Scheduling ideas

[VT4700]

With the A-10 at 15 teams now, it's time to play a 20 game IC schedule. The A-10 should use the following format:

3 pods of 5 team each. Play each of these teams in your pod home and home so that is 8 games.

Next, play 1 team from each other pod home and home. Use previous year's conference standings to determine these opponents each year. Example: Using this past season, let's say Richmond, at 12th, had 1, 4, 9, and 14 with them. We would be 4th in our pod so we would play the 4th best teams in each other pod home and home.

That puts us at 12 games, and we would then play the remaining 8 teams once, 4 at home and 4 away. So, there you have it. A 20 game IC schedule with 4 common opponents to play twice each year, and 2 others that can change each year.

With 20 IC games, that still leaves 11 OOC games. This is what I would try for:

4 home games with no future games attached. These will likely be 200+ ranked type teams, so try to avoid more than 2 above 300.
Next, a 4 team tourney, so that is now 6 OOC games.

Next, try to get 4 home and homes with quality mid majors or any majors that would do this. I would look into a 2 for 1 if certain majors ask for that. To me, that is a win win. We get a good power team at home one year, and also get 2 road games with them to help our schedule and resume.

That leaves one game, and I would find a neutral site game like we have played with NC State and Clemson recently. This would give us an OOC schedule with 7 quality mid major or power teams, and overall we would have 16 total home games, 12 road games, and 3 neutral site games.

 

[SFspidur]

On the one hand, I don't know what an extra two games against teams from a one-bid A-10 does for us, unlike the P6 that get rewarded for beating up on each other.

But on the other hand, the OOC scheduling challenges we have are clear. As the big boys move to 20 games, there are fewer and fewer quality OOC opportunities available.

 

[VT4700]

If you play 6 conference teams twice, it at least gives you a couple more chances to maybe play a top 2 or 3 team twice. This could help things if the A-10 gets better. The A-10 had a bad year, but that doesn't mean it will always be a 1 bid league now. And, as you said on the other hand, I think finding 13 OOC games is getting tougher and tougher. Why not make it 11, and play 2 more IC games? Even if they aren't the top teams, playing a 2nd game against maybe Davidson or Duquesne, or whoever seems better than struggling to find your last couple of games and putting some 300+ teams on there.

 

[Eight Legger]

I would support this idea if the A10 wasn't hot garbage. I'd be looking to play fewer league games, not more, right now. Figure out a couple partnerships with similar leagues, like we were trying to do with the MWC, and give every team in both leagues 3 or 4 games that way.

If we literally can't get a single road game at any P5 school the way PQ seemed to suggest (which I question), then it's on us and the league to get creative and figure things out, not cry woe are we.

 

[SFspidur]

I'm just not sure it really offers us anything beyond what we're already doing. A chance at getting an extra game against a decent A-10 team versus OOC scheduling that's under our control?

We're actually very close to this OOC scheduling formula already, just with 13 instead of 11 obviously.

We certainly have trouble getting P6 games, but we've been doing a solid job on the mid-major home-and-home arrangements. We had five on this year's schedule: UNI, Charleston, Wichita, Toledo, and Drake.

The bad-team buy games included VMI, FDU, and Coppin State. I can't remember the Bucknell deal...we've played them home twice in a row, so are we doing a 2-for-1 and have to go there next year?

Then there's the W&M home-and-home series that a lot of people hate, made all the more clear by losing that game this year. I could absolutely stand to ditch that.

Then you've got Clemson on neutral and an underwhelming event with Syracuse and Temple.

 

[97spiderfan]

woe are we.

Is this not our new fight song, Quealls and the BOT approved? Goes well with our new motto "Temper your expectations" Man, SNL, could make a great parody out of this.

 

[97spiderfan]

I'm just not sure it really offers us anything beyond what we're already doing. A chance at getting an extra game against a decent A-10 team versus OOC scheduling that's under our control?

We're actually very close to this OOC scheduling formula already, just with 13 instead of 11 obviously.

We certainly have trouble getting P6 games, but we've been doing a solid job on the mid-major home-and-home arrangements. We had five on this year's schedule: UNI, Charleston, Wichita, Toledo, and Drake.

The bad-team buy games included VMI, FDU, and Coppin State. I can't remember the Bucknell deal...we've played them home twice in a row, so are we doing a 2-for-1 and have to go there next year?

