All depends on what our goals really are. If it’s making the AD look good by helping Mooney get to 20+ wins, the easy schedule does it. I’d like to think that we should aim higher and schedule as if we are playing for a decent NCAA seed, expecting to make it.
2021–22 Schedule News
- Thread starter SFspidur
- Start date
We’ve learned nothing in 17 years, apparently. Schedule enough of these awful games, and we WILL lose one or two of them. We’ve literally done it pretty much every year.
At least if we schedule good teams, we won’t lose to any terrible ones, and we’ll beat a few, too. The bad loss to Radford two years ago is what had us on the bubble.
At least if we schedule good teams, we won’t lose to any terrible ones, and we’ll beat a few, too. The bad loss to Radford two years ago is what had us on the bubble.
We don’t have to create a bruising OOC but ffs, we have a massive amount of starting experience with this crew. At least put 8 of the games in Q2/Q3. We didn’t have that level of experience two years ago, it’s not unreasonable to dial up a slightly better OOC two years later with pretty much the same crew.
I am wondering if our team next year will be the most experienced team EVER in college basketball, both past and future. Gilyard, Grant, Sherod and Cayo have all started games in 4 seasons so far in their careers, and will all be playing for a 5th or 6th season next year. I seriously think it may be the most experienced team of all time.
Uh. Yes, I agree and that is pretty much what I said. I said 2 Q1s, 3 or 4 Q2s, 3 or 4 Q3s, and 3 or 4 Q4s is what we should shoot for. But, then you replied and said 6-8 Q3/Q4 games is too many. Glad you are coming around a little here and don't expect a super tough schedule. If we played as little as 5 Q3/Q4 games, we would have one of the toughest schedules in the country. I don't care what experience we have returning, and how good we might be, that would not be smart scheduling for a mid major.
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So, you want us to schedule all good teams, so we won't lose to any terrible teams, and then if we "beat a few" of them and maybe go 6-7 or 7-6 OOC that is the right way to schedule to try to get an at large? Really? I doubt that's what you are thinking, so what exactly would you like to see our schedule look like from a quad standpoint?
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Well, let's just say "your" way has not worked too good the last 9 years, so yes let's give Eight Leggers way a try. Maybe, just maybe with 4 1000 point scorers returning for 5th or 6th year, Burton, Dji and Wilson we have the players to rise to the occasion and go 10-3 vs a tough schedule. And wow, now we are back on Goodman and those guys lists and we are in the national spotlight.
But you are right, lil ol richmond should just do enough to try to sneak in a bid. Boy, you are the biggest buzz kill this side of Moon himself.
I agree for the most part, but we shouldn't be treating this year like every other year.
Thinking of 2011's post it is insane how experienced this club will be this upcoming season. Blake only one moving on though you can paint him as the outsider of the core. As good as Blake was believe enough scoring potential with group (Nick back) and young 2/3s available he was the least important piece to leave. I know saying a lot giving up 16 ppg in 33 minutes.
Think about Mooney's experienced situation. Say Nick starts at the 2 so still 4 seniors and Tyler. know won't happen but going by mpg last season, Gust, Grace, and Sal would be the first 3 off the bench. This has to be the year where Mooney's tests the young frosh/soph early and often enough during the OOC. If not it will be just as insane next season when we talk about how inexperienced of a group Mooney (?) has coming back.
So will Mooney stick to his ways of giving out minutes? We say it every year but this has to be Mooney's final chance to get it right and make the NCAA tourney, officially. He might already know he will be back without a bid (IMO mistake for UR b-ball) but believe the guy has to have some pride in self-analyzing his performance? Please Chris, politics could be in your future but not now.
As much of a fan I was of young coach Mooney (thinking his eventual coaching prowess was a given) I have been for too long wanting him gone. That said, what other coach in the country could get (has gotten) a entire group of young men to come together thinking positive after so much team underachievement they have had to endure over their careers. Mooney has instilled something in them that will last way beyond their UR b-ball careers. Just want so badly to be given a send off that they deserve.
GO SPIDERS!
