sign me up for beating good teams being in contention for at large & getting top 25 votes. What r we waiting for. 11-2 is the new 14-4. Look it can be done but 20 years of watching Mooney tells me he ain’t him.

Again last year was embarrassing overall. U r not playing Auburn for just last year. Micro sample. In another year Auburn is quite manageable. Last year they were expected to be a top team but u know those teams can under perform too. Play that game 5 years in a row & check results. play really hard schedule 5 years in a row & check results. Why the f are u or anyone afraid of Auburn. It’s Auburn. So Duke offers us a game and we should decline it…gtfo.
U r not a ceiling guy. I look at the ceiling for games schedules & UR program.

Here was the discussion thread about removing soccer from the forum title:

I think if staff schedules soft vs hard it sends a message to players both ways. And same if Administration is supportive of weak schedule vs hard. Up to staff and team to win the games they play.

Did the ladies shy from playing the best? Coach said it showed what was expected. How about men's Lax. Expectations ae set at top.

KE Spider said:

Spiders are are on the right track here unlike some other sports.

MLAX program is a whisper away from making a major splash. Believe it will happen. Keep doing what we are doing. Good things will happen.

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This board tells me that we’re on the right track. Postings used to be just 32 and me and now it’s getting more
members all the time. Great coaches, great players, and now a stronger following add up to great things to
continue.

I repeat my post 6 in response. Would love to see a screen shot of what you say. I've been here since the beginning and have never been able to change forum names.

urfan1 said:

I don't recall that first heading. I don't believe it has ever changed. I believe your second option would be fair.

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It was the headline and got changed right after we got rid of Soccer. I even suggested at the
time we replace soccer with lacrosse but got a response with something like- let’s give it some
time.
I would never suggest getting rid of “baseball “ but surely think lacrosse has earned it’s spot.

MrTbone said:

Thinking about this debate, a few thoughts:
1. The upcoming MTE is not a good MTE, saying otherwise is pretty much putting lipstick on a pig.
2. When was the last time we won 80% of our OOC? I think it’s been awhile.
3. I have limited interest in watching us play West Chickahominy State, it’s not exciting to win and it’s deflating to lose.
4. None of this debate matters much if we can’t win at a better clip.

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1. Agree. We need to get in MTEs with majors.
2. That is a big ask. We would need to go at least 11-2 OOC to get to 80+%. I know, I know....here come the "4700 has low expectations" replies.
3. Our schedule bothered me last year. Every team has cupcakes, but we had way too many, and even lost to some.
4. Agree.

MrTbone said:

So if it’s an us issue, and a regular enough one, what is the answer?

It’s not to schedule easier. But no one wants to seem to address the elephant in the room.

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Sure, I would have liked to win more of our OOC games some years. I have also been very happy with some of our OOC wins some years. Same thing with seasons. I have been very happy with some seasons and disappointed with some others. I can respect your opinion wanting a coaching change and don't expect everyone's expectations to be the same.

Summation as I see it too. Baseball on an upward trajectory

In Woodson's last year, we lost a series at Alabama by a combined 43-5. We lost 18-0 to Virginia. We were 27-28 overall. The coach was widely considered a prick by those who dealt with him, from all I have read.

This year we were 33-19. We won at North Carolina. We won at Virginia. We won at NC State. We beat BC to go 4-0 vs. the ACC. We swept VCU. We had a Howser Trophy semifinalist. From all I have read, the coach is very pleasant to work with, gets along with the department staff, and acknowledges boosters and their contributions.

"How would I say light years ahead?" That's how.

We did not finish as well as we could have, which I acknowledged.

Spiders are are on the right track here unlike some other sports.

MLAX program is a whisper away from making a major splash. Believe it will happen. Keep doing what we are doing. Good things will happen.

Wood Hall said:

Disappointing, yes.

Big picture, our program is light years ahead of where it was when he took over and should continue to improve.

As I have said before, with our student demographics baseball is a sport we can excel in, with the right institutional commitment and quality coaching.

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Pitching better but still lot of room for improvement

GKiller said:

I've made that exact point b4. I'm not against giving up a H&H to lower leagues. Especially a local one. But we r doing it too frequently. If u r doing it that much show me u can at least still get a high major at Robins.

Also I'm not the one complaining about high majors coming to us. Sure I'd love to see it. I'm the one saying to change tactics and take more road buy games vs majors because they aren't coming to us. I'd say that's the opposite of complaining.

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Can’t read too much more of this debate without pulling my hair out, but appreciate the passion of the participants.