Then there's the W&M home-and-home series that a lot of people hate, made all the more clear by losing that game this year. I could absolutely stand to ditch that.

Then you've got Clemson on neutral and an underwhelming event with Syracuse and Temple.

Our schedule is not holding us back. Does it really matter if we play a great OOC if we are just going to do what we did this year and really most years under Mooney, which is underperform it. No, it doesn't.

I can easily see Mooney and company going back to a cupcake OOC schedule this year to keep the hounds at bay a little bit. They can just use the already built in excuse offered up by Quealls and Hardt, no one will play us.

 

[SFspidur]

Agreed, the scheduling doesn't matter unless we can get our own house in order.

But even if we do that, I just don't think it's going to make much difference to our chances whether we have 18 or 20 games in conference play.

 

[VT4700]

I'm just not sure it really offers us anything beyond what we're already doing. A chance at getting an extra game against a decent A-10 team versus OOC scheduling that's under our control?

We're actually very close to this OOC scheduling formula already, just with 13 instead of 11 obviously.

We certainly have trouble getting P6 games, but we've been doing a solid job on the mid-major home-and-home arrangements. We had five on this year's schedule: UNI, Charleston, Wichita, Toledo, and Drake.

The bad-team buy games included VMI, FDU, and Coppin State. I can't remember the Bucknell deal...we've played them home twice in a row, so are we doing a 2-for-1 and have to go there next year?

Then there's the W&M home-and-home series that a lot of people hate, made all the more clear by losing that game this year. I could absolutely stand to ditch that.

Then you've got Clemson on neutral and an underwhelming event with Syracuse and Temple.

It offers us 2 more conference games, with a chance that one or both might be really good the following year. Maybe Davidson is top 3 next year and we could play them twice of once? How is that worse than an extra game against a 200+ team we don't even know? We played 6 above 200+ OOC games this year. Look at the other A-10 schedules. Most of the other teams played 6 or more of these teams as well. I would think going to 20 might help our NETs a little also. I don't see any negatives in going to 20, but no worries, we can just disagree.

 

[VT4700]

Agreed, the scheduling doesn't matter unless we can get our own house in order.

But even if we do that, I just don't think it's going to make much difference to our chances whether we have 18 or 20 games in conference play.

We have 15 teams now. All I am saying is why not play 6 of them twice instead of only 4? I am not saying this will magically make us better and not saying we don't need to be a lot better, but our IC teams are our immediate peers. Let's play more of them twice.

 

[Eight Legger]

Here are some teams we should be willing to play anytime, anywhere, if we are really hard up for games. I can't imagine any would say no to hosting us at their place:

Liberty
Iona
Yale
Princeton
Furman
Vermont
Belmont

All in the top-118 this year and historically a good bet to be there most years.

We actually scheduled well enough to make an at-large appearance this year, we just got destroyed in basically every road game.

 

[SFspidur]

One issue is that you're at the mercy of the A-10 scheduling formula. Maybe Davidson is really good next year, or maybe they're yet again a ~150 team. Or maybe we get a 200+ A-10 bottom feeder twice as an extra.

Let's look at how our schedule might have been different this year with 11 instead of 13 OOC games. I'll consider Bucknell a buy game since I don't remember that arrangement, but with them you've got the 4 buys you advocate for accounted for: #295 Bucknell, #301 FDU, #328 Coppin, and #354 VMI.

You've got a 4-team event plus the "neutral" Clemson game, check.

So now you need to cut our remaining 6 games down to 4. #51 Charleston, #55 Drake, #82 Toledo, and #112 Wichita State are all very solid series, so those look to be the ones to keep.

That means dropping the W&M arrangement (yes, please do that) and dropping the long-term home-and-home series with #216 UNI. That's been a disappointing matchup, but we didn't expect that when we set it up, as they'd been very solid for several years prior.

So yeah, you get to drop W&M and UNI (but also remember this is 20/20 hindsight and I'm dropping teams based on what I know they did not based on uncertain future expectations) and add two more A-10 games. Maybe Dayton or SLU is one of those extra games, in which case yay. Or maybe they're both from the #130-200 group, in which case meh that's a little better but not enough to move the needle. Or maybe they're from the 200+ group in which case no help there.

The A-10 only gave us one Q1 and two Q2 games this year. Playing more Q3 and Q4 games out of our control doesn't help us one bit. Maybe leaving us with more OOC scheduling flexibility to get those Q1/Q2 games would be a good idea.