Think about Mooney's experienced situation. Say Nick starts at the 2 so still 4 seniors and Tyler. know won't happen but going by mpg last season, Gust, Grace, and Sal would be the first 3 off the bench. This has to be the year where Mooney's tests the young frosh/soph early and often enough during the OOC. If not it will be just as insane next season when we talk about how inexperienced of a group Mooney (?) has coming back.
So will Mooney stick to his ways of giving out minutes? We say it every year but this has to be Mooney's final chance to get it right and make the NCAA tourney, officially. He might already know he will be back without a bid (IMO mistake for UR b-ball) but believe the guy has to have some pride in self-analyzing his performance? Please Chris, politics could be in your future but not now.
As much of a fan I was of young coach Mooney (thinking his eventual coaching prowess was a given) I have been for too long wanting him gone. That said, what other coach in the country could get (has gotten) a entire group of young men to come together thinking positive after so much team underachievement they have had to endure over their careers. Mooney has instilled something in them that will last way beyond their UR b-ball careers. Just want so badly to be given a send off that they deserve.
GO SPIDERS!
Exactly. In 2015, when we were one of the first 4 out, we lost to ODU, JMU, and Northeastern. In 2017, we lost to ODU, Bucknell, and Oral Roberts. On 2019, I think we were still in, others do not, with the loss to Radford. The solution is not play harder teams because we all know mid majors can only afford so many losses. The solution is schedule smart by getting a few high quality opponents along very few sub 200+ SOS killing teams, and beat the teams we should beat, and in 2017 and 2019, just beating 2 of the 3 teams mentioned likely would have been enough.
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Well, whatever metric we are using, it seems that we have our Quad 3 and 4's filled up already. Would be nice to put a Quad 1 on the table.
They don't have to be top-25 teams, but they DO have to be above 150 in the NET. Point is when you schedule 4-5 terrible teams in a season, history shows that we will lose to one of them – lately at home, which is even worse. We can't afford that. Schedule mid-pack or top teams from other conferences and let's go. We don't always play up to the competition, but we do so more than we seem to be able to avoid playing down to it.
I wonder why we were in the first four out instead of "in"...
I assume it's not easy to get on top teams' schedules with every team in the country interested in the same games. I'd love an interview with someone like Jenkins to see how it's done. you probably start every year calling good regional fits for a home and home (probably should offer a 2 for 1) with teams like Wake, UVA, Georgetown, VPI, WVA, UNC, Duke, NC St, Ga Tech, etc ... then you stretch out to our northeast demographic and try Maryland, Villanova, UConn, Syracuse, Rutgers, Seton Hall...
after you've struck out on most of those you reach out further and offer a one game road trip for cash to Kentucky, Louisville, etc... who every team in the country has called as well.
end of the day you probably hope to get 3 big teams that you could beat but will be underdogs to. then you balance the schedule to make sure your overall record is solid.
after you've struck out on most of those you reach out further and offer a one game road trip for cash to Kentucky, Louisville, etc... who every team in the country has called as well.
end of the day you probably hope to get 3 big teams that you could beat but will be underdogs to. then you balance the schedule to make sure your overall record is solid.
This should be a year that we are willing to throw the "philosophy" out the window and play as many good teams as we can - go get some buy games. If this program has a chip on its shoulder, go on a FU tour and win a bunch of games. But we won't, because we like things to be comfortable.
Totally agree: Do some pressers saying we felt robbed by Covid last year and have 4 5th and 6th year players returning who want to play anyone/any where. Have Jacob/Grant/Nick out leading that message. Set a tone and send a message that we are coming this year.
Also agree that there is no way we do this under Mooney. We will follow the same offseason script we have followed the past 18 years.
Too long a post alert...
sman and vt4700 r right we have the losing part down. Guess you could say scheduling really hard never hurts us either. If we r going to regularly drop the low ranked games that's an argument for other side. And personally I think we would do fine bc we would be up for those games. Nobody is asking for a top 20 ooc sos or the Temple schedules of old, but we can strengthen it.
But I'm willing to see what else we line up. I do think we'll line up some good ones, we have to. & games at Wofford or UNI for instance are not easy but the key here is the MTE. As we've talked about b4, in Mooney entire tenure he hasn't figured this out. We've had a couple solid ones, but they all require taking on low major dogs. I can't think of 1 where it didn't. But so many other A10 teams get 3 game tourneys with good games and no bad ones. Half the time Mooney goes the slimy gazelle group route as some sort of payback to his agent. So the MTE could be a problem because history tells us two absolute crap games are coming on top of what has been reported.
