Thursday, July 07, 2005
Schedule update
So our schedule for next year is taking shape. Out of conference we'll be playing playing Oregon, Michigan, Illinois, and Navy away. We have Duke and Fairfield at home. We'll also be playing in the Sun Bowl Tounament which features UTEP, Mississippi Valley, and Colgate. As far the conference schedule goes we've got Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Providence, Rutgers, St. John’s, Cincinnati, South Florida and West Virginia at home. Away we'll play Marquette, DePaul, South Florida, Connecticut, Notre Dame, Villanova, West Virginia and St. John’s. We don't get Seton Hall or Louisville this year. This is definitely the hardest schedule GU has ever played in the regular season. In particular, the number of OOC road games is very high -- a nod to the need to have a much higher RPI so as to be able to get an at-large bid out of a crowded Big East field. I don't think we've ever had so many top flight OOC games in general: Oregon, Michigan, Illinois, and Duke should all make national tv. The one disappointment: no Ricky P.
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5 comments:
That definitely looks like a handful. It's probably a bad sign that I get nervous knots in my stomach by just looking at the schedule.
I don't think you should be nervous. RPI is more important than wins and losses. We'll have a good one with this schedule so long as we don't tank. It is nice not to be behind the 8-ball the way we usually are by dining on cream-puffs out of conference. This will prepare us for the Big East and strengthen our RPI. Hopefully, we'll also get on TV more than twice during the regular season this year! (And the Duke game at MCI should be fun.)
Something else that no one has mentioned about this schedule -- it makes good financial sense. By cutting down on the cupcakes we will limit the program's losses suffered by renting out the MCI center for crowds of 2,000 to see Bethune-Cookman. Navy is away and is close so travel costs are limited. The tourney will not be too challenging but those teams are not pushovers and, again, who would show up at the MCI center to see Colgate? Schools like Duke, Michigan, Illinois, and Oregon, on the other hand will be big draws.
From a financial sense, a few games that would make sense to me would be either GW or Maryland. A sort of battle for the Beltway kind of thing. Although, I'm sure Maryland would draw the bigger crowd. You could always add Navy and have a min DC / Maryland tournament.
Maryland won't play us. JTIII told Feinstein he wanted us in the BB&T w/ GW and Maryland. Maryland threatened to pull out if we played in it. GW is problematic too. I can see us not wanting to play them for the same reason Maryland doesn't want to play us. That said, both GU and GW are clearly on an upswing and Garyland is crashing and burning. Now that the Terps have fallen back down to earth maybe we can get in the tourney -- that would be the best way to play those guys -- at the MCI center. (P.S. Supposedly, MD would play GU if we played a home and away series starting at Maryland. Naturally, we don't want to do that since both games would in effect be away games.)
Add GMU. Another close game (low cost) and solid mid-major opponent.
http://www.dnronline.com/sports-story1.asp
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