Again, we need to get our own house in order first for it to make any difference, and the calculus could certainly change is the A-10 improves overall, but I'm not convinced this year was just a brief blip.

 

[spiderman]

according to D1 docket, the only known OOC games locked in for us next year are:
@ Wichita State (11/14/2023)
@ Northern Iowa
and ... home vs W&M

 

[VT4700]

You mentioned northern Iowa being down as a surprise, but you are asking for all 5 of those mid majors to be really good....and there's still W&M. So yes I would rather play 2 more conference games than a 5th maybe decent mid major and W&M. Also, the A 10 needs to do something. Maybe this will help, maybe it won't, but it's just not relevant right now. Maybe 20 conference games will do something positive. A 15 - 5 conference team will look better to the committee than a 13 - 5 conference team. I don't know. I just think it makes sense for the A 10 to do this.

 

[VT4700]

according to D1 docket, the only known OOC games locked in for us next year are:
@ Wichita State (11/14/2023)
@ Northern Iowa
and ... home vs W&M

And not just us with so few. The whole conference will be scrambling to find 13 games.

 

[GKiller]

The A10 could go to 20 idk, the trickle effect from P6 conferences doing it, but I personally don't want to see it. Boring. Prefer the variety with the OOC scheduling, and logically the odds of getting good varied games just does down, u r going from 15 to now 13 to 11. I don't need to see a 19th or 20th game against Lasalle & UMASS & the Bonnies etc. It's not very good to watch now. Also, Mooney has historically performed poorly against A10. Just look at that long list of predicted vs. actual outcomes. We're more likely to preform better against OOC teams that see us less often.

 

[8legs1dream]

The A10 sucks. The good teams want fewer conference games not more of them.

 

[97spiderfan]

The A10 could go to 20 idk, the trickle effect from P6 conferences doing it, but I personally don't want to see it. Boring. Prefer the variety with the OOC scheduling, and logically the odds of getting good varied games just does down, u r going from 15 to now 13 to 11. I don't need to see a 19th or 20th game against Lasalle & UMASS & the Bonnies etc. It's not very good to watch now. Also, Mooney has historically performed poorly against A10. Just look at that long list of predicted vs. actual outcomes. We're more likely to preform better against OOC teams that see us less often.

Yeah, I could do without 2 more games against the likes of LaSalle, UMass etc... This works for P6 conferences cause they can game the NET. I actually think it works inversely for smaller conferences like ours, just gives our top dogs more opportunities to lose to some a conference game that will kill their tournament chances.

What happened with that MWC and A-10 showdown that Covid killed? That would be a good idea worth pursueing. Granted, we would get paired up with someone like Air Force cause we suck, but for our top tier teams, getting a chance to play a San Diego St, Boise St. Utah St, would be a great game on their schedule.

 

[brooklyn brownstone]

The A10 teams - UR included - all need to be better, OOC. If conference play is dragging teams down, it's always an issue, and that issue starts by constantly losing buy games, blowing chances vs major conf. teams and generally posting an average or worse win % as a league vs questionable strength of schedule.

However, in the spirit of this exercise, why can't the A10 do something creative? How about reserving a week in mid-February with no scheduled games, but every team will play 2 games during that period. Those 2 games will be scheduled by mid-January based on power rankings of the league schools at that point. One home, one away for each school.

Essentially on Jan. 15, the league breaks itself down into 5 pods - 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12, 13-15. Those 3 teams all play each other that week. If you're a top 3 team, you get an extra game against each of the other top 2 teams and so on down. Or however you want to organize them to be most competitive as a conference and boost the power rankings and strength of schedule of your contenders (i.e. it's 1-3-5 playing one another, and 2-4-6, so not to have your top 3 eat itself, etc.). You're outside the top 6 on Jan. 15? Boohoo, play tougher schedule and win more. Design it to sort out the league and pump up the contenders.

Whatever it takes, get creative. It's kind of like the old ESPN mid major matchups they did before they put the kibosh on it.

The main gist of all this is that UR has to be better OOC, and the league as a whole has to do the same.

 

[SFspidur]

What happened with that MWC and A-10 showdown that Covid killed? That would be a good idea worth pursueing. Granted, we would get paired up with someone like Air Force cause we suck, but for our top tier teams, getting a chance to play a San Diego St, Boise St. Utah St, would be a great game on their schedule.

Not sure why the MWC would want to do that at this point...they already got four teams dancing this year with another one on the bubble. We'll just drag them down.