I agree we likely have the most experienced & oldest team in D1 hoops history, we want to shoot high. Again it's been a decade of failure. No NCAAs. There is 1 common denominator throughout that time just 1. If we want to shoot for the bubble and schedule accordingly well your margin of error is smaller. I think we want to shoot for being solidly in NCAA, get off the bubble seeds. With this team. Tho I know why some ppl would laugh at that thought process.
Plus all last year with essentially same team and high expectations Moon talked about scheduling the toughest possible. Has anything changed? No. Granted that was a lot of big hat no cattle talk. We want toughest possible games remember. We got D3 Holy Mary Mother of God. We got...golly I don't know why SLU left. The scheduling tough has been a talking point of the staff for many years.
Again I'm willing to give benefit of doubt right now on schedule but I can also see why ppl think we r soft. I've been told men's basketball is the rising tide that lifts all boats in our athletics REGATTA. So maybe shoot high once in a while and go get it. It's certainly not happening organically. Or "programmatically" I think Hardt would call it. Hardt and Mooney seems to be low tide guys. That's great when you want to play Bocce ball on the beach on Kiawah Island. I can't confirm or deny if those two are doing just that as I write this.
sman and vt4700 r right we have the losing part down. Guess you could say scheduling really hard never hurts us either. If we r going to regularly drop the low ranked games that's an argument for other side. And personally I think we would do fine bc we would be up for those games. Nobody is asking for a top 20 ooc sos or the Temple schedules of old, but we can strengthen it.
But I'm willing to see what else we line up. I do think we'll line up some good ones, we have to. & games at Wofford or UNI for instance are not easy but the key here is the MTE. As we've talked about b4, in Mooney entire tenure he hasn't figured this out. We've had a couple solid ones, but they all require taking on low major dogs. I can't think of 1 where it didn't. But so many other A10 teams get 3 game tourneys with good games and no bad ones. Half the time Mooney goes the slimy gazelle group route as some sort of payback to his agent. So the MTE could be a problem because history tells us two absolute crap games are coming on top of what has been reported.
I agree we likely have the most experienced & oldest team in D1 hoops history, we want to shoot high. Again it's been a decade of failure. No NCAAs. There is 1 common denominator throughout that time just 1. If we want to shoot for the bubble and schedule accordingly well your margin of error is smaller. I think we want to shoot for being solidly in NCAA, get off the bubble seeds. With this team. Tho I know why some ppl would laugh at that thought process.
Plus all last year with essentially same team and high expectations Moon talked about scheduling the toughest possible. Has anything changed? No. Granted that was a lot of big hat no cattle talk. We want toughest possible games remember. We got D3 Holy Mary Mother of God. We got...golly I don't know why SLU left. The scheduling tough has been a talking point of the staff for many years.
Again I'm willing to give benefit of doubt right now on schedule but I can also see why ppl think we r soft. I've been told men's basketball is the rising tide that lifts all boats in our athletics REGATTA. So maybe shoot high once in a while and go get it. It's certainly not happening organically. Or "programmatically" I think Hardt would call it. Hardt and Mooney seems to be low tide guys. That's great when you want to play Bocce ball on the beach on Kiawah Island. I can't confirm or deny if those two are doing just that as I write this.
But, not all of them above 150. I agree it is smart scheduling to try to build a schedule with a lot of teams in the 75-150 range, and that is what we have done for the most part. Some might drop below 150 and some might rise a little, but this would hopefully avoid having 5 or 6 200+ teams on there, and should still give you chances at Q1 and Q2 wins. I do think 3 or 4 200+ teams is fine, as long as they all are not SOS killing 250+ teams. You don't want to be the only team, or one of the very very few, to not play a few 200+ teams. In 2019, even though we ended with 10 Q3/Q4 games, only 3 were above 200, so that helped keep our SOS around a reapectable 100. I just don't see the issue with scheduling here. If you or others do, no big deal, we can just disagree.