What I’ve seen of next year’s schedule may represent an improvement to someone who wants to sit down and compare NET etc. To less sophisticated fans it looks almost the same.

Unless I’ve missed it in the blizzard of the debate the home schedule for the loyal Robins Center fans looks as mediocre and unattractive as it has in recent years. The UR AD needs to work harder to respect the RC fans. Get some advice from the Women’s scheduler!

Rebuilding the Men’s Basketball program, one of our flagship programs, should be priority one in the UR AD. If it’s difficult to schedule in a way that respects the history of the program and its Robins Center fans, then someone needs to work harder, or we need to find someone more capable.

Why not seek and take enough P6 buy games to pay to bring decent and meaningful games to the RC for the fans?

Finally, I expect A-10 caliber basketball talent will be interested in playing an attractive schedule. Not sure we’ll check that box in the very competitive Portal/NIL/Direct Pay era.

It sure seems like we’re on our way to another disappointment.

Go Spiders!

GKiller said:

surprise surprise but I disagree. Most ppl thought we had no shot to win at Kansas. in this era of roster turnover u don't know as much year to year what u get, your own team or opponents. I'd hate to under value my team and miss out on a game like that. Ignore last year result. It's a 1 off. we got smoked. so what we won 8 d1 games overall. we got smoked by a lot worse teams. Auburn game was probably most talked about OOC game going in. they ended up a F4 team but some games will be easier. It sets a precedent u play them. national game. program visibility. culture. it makes them more common in future. the players want to play them. again some years u get smoked in those games. it doesn't matter. we r 1 for 5 in at large candidacy. u hope to make it matter 1 every 3 years, at least that is better than 1 for 5 chance and 3 for 20 ncaa results.

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The Auburn game was talked about for all the wrong reasons lol. We were debating whether we were going to lose by 40 or 50. I am going with the strategy that going into conference play 11-2 with wins over teams like Clemson, Vanderbilt (hypothetically) and being in contention for at-large, maybe getting AP votes in poll will do more for our program visibility and national reputation than getting getting embarrassed by a national contender like Auburn. So we should schedule accordingly to give us that opportunity.

You bring a good point about roster turnover and scheduling. I’ve been a believer that you have a baseline difficulty of scheduling you do every year no matter what and then adjust slightly from that with the roster you have. When we had Gilly, Golden, etc. as seniors you schedule the kind of games at Kentucky, absolutely. When you have unknown rosters, then maybe not the best idea. My guess is the staff were desperate to schedule anything that was a good game for us because of how awful our MTE and other schedule was. So they went to the other extreme of getting a game we had no business being in at this time. I am willing to bet you if our staff could waive a magic wand and get their perfect schedule, playing at Auburn would not be included.

spiderman said:

then we're doing the same thing as the high majors ... just buying low level games and not giving them return games.
and maybe that is the best strategy, but we can't complain about high majors not coming to us if we won't do it for W&M.

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I've made that exact point b4. I'm not against giving up a H&H to lower leagues. Especially a local one. But we r doing it too frequently. If u r doing it that much show me u can at least still get a high major at Robins.

Also I'm not the one complaining about high majors coming to us. Sure I'd love to see it. I'm the one saying to change tactics and take more road buy games vs majors because they aren't coming to us. I'd say that's the opposite of complaining.

spiderstudent17 said:

For instance, the @Auburn game last year was not a good scheduling decision. We had no prayer of winning that game.”

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surprise surprise but I disagree. Most ppl thought we had no shot to win at Kansas. in this era of roster turnover u don't know as much year to year what u get, your own team or opponents. I'd hate to under value my team and miss out on a game like that. Ignore last year result. It's a 1 off. we got smoked. so what we won 8 d1 games overall. we got smoked by a lot worse teams. Auburn game was probably most talked about OOC game going in. they ended up a F4 team but some games will be easier. It sets a precedent u play them. national game. program visibility. culture. it makes them more common in future. the players want to play them. again some years u get smoked in those games. it doesn't matter. we r 1 for 5 in at large candidacy. u hope to make it matter 1 every 3 years, at least that is better than 1 for 5 chance and 3 for 20 ncaa results.

GKiller said:

I'd rather play 3 road buy games then our current strategy of giving road games to ODU, W&M, So Ill, Bucknell etc. I think we can get home buy games pretty equivalent to those teams.

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then we're doing the same thing as the high majors ... just buying low level games and not giving them return games.
and maybe that is the best strategy, but we can't complain about high majors not coming to us if we won't do it for W&M.

Wood Hall said:

Disappointing, yes.

Big picture, our program is light years ahead of where it was when he took over and should continue to improve.