Of course, SDSU is almost certainly headed for the Pac-12, maybe Colorado State or Boise too.

 

[spiderman]

Essentially on Jan. 15, the league breaks itself down into 5 pods - 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12, 13-15. Those 3 teams all play each other that week. If you're a top 3 team, you get an extra game against each of the other top 2 teams and so on down.

no idea how that helps us. essentially, 2 of our top 3 teams lose a game that week.
changes in in-conference scheduling doesn't help the league. only OOC scheduleing (and winning) helps the league.

 

[VT4700]

The A10 could go to 20 idk, the trickle effect from P6 conferences doing it, but I personally don't want to see it. Boring. Prefer the variety with the OOC scheduling, and logically the odds of getting good varied games just does down, u r going from 15 to now 13 to 11. I don't need to see a 19th or 20th game against Lasalle & UMASS & the Bonnies etc. It's not very good to watch now. Also, Mooney has historically performed poorly against A10. Just look at that long list of predicted vs. actual outcomes. We're more likely to preform better against OOC teams that see us less often.

I hear you, G, but I didn't realize Northern Iowa and W&M was so much better than what could possibly be Davidson and Dayton. Or, at least one of them. Yes, it could be the lower teams too, but I didn't realize we were playing thirteen out of conference juggernauts every year. We can disagree, but I don't think it's nearly as dramatic as some of you are making it. It's just 2 games. Maybe they'll be similar, maybe they'll be a little better or a little worse? You mentioned we went from 15 to 13 OOC games, but we also used to have 10 teams and then 12. We have fifteen now and should play more of them twice I just think it makes the conference a little better and the A-10 would benefit from it.

But, Let's say they do go to 20. I think the idea I put out for a twenty game schedule would work well.

 

[MrTbone]

With the A-10 at 15 teams now, it's time to play a 20 game IC schedule. The A-10 should use the following format:

3 pods of 5 team each. Play each of these teams in your pod home and home so that is 8 games.

Next, play 1 team from each other pod home and home. Use previous year's conference standings to determine these opponents each year. Example: Using this past season, let's say Richmond, at 12th, had 1, 4, 9, and 14 with them. We would be 4th in our pod so we would play the 4th best teams in each other pod home and home.

That puts us at 12 games, and we would then play the remaining 8 teams once, 4 at home and 4 away. So, there you have it. A 20 game IC schedule with 4 common opponents to play twice each year, and 2 others that can change each year.

With 20 IC games, that still leaves 11 OOC games. This is what I would try for:

4 home games with no future games attached. These will likely be 200+ ranked type teams, so try to avoid more than 2 above 300.
Next, a 4 team tourney, so that is now 6 OOC games.

Next, try to get 4 home and homes with quality mid majors or any majors that would do this. I would look into a 2 for 1 if certain majors ask for that. To me, that is a win win. We get a good power team at home one year, and also get 2 road games with them to help our schedule and resume.

That leaves one game, and I would find a neutral site game like we have played with NC State and Clemson recently. This would give us an OOC schedule with 7 quality mid major or power teams, and overall we would have 16 total home games, 12 road games, and 3 neutral site games.

Why, so we can further internalize the leagues suckiness? I don’t see how this helps the A10 develop a strong OOC profile.

 

[VT4700]

Why, so we can further internalize the leagues suckiness? I don’t see how this helps the A10 develop a strong OOC profile.

No, so we can try something different as a conference. I actually think it would help our conference profile. I think the NETs would improve because all the teams would get 2 extra conference games, with simple math saying several of these would be quality games, instead of struggling to find 13 OOC games, which usually results in too many garbage OOC games on most of the schedules.

I have mentioned we had 6 200+ teams on our OOC schedule. We were far from alone. Dayton, who usually plays one of the better OOC schedules, played Lindenwood, Robert Morris, W. Mich, SE LA, Alcorn, Ashville, Wyoming. You really would have an issue with Dayton having 2 more IC games and 2 less of these? How about Fordham? They finished 3rd IC, but good luck getting a quality win when playing them because they played 6 300+ teams and 4 more 250+. Their NET was 134. Is that really what we want?

Wouldn't we better as a conference if they played 2 more conference games and 2 less 300+ games? I could on and on with teams IC and their schedules. Why so many of you think playing 2 more IC games would somehow be worse than what is played out there and somehow drag the conference down further amazes me, especially when it would work out that 2 extra games would have been against each of the top 100s VCU, Dayton, and St Louis this past year. As a fan, would you have rather had a home game against maybe Dayton or Davidson late December, or are you fine with 300+ NET Coppin St rolling in here?