I think that's exactly what some are asking for. and it would be fun. and maybe it would work. but we could lose our way out of the tournament in December too.
I certainly don't want a cupcake schedule. I just can't think of many teams that load up with brutally tough, road dominated out-of-conference schedules and have it work out for them,
Because we went 7-6 OOC and lost to JMU, ODU, and Northeastern. We also lost to Wake, NC St, and No. Iowa. So, you blame the schedule and not the 6 losses? Should we have scheduled harder and had 8 or 9 losses OOC, or do you think a team that lost to ODU, JMU, and Northeastern would have handled a few tougher teams? Strange logic there, but all good. We can just disagree.
Ok I guess I should not have said "nobody" is asking for that because I agree there are always exceptions but certainly majority r not. Think plenty just want harder that does equal brutally tough road dominated. There is plenty of room to be harder and not go that far do you agree? But regardless I'm confident in our team playing a hard schedule & not be out in December. you and VT4700 & perhaps some others are very negative.
A top 50 or 60 ooc sos would still be reasonable. with all these vets all these all timers in the UR record book who have never been to ncaa and r coming back for it I don't want to be in a position that we scheduled too light. That would be a travesty. VCU already stands out with their decade of success they can get away with weaker SOS (they also basically never lose a weak game or buy game). we have neither going for us.
Again a big key imo is the MTE. All the good ones seem to be booked. maybe there is some new gig out there we've been working on, but it's hard to have confidence in the highly paid UR professionals.
VCU two years ago had a 156 OOC SOS and wasn't anywhere near the NCAA tourney. Is that our goal?
You're making stuff up again.
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8legs1dream
Team Manager
For some reason, I think Jacob would love this. But he doesn't make the schedule.
You and SF are both really confusing me with the years...
In 2019, I don't think we were in with losses to Longwood, Hampton, ORU, and Wyoming...
Good lord. That's not what he's saying. Of course it's illogical to think we would have "handled" tougher teams than 3 weak teams we lost to - but you don't need to substitute a good win for a bad loss. You don't get to take the 7 wins away in this scenario. We were first four out that year. Maybe if we had gone 7-6 OOC, but we scheduled better than JMU, ODU, and Northeastern, that would have gotten us over the hump.
So, yes....I blame the schedule and not the 6 losses.
Dayton 19/20 - OOC SOS #48
VCU 18/19 - OOC SOS #2
Rhode Island 17/18 - OOC SOS #15
Clearly, it's a bad idea for a mid-major team with championship aspirations to schedule tough.
VCU 18/19 - OOC SOS #2
Rhode Island 17/18 - OOC SOS #15
Clearly, it's a bad idea for a mid-major team with championship aspirations to schedule tough.
LOL.. thanks for clarifying that. Correct, my 2019 should have said 2020.You and SF are both really confusing me with the years...
In 2019, I don't think we were in with losses to Longwood, Hampton, ORU, and Wyoming...
As someone else said, we have the most experienced team in the country returning, heck we might have the most experienced team in the history of college basketball. Why would we not want to play a really tough schedule, a Temple schedule of old. Play anyone anywhere.
To not challenge ourselves in that way is doing a disservice to what I think is the reason Gilly, Grant, Cayo, Sherod are returning. They returned because they believe we can all have an all time great season. It would be really nice if our coaching staff set up a schedule to make that possible. And for those who are talking up, the ehh, lets just get one or two Quad 1 games in, do you have that little faith in our guys?
I think with our experience and depth we can play with anyone in the country this year. I don't want to waste this teams talent playing a bunch of teams like Hofstra and Wofford. Go out and make a big damn statement, put UR basketball back on the map and if we don't and we fail, at least we went down swinging.
To not challenge ourselves in that way is doing a disservice to what I think is the reason Gilly, Grant, Cayo, Sherod are returning. They returned because they believe we can all have an all time great season. It would be really nice if our coaching staff set up a schedule to make that possible. And for those who are talking up, the ehh, lets just get one or two Quad 1 games in, do you have that little faith in our guys?
