2016-17 Big Ten Schedule Announced


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MSU, OSU, Becky, Penn St. and Maryland are the teams we play twice.

Trying to figure out how much worse that could have been.

Looks like another 1-4 start.
 

MSU, OSU, Becky, Penn St. and Maryland are the teams we play twice. Trying to figure out how much worse that could have been. Looks like another 1-4 start.

It's August and we're already 1-4? Well, that's not good.
 




Best time to play sparty is early. Non con seems much better too[

I'm not convinced the non con is better. Certainly upgrades in the recognizable opponents and Power 6, but some of those later December games look awful and maybe even RPI killers. LIU, Northern Illinois, etc. look like sub 250 games which are brutal for the SOS. We'll see.

I saw at the State Fair they were combining the St. John's and Arkansas games for $10. Not sure if that was for both games or $10 each, but either way, those are real low ball numbers and must mean they don't anticipate selling a lot of tickets. Ouch.
 

I'm not convinced the non con is better. Certainly upgrades in the recognizable opponents and Power 6, but some of those later December games look awful and maybe even RPI killers. LIU, Northern Illinois, etc. look like sub 250 games which are brutal for the SOS. We'll see.

I saw at the State Fair they were combining the St. John's and Arkansas games for $10. Not sure if that was for both games or $10 each, but either way, those are real low ball numbers and must mean they don't anticipate selling a lot of tickets. Ouch.

Possibly, but Texas Arlington won 20 games last year and they knocked off Memphis and Ohio State. NJIT had a good year as well. LIU they've been in the tourney recently I would rather play them than Chicago State or Omaha. It won't be an Esposito special, but it's an improvement. Go 11-2 or 12-1 finish .500 in the league that will put us on the bubble. I do wonder since my Bemidji State Beavers are the only exhibition if Iowa State will return the favor and come up for a closed door scrimmage?
 

I'm not convinced the non con is better. Certainly upgrades in the recognizable opponents and Power 6, but some of those later December games look awful and maybe even RPI killers. LIU, Northern Illinois, etc. look like sub 250 games which are brutal for the SOS. We'll see.

I saw at the State Fair they were combining the St. John's and Arkansas games for $10. Not sure if that was for both games or $10 each, but either way, those are real low ball numbers and must mean they don't anticipate selling a lot of tickets. Ouch.

I'm not convinced it's better either. Last year South Dakota State and Texas Tech finished with significantly better RPIs than any of the teams on our schedule this year.

Average RPI of 2015-16 Non-Conf Opponents: 158.8
Average RPI of 2016-17 Non-Conf Opponents: 175.2

Last year three of our non-conference opponents finished outside the RPI top 200. (UMKC, Missouri St, Chicago St)
Six of our opponents on the 2016-17 non-conf schedule finished outside the top 200. (Mount St Mary's, St John's, NJIT, Georgia Southern, LIU Brooklyn, Arkansas State)
 



Possibly, but Texas Arlington won 20 games last year and they knocked off Memphis and Ohio State. NJIT had a good year as well. LIU they've been in the tourney recently I would rather play them than Chicago State or Omaha. It won't be an Esposito special, but it's an improvement. Go 11-2 or 12-1 finish .500 in the league that will put us on the bubble. I do wonder since my Bemidji State Beavers are the only exhibition if Iowa State will return the favor and come up for a closed door scrimmage?

Agree. I think this is a pretty decent schedule: four power conference teams and a couple of mid-majors that could cause problems. UT-Arlington was good last year and LA-Lafayette has managed to attract some talented players in recent years. Elfrid Payton starts in the NBA and they had a center/power forward playing in NBA summer league this past summer who was pretty good coming off the bench in a few games I watched him (I'd say he was significantly better than Mo Walker). I think an 11-2 pre-conference result is unlikely with this schedule. 9-4 wouldn't surprise me. Overall, I'd say an 18-13 result for the regular season with an NIT bid would be a pretty fair result for this bunch.
 

I'm not convinced it's better either. Last year South Dakota State and Texas Tech finished with significantly better RPIs than any of the teams on our schedule this year.

Yes, but Texas Tech didn't have a high RPI the year before and had a losing record that season. Our pre-conference season wouldn't have looked as good last year either if we used the prior year numbers to judge the teams. St. John's isn't going to be as lousy as they were last year. Vanderbilt, Arkansas, and Florida State aren't likely to be dogs. There are also a couple of mid-majors who could be trouble. I'd say this schedule is plenty tough enough for a power conference team coming off an 8 win season with a 6-6 pre-conference record.
 

Win more conference games than the Gophers lose and the non conference schefule will mean a lot less.
 




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