The Weak Home Non Conference Schedule - What Do You Think?

I give the Gophers plenty of credt for the Hawaii tourney trip, but the home non conference schedule is equally deserving of derision. I'm not unrealistic. Kansas, Arizona, and Kentucky aren't coming to Williams Arena at any point in the near future. However, to see another home non conference schedule with just a single major conference opponent, Florida State, is pretty maddening. FSU wasn't booked voluntarily either.

After seeing last year's equally weak home non conference slate, I made my feelings known to Teague, saying it was an especially weak slate coming on the heels of Gopher Points and reseating the Barn with donations. He agreed with the principle and basically put the blame on Tubby, but here we are a year later with a new coach and another awful line up of teams.

What do you people think? Will it ever change? What can be done to better make it known to the athletic department that this type of scheduling needs to go?

Does it matter that it's ground covered? As recently as 2006-07 we played Clemson, Arizona State, and Iowa State at home. It just gets a little old going through November and December attending games whose outcomes, at least in theory, are not in question. Even though we lost by three, one of my all time favorite Gopher home games was against Cincinnati in the mid 1990s. The intensity that night has been equaled or topped by only a handful of Big Ten games. It's a shame to not get moments like that anymore.

If it upsets you enough, don't buy season tickets. Seriously. Then you can just buy tickets to the games that you deem worthwhile. I have absolutely no problem with this year's schedule (new coach, new system, lots of new players, etc.), but I generally care more about wins than anything else. A perfect non-conference schedule is loaded with wins and around 2-3 games against BCS level competition (at least 1 or 2 on the road/neutal court). The Big Ten schedule is a gauntlet so I am never worried about our RPI.

Not counting the Badgers or Hawkeyes, there are 6 other D-I basketball programs in Iowa and Wisconsin. Lets throw in Creighton to make it 7.

How hard would it be to get 2-3 of these teams on the schedule each year? All schools are within 6 hours and would make for some fun home and home rivalries.

I guess they don't want to give up the gates receipts for a home game vs. a directional school.

i honestly like the "weaker" schedule. it will give us time to get our feet under us, and let's be hones, that is HUGE this year with a new coach, new system, lots of new players, plus we have recruits watching to make sure we can win ball games. having a 20ish win season becomes much easier to pitch to recruits than telling them, "but hey, at least we played louisville/duke/etc. and that's why our record isn't as strong." a NCAA post-season trip this year would be huge for Pitino and that should be our focus. once this team is finishing in the top half of the B10, then we can talk about boosting our schedule OOC

The point about not buying tickets is the rub. I'm in for this year and have had the seats since 1993-94. At that point buying them really was a necessity since team was good and the capacity dropped after the renovation that summer from around 17,000 to around 14,000. Attendance remained pretty good until the academic scandal.

Admittedly since then there's a been far less reason to buy them, with single game seats available for most good games if you buy early enough. I actually considered dropping out after 2011-12 due to time constraints as much as anything else, but habit and loyalty kept me aboard and now I do want to see what Pitino can build. It's just frustrating to get served up a constant diet of unappealing games. It didn't used to be like this.

MinnesotaBoiler99 said:

Not counting the Badgers or Hawkeyes, there are 6 other D-I basketball programs in Iowa and Wisconsin. Lets throw in Creighton to make it 7.

How hard would it be to get 2-3 of these teams on the schedule each year? All schools are within 6 hours and would make for some fun home and home rivalries.

I guess they don't want to give up the gates receipts for a home game vs. a directional school.

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just curious as to which ones you think we'd make rivals with? UW-Mil and UW-GB don't excite me. Northern Iowa is a good team, but I wouldn't feel a rivalry. Same with Creighton. I get what you're saying, but just don't see rivalries coming from this.

MadtownGopher said:

If it upsets you enough, don't buy season tickets. Seriously. Then you can just buy tickets to the games that you deem worthwhile. I have absolutely no problem with this year's schedule (new coach, new system, lots of new players, etc.), but I generally care more about wins than anything else. A perfect non-conference schedule is loaded with wins and around 2-3 games against BCS level competition (at least 1 or 2 on the road/neutal court). The Big Ten schedule is a gauntlet so I am never worried about our RPI.

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+1, Probably should add that the op presupposes teams names govern their quality. Well, Wichita State, George Mason, Butler, VCU are exactly names that would fill a heart with dread. Damn sure those would be tougher games than most would assume, in the respective years those teams went to the final four.

Our coach is a Pitino, meaning he has an ego. He wants to be on TV. The schedule will get more attractive.

Maybe it's just me, but I find being at a basketball game just for the experience is far more important and enjoyable than the opponent.

Although, being behind the basket at Assembly Hall when #3 Indiana beat #1 Michigan was a pretty good deal. Not going to lie.

upnorthkid said:

i honestly like the "weaker" schedule. it will give us time to get our feet under us, and let's be hones, that is HUGE this year with a new coach, new system, lots of new players, plus we have recruits watching to make sure we can win ball games. having a 20ish win season becomes much easier to pitch to recruits than telling them, "but hey, at least we played louisville/duke/etc. and that's why our record isn't as strong." a NCAA post-season trip this year would be huge for Pitino and that should be our focus. once this team is finishing in the top half of the B10, then we can talk about boosting our schedule OOC

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+1. I wasn't too upset about our weak non-conference schedule last year when we squeaked into the tourney. Until we can prove that we're better than a perennial fringe team, we shouldn't be making it harder on ourselves to get to 20+ wins IMO.