As I have said before, with our student demographics baseball is a sport we can excel in, with the right institutional commitment and quality coaching.

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How would you say light years ahead? We missed out on a 7 team playoff in the A10, a conference that isn’t exactly that strong in baseball. We are also losing a lot of talent both pitching and hitting wise. We have a great class coming in on paper but who knows how that will translate on the field. Disappointing season is an understatement.

I think we all agree that we’ve missed the mark with MTEs this year and last year. Not sure why when we’ve been able to get in pretty good ones before irrespective of how good our prior season records were. A10 and Richmond has good enough reputation to be in an above average tier MTE. I think VT and 97 said it best, respectively. “We shouldn't try to play the hardest schedule we can. We should play the smartest schddule, with enough good, but beatable teams mixed in.” And “Correct, you have to schedule BCS games with finding teams that we have an opportunity to win. For instance, the @Auburn game last year was not a good scheduling decision. We had no prayer of winning that game.”

I 100% agree with those comments. For me, I’m just ballparking here but in my eyes that equates to playing about 2-3 beatable P5 opponents a year. Not the Auburn’s of the world, but Clemson/Vanderbilt/Syracuse etc who are still great teams and give us quality Q1 games.

This isn’t an exact science though. It’s my way of finding that balance of a hard/smart schedule with realistically beatable P5 teams mixed in. Maybe depending on the teams and our roster some years that means more P5 games… I’m not dead set on a fixed number of P5 teams. Instead, it’s the mentality of scheduling judiciously and striking that balance between hard/smart. In a way it kind of aligns with the 80% win rule that sman mentioned A10 is advocating each school to aim for. I agree with that too. What’s screwed most A10 teams from at large in the past is either not winning enough or losing landmine Q4 conference games. Look at Dayton who beat Marquette, Northwestern, UNLV and UConn this year but missed at large because they lost enough bad games in A10. Having each team play within their means and optimize their NET/record the best possible is a great way of addressing this problem.

Disappointing, yes.

Big picture, our program is light years ahead of where it was when he took over and should continue to improve.

As I have said before, with our student demographics baseball is a sport we can excel in, with the right institutional commitment and quality coaching.

spiderman said:

I think our level was trying to hold out for home and homes, but we've all given up on that now.
we've been forced to agree to buy games, and I assume we'll get another one this year.
I'd offer 2 for 1's with lower high majors, but not sure if they'll even do that.
but for crying out loud pull some strings to get in better MTEs.

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well the real good mid majors haven't - a UD or VCU. Even GW had South Carolina at home very recently. Pretty sure SLU and Joes has got 1 in recent past too. I expect there have been some out of the MWC, AAC, WCC possibly too. So I don't want to give up on those H&Hs completely, but no doubt they r much harder to come by.

The buy game at P5 is not new for us, we've just done it sporadically to the elite p5. The elite p5 haven't given up H&Hs in a long time so that's not new. It's the middle or lower p5 that's a newer issue. But I agree with you, in general, our level has tried to hold out. us too with a few exceptions. That's exactly why it's been a choice bc not everyone wants a road buy game only w a high major. That's a distinction imo from your post. UR should change its thinking, get ahead of the curve. To me the opportunity is there. Because there isn't as much comp when a lot of our level isn't going for them. Then maybe we improve our program and we can hold out for middle or lower p5 h&h. But alas expect 1 again and don't complain. I'd rather play 3 road buy games then our current strategy of giving road games to ODU, W&M, So Ill, Bucknell etc. I think we can get home buy games pretty equivalent to those teams.

The failure of the MTEs does affect the strategy. Not sure how anyone is ok with this season's mte either but I get surprised on here often.

GKiller said:

But not everyone wants to play them on the road only as a buy game. Of course everyone wants them as H&H or neutral. Many teams at UR level have been against taking too many buy road games. We take them rarely. VCU never takes them. That is by choice. But VCU gets in good MTEs or crushes it in A10 or wins A10 tourney w regularity. Or gets a H&H with a NC State, plus others with their coaches contract. We have to reevaluate our strategy. Traditionally the strongest mid major leagues wouldn't take those buy games, or rarely. I don't really care what others do. We need those games so if u have to do more road buy games at P5 u do it. Thanks goodness we took the game at Kansas.

And now there is more inventory with 2 P5 leagues moving down from 20 to 18 league games.

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I think our level was trying to hold out for home and homes, but we've all given up on that now.
we've been forced to agree to buy games, and I assume we'll get another one this year.
I'd offer 2 for 1's with lower high majors, but not sure if they'll even do that.
but for crying out loud pull some strings to get in better MTEs.