I think with our experience and depth we can play with anyone in the country this year. I don't want to waste this teams talent playing a bunch of teams like Hofstra and Wofford. Go out and make a big damn statement, put UR basketball back on the map and if we don't and we fail, at least we went down swinging.
if 2018-19 VCU had the #2 OOC schedule, then it just shows you don't have to load up a ridiculous looking tough schedule. Does this look like the 2nd toughest OOC schedule?Dayton 19/20 - OOC SOS #48
VCU 18/19 - OOC SOS #2
Rhode Island 17/18 - OOC SOS #15
Clearly, it's a bad idea for a mid-major team with championship aspirations to schedule tough.
| Gardner-Webb |
| Hampton |
| Bowling Green State |
| Temple |
| St. John's (NY) |
| Hofstra |
| Old Dominion |
| Iona |
| Texas |
| Virginia |
| College of Charleston |
| Wichita State |
| Rider |
That year, yes.
6 Quad 1 & 2 games, including 2 "upper" Q1 and 2 upper Q2.
At #76, Hofstra was literally the highest ranked Q3 possible, only because they played them at home.
All 7 of their Q3 and Q4 games were at home, vs teams good enough to move "up a quad" if played away.
Iona was the lowest ranked team they played, at #207.
By contrast, we played 0 Q1, 1 Q2, 3 Q3, and 9 Quad 4. Six of our OOC opponents were ranked lower than Iona.
I wasn't saying how it turned out. it certainly turned out strong. but when they made that schedule, I doubt people were in awe. we're complaining about similar type teams with the 4 or 5 that we know so far. yes we need a couple big names. and then ideally a few of the lesser teams we schedule have good years like what happened above.
Fair enough. VCU also didn't have the expectations that year that Mooney has set for us.
FTR, I'd be OK with 3/3/3/4, or something similar, if we don't go digging down in the 300s for those Quad 4s. That's a nice balance. No more than 7 combined Q3/Q4 - not with all these grad students.
I think 3/0/5/5 (like 2020) is too weak for this group, and had it been slightly better in 2020 we wouldn't have been sweating the bubble. And it's not like we got unlucky with the Quad 3s - none of them were even close to Q2.
0/1/3/9 - that's just awful.
FTR, I'd be OK with 3/3/3/4, or something similar, if we don't go digging down in the 300s for those Quad 4s. That's a nice balance. No more than 7 combined Q3/Q4 - not with all these grad students.
I think 3/0/5/5 (like 2020) is too weak for this group, and had it been slightly better in 2020 we wouldn't have been sweating the bubble. And it's not like we got unlucky with the Quad 3s - none of them were even close to Q2.
0/1/3/9 - that's just awful.
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They were helped by Virginia and its #1 NET, and the fact that they only played three sub 200 teams, with all 3 barely over 200. They had 8 home games (4 Q3s and 4 Q4s), only 2 of which were top 100. Virginia and Texas gave them two Q1 games, they had two neutral site Q2 games, and a final barely Q2 away game against ODU (100 Net). Overall, this is a really smart schedule for a mid major, but I do wonder how some on here would feel if we had 8 Q3/Q4 home games, only two of which were top 100 at 76 and 83.
They only had 7 Q3/Q4 home games. Wichita State wound up a solid Q2, and it was a home game. Nice try.
We would take it every day and twice on Sunday.
What was the last quality OOC home game we had?
I agree we should have the attitude and approach that we'll play anyone, anywhere, anytime. Except we should not play a game in DC right before Christmas.
I also agree that it's probably incredibly difficult to get good teams to answer the phone when we say, "we have probably the most experienced team in the history of CBB, and we'd like to play you in November or December." So it's not like just snapping fingers and games appear.
We may need to play as many of the Buffalos, Drakes, Loyola Chi, and St. Mary's of the world as possible to bump up the NET.
I also agree that it's probably incredibly difficult to get good teams to answer the phone when we say, "we have probably the most experienced team in the history of CBB, and we'd like to play you in November or December." So it's not like just snapping fingers and games appear.
We may need to play as many of the Buffalos, Drakes, Loyola Chi, and St. Mary's of the world as possible to bump up the NET.
We don't need to play everyone over .500 in the Big 10 away and we don't need to play everyone below .500 in the SWAC at home. We just need to find the right balance.