Sports_Realist said:

I give the Gophers plenty of credt for the Hawaii tourney trip, but the home non conference schedule is equally deserving of derision. I'm not unrealistic. Kansas, Arizona, and Kentucky aren't coming to Williams Arena at any point in the near future. However, to see another home non conference schedule with just a single major conference opponent, Florida State, is pretty maddening. FSU wasn't booked voluntarily either.

After seeing last year's equally weak home non conference slate, I made my feelings known to Teague, saying it was an especially weak slate coming on the heels of Gopher Points and reseating the Barn with donations. He agreed with the principle and basically put the blame on Tubby, but here we are a year later with a new coach and another awful line up of teams.

What do you people think? Will it ever change? What can be done to better make it known to the athletic department that this type of scheduling needs to go?

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I'd give it a pass for this season for two reasons:
1. First year with a new coach.
2. We'll play very good competition in the Maui Classic

FSU wasn't booked voluntarily either.

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No, but I'm assuming teams in the BT and ACC know ahead of time if the game will be home or away even before they know the opponent. I would imagine they took this into account when looking at the schedule.

Sports_Realist said:

The point about not buying tickets is the rub. I'm in for this year and have had the seats since 1993-94. At that point buying them really was a necessity since team was good and the capacity dropped after the renovation that summer from around 17,000 to around 14,000. Attendance remained pretty good until the academic scandal.

Admittedly since then there's a been far less reason to buy them, with single game seats available for most good games if you buy early enough. I actually considered dropping out after 2011-12 due to time constraints as much as anything else, but habit and loyalty kept me aboard and now I do want to see what Pitino can build. It's just frustrating to get served up a constant diet of unappealing games. It didn't used to be like this.

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Good for you! I would like to see them play DePaul or Marquette like they did in the days of yore.

Regarding going for the experience, that's one of my favorite parts of going along with meeting up at halftime with some friends I don't get to see often otherwise. However, I like the drama of a game against a competitive team as part of the experience more than seeing us roll over a no name school by 30 points. Mind you I don't mean we should never play the likes of Wofford or Florida A&M. Every school needs games like those. However, an occasional game against an Arkansas or Oregon State would provide some entertainment value, a better SOS, and a better pre Big Ten tune up when we don't play in preseason tourneys as strong as this year's.

Clem rightfully took heat for playing weak non conference schedules by 1990s standards. He even brought in Illinois-Carbondale one year which is a D-2 program and it counted on our record. However, we got to still see Penny Hardaway and Memphis State one year when they were considered a tourney team and he was a lottery lock. There can be a balance.

This schedule is a must. You must build the program and then you work on the schedule. You must win first then worry about who your beating. If you want to do it backwards ask Tim Brewster how it worked in footba. He loaded up the schedule way to soon and that helped him get fired. Build the product, allow the players to learn and win. Then we can talk about the schedule.

I think a softer schedule was prudent this year, with Richmond and Florida State at home thats not horrible, one more BCS apponent would be nice but you have to do a home and away to get that, with Syracuse in Maui this schedule is not a cake walk. Don't want to destroy any momentum before it even gets started.

I appreciate the walk before you run theory to scheduling, but Tubby made little effort to schedule decent teams at home even the past few years when the expectations were relatively high. As for Brewster, losses to USC and Cal had far less to do with his firing than losses to South Dakota and North Dakota State along with a 1-11 in 2007 with a soft non conference slate and numerous Big Ten failures.

Why, why, why does everything get compared to the Brewster debacle? He's gone, thank God. Let him go.

Golden_Sloth said:

+1. I wasn't too upset about our weak non-conference schedule last year when we squeaked into the tourney. Until we can prove that we're better than a perennial fringe team, we shouldn't be making it harder on ourselves to get to 20+ wins IMO.

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I believe we actually had the strongest or second strongest non-conference schedule in the Big Ten, and Duke was our only loss out of conference.

WolfontheProwl said:

This schedule is a must. You must build the program and then you work on the schedule. You must win first then worry about who your beating. If you want to do it backwards ask Tim Brewster how it worked in football. He loaded up the schedule way too soon and that helped him get fired. Build the product, allow the players to learn and win. Then we can talk about the schedule.

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I don't think losing to USC cost Brewster his job as much as losing to South Dakota and Northern Illinois. I actually liked that he tried to schedule games against some of the big boys.

I think the time of the hiring left Pitino a less than optimal amount of time to create a non-conference schedule, coupled with the fact that being the first year with a new coach I think it's fair to consider this a rebuilding year, and a softer non-conference schedule is to be expected. We're going to be playing at least 3 games against BCS opponents anyway, so it's not like there won't be some interesting games on there.

