2025-2026 Non Conference Schedule
- Thread starter Section9.RowD
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Because we have finished with NETs in the 30s, 60s, 70, and 80s this decade. With wins over Vanderbilt, Wisconsin, BC, NC St, and Iowa, and a 24 win, A-10 regular season title season only 2 seasons ago. That is not the definition of a cupcake.
I don’t think getting demolished by a top 5 team last year improved our team haha.
seems kinda lazy using social media for this. get on the phone and make something happen.
it's like a high school kid posting "if you need a prom date, I don't have one. give me a call. I have a car and I'm a good dancer".
In all seriousness, I don't think beating cupcakes, losing to cupcakes, getting drilled by Auburn, or losing to Loyola and Dayton in OT improved our team last year. When u are flawed and non athletic, not a lot can change that.
I hear u, but it doesn’t hurt for him to do that. It makes sense for a coach at that level to put that out there. And, I'm sure he is calling coaches.
Most coaches use social media these days to promote their teams and programs. Mooney is not on social media.
Yeah, I'm sure he's working the phones as well, but the tweet sends out a broad message that can efficiently reach more eyes and casts a bit of a public light on the plight of these schools trying to fill out their schedules.
You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
ok, that beats Charlotte. solid tournament with good mid majors. should all be good games.
only thing missing is the opportunity for a high major win.
Probably left off VMI by mistake. Always a chance gets pushed out a year but w contract & fact we always have a few home buy games I think more likely still there.
ECU gotta be H&H. That’s another average mid we’ll play on road. Decent chance it starts on road this season. Only a guess for balance because next year we r due at WM ODU & S.Il. Q3 road but when at home it’s Q4. Not a crappy Q4 but another q4. No wonder student17 didn’t want my friendly q4 wager.
Broken record but just take road p5 buy games & buy games at home instead of these average or worse mid H&Hs. Is Joe Lunardi still our scheduling guru?
I don't want to see 250+ Richmond teams either.
I get it's semi-local and they're AAC, but ~175 should not be the range we want for H&H deals if we have any aspirations.
We want those 70–140 range teams like Drake, Wichita, UNI, Toledo, Wofford. They may not hit those marks every year (UNI ended up being disappointing several of the years we played them), but those are teams that have had more solid years than bad ones.
No ceiling. Does nothing for a resume. And it’s our 5th one. But maybe we’ve given up on the resume idk. Road p5 games have upside.
right, but it's the least of the problem. when we're playing teams ranked around 300, I'm not going to complain that we're playing a team ranked 175. the 300's are the problem. stop playing those and the SOS goes way up.
their fans are probably saying the same about us.
we're not a powerhouse that can demand a buy game from an ECU. we've given home & homes to much worse.
We at least have some history and like to think we can get back to some level of success.
ECU has been crap forever. I mean, congrats to them on their first winning season in over a decade, I guess...yay.
They haven't danced in over 30 years (it would be over 50 years if not for that lucky run in the 1993 CAA tournament after they went 4–10 and finished 7th of 8 teams in conference play), and have never even made the NIT.
well we played exactly zero 300s last season and everyone hated our schedule.
Agree 300s r a problem but I expect we'll still have some 300s. We've given H&H to ODU and WM that would fall into that group. WM better last season but historically 300+ and lost a lot from team I believe. VMI another normally there. Hopefully ODU can improve but fair to be skeptical of them. & it's a near mortal lock we add another 300.
a major problem is we r not offsetting with good upside P5 games but an ECU and a mid major MTE.
It's depressing. But keep running it back with the same guy in charge no matter what.
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our good OOC games last year:
Louisiana Tech 129 (L)
Belmont 128 (L)
Auburn 3 (L)
our almost 300's ...
VMI 294 (W)
Ball St 276 (W)
Charlotte 270 (L)
Marist 246 (L)
W&M 218 (L)
Bucknell 215 (L)
Maine 205 (W)
FGCU 179 (L)
and 2 teams not even in D1.
we beat one top 275 team. apparently we scheduled too hard.
We scrimmaged ECU early afternoon of Delaware football weekend.Neither defense showed up.They we’re tough.We won by 1 with some favorable calls.
Media reports (JOC) said it was a 90–90 tie.
We both loved it so much we apparently decided to parlay it into countable games.
And if my razor sharp memory is correct, ECU shot 109% from the field in that scrimmage - approximately.
Nostradamus23 correctly predicted big issues.
I have no problem with this game and imagine it starts away so will be Q3 and maybe Q2. I like the strategy of playing other solid mid major programs and teams in conference like MVC and AAC. Lot higher chance that those teams will improve in NET in one season than a team like ODU. @ECU, So Illinois, @Belmont, neutral Furman/Illinois State/Charlotte (less so but possible) likely will be top 175 in NET and some may be top 135. That’s 5 games right now that are solidly Q3 and maybe Q2. So we still only have 3 Q4 games right now. Still need a couple top 75 NET games.
These type of games are good middle type games, meaning they aren't cupcakes, but you don't want them to be your best OOC games on the schedule. So, if we add a couple majors and get 3 games better than these, that makes these OOC games on the schedule good games. But, if these end up being our best games, than our schedule will stink again.
Arguing that 175 is better than a 300 NET team, I mean OK, yes. The problem is we keep signing up for Quad 2/3 games, along with our already established Quad 4 games and pretty soon we are filled up OOC. Right now, we have zero Quad 1 games, zero P5 games, zero chance for a signature win, heck even zero games for our guys to get excited about playing. Mooney keeps saying we are a national program, I know of zero national programs that schedule like this and make the argument that Quad 3 games are better than Quad 4 games as justification for playing those games.
I don't think we all got the hint until the season started that Mooney thought last year's team was not very good. Hence, the terrible schedule designed to increase our win total.
We are scheduling very similarly to last year, perhaps we should take note.
We are scheduling very similarly to last year, perhaps we should take note.