Also, if the conference is not getting many (this year 0) at larges anyway, why not see if it might work out that a 15-5 IC record might look a lot better to the committee than a 13-5 IC record, and maybe with the 2 extra games comes a chance for a good IC win on the resume. I am not saying go to 20 and still play all of the bad OOC teams the conference plays. I am saying go to 20 and as a conference get together and realize it is in the best interest of the conference teams to play 2 extra IC games instead of 2 garbage OOC games.

 

[MrTbone]

That was a long explanation with a lot of supposition and the usual amount of quasi-accusatory questioning.

I have no interest in a bunch of 200-300 level games. We control that, if you want an answer to that, we have to schedule better OOC and can do so. Two games IC that we don’t control hardly seems like an answer. Particularly when the conference is weak like it is right now.

I’m definitely an advocate for scheduling differently but this would be 2nd or 3rd on my list. And as mentioned, none of this matters when we crap the bed anyway.

 

[VT4700]

That was a long explanation with a lot of supposition and the usual amount of quasi-accusatory questioning.

I have no interest in a bunch of 200-300 level games. We control that, if you want an answer to that, we have to schedule better OOC and can do so. Two games IC that we don’t control hardly seems like an answer. Particularly when the conference is weak like it is right now.

I’m definitely an advocate for scheduling differently but this would be 2nd or 3rd on my list. And as mentioned, none of this matters when we crap the bed anyway.

Good luck getting 15 conference teams to all have no interest in playing a bunch of 200-300 games. You are definitely reaching for that one. Again, I am wanting teams to replace 2 bad OOC games with 2 IC games. We could schedule how we want, but it hurts us and the conference if the 3rd best team IC has a 134 NET because of their schedule. And, sorry I asked the wrong questions. ?? I thought they were fair questions to ask and didn't think they were so bad. Not sure why you felt the need to say "usual amount of quasi-accusatory questioning", but, whatever. I was mainly just trying mention what a 20 game IC schedule could look like because I think we might be heading that way with all the talk about how difficult scheduling is.

 

[ManiBenton]

Schedule all bye games. Juice up the record, no need for a netural sight versus a power 5. You wanna get 30 balled again?

 

[fan2011]

Schedule all bye games. Juice up the record, no need for a netural sight versus a power 5. You wanna get 30 balled again?

If we only schedule byes do we just never actually play a game?

 

[wr70beh]

If we only schedule byes do we just never actually play a game?

You just blew my mind.

 

[gospidersgo]

As a fan, would you have rather had a home game against maybe Dayton or Davidson late December, or are you fine with 300+ NET Coppin St rolling in here?

The premise of your idea is a good one I just don't know if it would actually look like that when put into practice. Of course we would all rather have another game with Dayton instead of Coppin St. But with our current standing in the league our extra game would more likely be against UMass, St. Joe's or La Salle - i.e. a game that doesn't move the needle much.

I guess if you multiply that idea by the whole league perhaps the overall conference NET is raised a bit (for example us playing a NET 200 team instead of a NET 300 team). But the A10 would have to be willing to enforce this somehow - the "schedule one less 300+/cupcake opponent" part of this equation.

I think it's worth having this discussion at least. As mentioned there was a time several years back where the A10 seemed to be pretty serious about talking scheduling philosophy but maybe it's just not emphasized these days? Regardless, what's happening right now clearly isn't working but we also have to work on our own end of things before we point at anyone else in the conference.

 

[Anachnid]

If I recall correctly, when UR joined the A10 there was a scheduling requirement based on previous years national rankings and the standard was fairly high, which made the A10 a tough and recognized league.
And of course there was Chaney with his anybody anywhere toughness.

“Chaney was 50 when Temple hired him on a promise to make the
program and the university nationally recognized. He refused to
load his schedules with easy teams, and instead traveled to hostile
courts to play teams supposedly brimming with talent.”

He was a special coach and the A10 had some really good coaches, unlike today.
I truly enjoyed the Chaney-Tarrant matchups ( prior to UR being in A10).

 

[urfan1]

As I see you proposal it MAY help the top quad teams but it hurts the bottom quad teams, like us.