Dr.Don said:

Why, why, why does everything get compared to the Brewster debacle? He's gone, thank God. Let him go.

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You know Doc, I was about to say the same thing about Tubby. There has to be a bashing in every topic. I remember NC to be among the best in his era in B1G. Now that Richard and some realistic fans are finding out how hard it is to bring good players and teams here, we may want to un-hook Tubby. Let it go people. Richard's 1st recruit for 2014 is a 2-star player, far from what some have dreamed about here.

Go Gophers

I'm not here to defend the Gophers' home nonconference schedule, but as a comparison, here are all the Big Ten home schedules, with the opponents' 2012-13 RPI in parentheses. I have included future members Maryland and Rutgers. An * indicates an ACC, Big East, Big 12, Pac 12, or SEC opponent and/or a top-75 RPI finisher from 2012-13.

A serious question, just for conversation's sake. If you could be a season-ticket holder for just one of these 14 teams -- looking only at the nonconference schedule -- which schedule would you want to see?

ILLINOIS
*Valparaiso (58)
Jacksonville State (142)
Bradley (191)
Fort Wayne (254)
Dartmouth (294)
Chicago State (318)
Alabama State (328)
Average RPI of Home Opponents: 226.428

INDIANA
Stony Brook (80)
Evansville (106)
Oakland (152)
Long Island (179)
North Florida (229)
Samford (291)
Nicholls State (296)
Chicago State (318)
Kennesaw State (341)
Average RPI of Home Opponents: 221.333

IOWA
*Notre Dame (35)
Arkansas-Pine Bluff (202)
Penn (279)
Omaha (285)
Fairleigh Dickinson (299)
North Carolina-Wilmington (302)
Maryland-Eastern Shore (345)
Abilene Christian (n/a: new to Division I)
Average RPI of Home Opponents: 249.571

MARYLAND
Tulsa (128)
Boston U (148)
North Carolina Central (156)
*Oregon State (181)
Florida Atlantic (218)
Morgan State (235)
Abilene Christian (n/a: new to Division I)
Average RPI of Home Opponents: 177.666

MICHIGAN
*Arizona (15)
Holy Cross (251)
Coppin State (312)
Houston Baptist (315)
South Carolina State (342)
Massachusetts-Lowell (n/a: new to Division I)
Average RPI of Home Opponents: 247

MICHIGAN STATE
*North Carolina (17)
Mount Saint Mary’s (121)
North Florida (229)
Portland (232)
McNeese State (247)
Columbia (273)
New Orleans (346)
Average RPI of Home Opponents: 209.285

MINNESOTA
*South Dakota State (62)
*Montana (74)
*Florida State (84)
Lehigh (107)
Wofford (249)
Coastal Carolina (259)
Omaha (285)
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (322)
New Orleans (346)
Average RPI of Home Opponents: 198.666

NEBRASKA
*Miami-Florida (4)
Florida Gulf Coast (93)
Western Illinois (121)
Arkansas State (164)
Citadel (330)
Northern Illinois (333)
South Carolina State (342)
Average RPI of Home Opponents: 198.142

NORTHWESTERN
Illinois State (118)
Western Michigan (129)
Gardner-Webb (195)
*DePaul (204)
Brown (242)
Eastern Illinois (276)
IUPUI (326)
Mississippi Valley State (344)
Average RPI of Home Opponents: 229.25

OHIO STATE
*Ohio (67)
*Maryland (71)
*Wyoming (73)
*North Dakota State (75)
Delaware (141)
Bryant (159)
Central Connecticut (200)
North Florida (229)
Morgan State (235)
American (277)
Louisiana-Monroe (305)
Average RPI of Home Opponents: 166.545

PENN STATE
*La Salle (46)
*Bucknell (51)
Mount Saint Mary’s (121)
Princeton (125)
Wagner (127)
Marshall (208)
Monmouth (282)
Longwood (332)
Average RPI of Home Opponents: 161.5

PURDUE
*Boston College (111)
Rider (146)
Central Connecticut (200)
Eastern Michigan (239)
Northern Kentucky (271)
Eastern Illinois (276)
Siena (295)
Maryland-Eastern Shore (344)
Average RPI of Home Opponents: 235.25

RUTGERS
Canisius (112)
Princeton (125)
*Seton Hall (137)
Elon (177) or Drexel (206) – NIT Season Tip-Off
Yale (198)
Army (205)
William & Mary (270)
North Carolina-Greensboro (327)
Florida A&M (331)
Average RPI of Home Opponents: 205.166

WISCONSIN
*Florida (9)
*Marquette (13)
*Eastern Kentucky (69)
Oral Roberts (151)
North Dakota (225)
Bowling Green (274)
Milwaukee (307)
Prairie View A&M (314)
Average RPI of Home Opponents: 170.25

I'd go with Wisconsin's home schedule, for obvious reasons. Tough to argue with the two at the top, and the middle of it is pretty respectable, too. Ohio State would be next.

my choice Penn St. because you wanted to find the team that played opponents with the lowest RPI. Outliers skew averages.....