 

[MrTbone]

Good luck getting 15 conference teams to all have no interest in playing a bunch of 200-300 games. You are definitely reaching for that one. Again, I am wanting teams to replace 2 bad OOC games with 2 IC games. We could schedule how we want, but it hurts us and the conference if the 3rd best team IC has a 134 NET because of their schedule. And, sorry I asked the wrong questions. ?? I thought they were fair questions to ask and didn't think they were so bad. Not sure why you felt the need to say "usual amount of quasi-accusatory questioning", but, whatever. I was mainly just trying mention what a 20 game IC schedule could look like because I think we might be heading that way with all the talk about how difficult scheduling is.

You perhaps are a new enough fan to not remember when the A10 began setting/requiring the member teams to schedule OOC at a projected SOS level commensurate with their prior year results and upcoming season’s projection. I think schools bristled at the concept but it had a net positive effect on the leagues strength. So not only can it be done, it has been done in spite of your “good luck” point.

And yes it’s weirdly accusatory how you phrase your replies. Nowhere did I say I’d like us to play more 300+ games. In fact, that’s the opposite of what I was saying.

 

[Section9.RowD]

Good thread topic .. in my opinion, to get better non-conference schedule, we're ultimately going to have to had fewer home games and more away games. During a pre-season talk I went to, Coach said one overall goal in scheduling is to make sure there are more home than away from a fanbase perspective but at least for me in years that we should be in the top tier in the A10, we really need to reconsider and be willing to pretty much travel anywhere and accept P6 games even without return games.

 

[spider23]

I may be way out of the loop on scheduling. What happened to the A10 - Mountain West challenge mentioned above? I feel like Covid may have played a part in that one going away? Mountain West gets knocked for not winning in the dance, and righfully so (SDSU 6-6 in last 12 in Dance, rest of MW 3-19) BUT this is a conference that gets teams in the dance, and has good metrics (NET, etc). Seems like a good partner if they are willing.

 

[Section9.RowD]

I may be way out of the loop on scheduling. What happened to the A10 - Mountain West challenge mentioned above? I feel like Covid may have played a part in that one going away? Mountain West gets knocked for not winning in the dance, and righfully so (SDSU 6-6 in last 12 in Dance, rest of MW 3-19) BUT this is a conference that gets teams in the dance, and has good metrics (NET, etc). Seems like a good partner if they are willing.

Pretty sure it's officially dead. Thought I had heard there was a new Mountain West/American conference challenge that was created but can't find anything about it at the moment.

 

[SpiderTrap]

I am a believer we need less conference games and not more. More works for the P6 because they can beat each other up and help their numbers. For mid-majors, and the A10 is that - we need less, but the trade off is we need good OOC games. This year A10 only had 3 teams in top 100 of NET, and St. Louis just made it at 99. The issue with that was by the time A10 play started, many A10 teams were above 100 - so playing each other hurt us more than helped.

We need 5 teams in the 50-100 range of the NET before A10 play starts, this way those 5 teams can help bring up some other teams in conference, and those 5 teams can help each other in conference play. Being top heavy with only 2-3 teams, they play too many games that drop them, and not enough to maintain or raise them.

 

[97spiderfan]

The supposition that the additional A-10 games would just replace the two worst OOC games on every team's schedule seems kind of tenuous. The A-10 used to have scheduling directive for league members to not schedule a bunch of cupcake. Not sure that is a thing.

But with the state of the league right now, I don't want to see 2 more league games. That does not entice me as a fan at all and I don't think it helps anyone's resume either.

With that said, this is a very UR proposal, I'm sure Hardt and Queally would be behind it, because it is easy, requires them to work less, and is a built in excuse when our two extra games are Duquesne and St. Joes to say well the league screwed us.

 

[Eight Legger]

I feel pretty certain that the whining from PQ and others about how "hard" it is to get OOC games really means it's hard to get games in the deals that we want (like a 2 for 1 or H and H). I feel pretty sure that if we just announced we will travel anywhere anytime to play one game with no additional strings beyond whatever the normal financial agreements are, we'd have plenty.

 

[spider fan]

The days of us being able to schedule Home and Home against good teams is in the past. The 2 for 1 deal is unlikely as well. Until we improve greatly and make the NCAA with regularity and the NIT in off years we are at the total mercy of P6 schools concerning scheduling. We need to get better and be willing to play at P6 venues. Best chance of playing good teams for us is in preseason tournaments. We should seek those out to the greatest extent possible. The main thing is that we along with the rest of the A-10 need to improve!