Our OOC schedule is insane
- Thread starter catrecruit
- Start date
No, it's not. UK used to play a more difficult OOC schedules on an almost yearly basis. So did a few other schools. It just so happens that almost no one does it now.
It's a really, really good schedule for this era, but in this era, major conference schools have become complete pansies when it comes to OOC scheduling. For the majority of power 5 schools (+ some other power basketball schools), OOC scheduling consists of using their financial clout to avoid competition, avoid playing real road games, and putting cheap, meaningless numbers in the W column. Somehow, power conference schools have gotten the fans to buy into the idiotic notion that it's completely necessary to schedule 5, 7, sometimes even 10 (U of L, cough cough) home games (+ exhibitions) where there's almost 0 chance the home school loses. Which is a flaming pile of horse manure, but hey, people like winning, and fans have shown themselves willing to pay for those games in order to get access to the real games that come later (although, not coincidentally in my mind, college basketball attendance has been down nationwide).
I make this rant on a yearly basis, and will continue to do so, because I think it's 100% true. I'm just not a fan of non-competitive games. I'll grant the necessity for a few more breathers than you used to have, because the season is a lot longer, but I still see no need to play Albany and NJIT and Wright State and BU and Illinois State and Eastern. And please, let's not act like South Florida is some monster, or that Ohio State, UCLA, and UL don't figure to be down this year (but hey, at least those are real games). Or that every SEC game is an incredibly daunting challenge.
Honestly, I love this year's schedule, but only by the standards of today. Which I think are incredibly low.
Rant over.
It's a really, really good schedule for this era, but in this era, major conference schools have become complete pansies when it comes to OOC scheduling. For the majority of power 5 schools (+ some other power basketball schools), OOC scheduling consists of using their financial clout to avoid competition, avoid playing real road games, and putting cheap, meaningless numbers in the W column. Somehow, power conference schools have gotten the fans to buy into the idiotic notion that it's completely necessary to schedule 5, 7, sometimes even 10 (U of L, cough cough) home games (+ exhibitions) where there's almost 0 chance the home school loses. Which is a flaming pile of horse manure, but hey, people like winning, and fans have shown themselves willing to pay for those games in order to get access to the real games that come later (although, not coincidentally in my mind, college basketball attendance has been down nationwide).
I make this rant on a yearly basis, and will continue to do so, because I think it's 100% true. I'm just not a fan of non-competitive games. I'll grant the necessity for a few more breathers than you used to have, because the season is a lot longer, but I still see no need to play Albany and NJIT and Wright State and BU and Illinois State and Eastern. And please, let's not act like South Florida is some monster, or that Ohio State, UCLA, and UL don't figure to be down this year (but hey, at least those are real games). Or that every SEC game is an incredibly daunting challenge.
Honestly, I love this year's schedule, but only by the standards of today. Which I think are incredibly low.
Rant over.
Last edited:
Unlike most of the pretenders in college basketball, we play the best to prove we are one of the best. Down the road a ways that is never a consideration, cup cake city in the ville.
I think you have to bill it a strong OOC sked when we're playing two top 5 teams and a handful of fringe ranked teams.
At least as it relates to what most everyone else has scheduled.
At least as it relates to what most everyone else has scheduled.
Yeah but don't forget that Ohio state, UCLA, and OTIS are all down this year. OTIS is off to the NIT, at best, and the other two are bubble teams.
Duke and Kansas are formidable. The bigger overall challenge may be the SEC.
Duke and Kansas are formidable. The bigger overall challenge may be the SEC.
Here are our schedules from 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 years ago. I think this year's compares favorably to all of them.
2006: SD State, Lipscomb, #18 Iowa, #13 WVU, Liberty, High Point, UNC, Ga St, #18 IU, #4 UL, Iona, Ohio, Central Fla, Kansas
1996: #14 Maryland, #5 UMass, IU, Wisconsin Green Bay, #16 Ga Tech, Morehead, Marshall, #25 UL, Rider, Iona
1986: NW State, Chaminade, Hawaii, Cincinnati, #19 IU, East Carolina, Pepperdine, #15 UL, VMI
1976: Northwestern, #4 UNC, Miami (OH), Kansas, #1 IU, Ga Tech, Oregon St, #5 Notre Dame
1966: Hardin-Simmons, Virginia, Illinois, Northwestern, Air Force, IU, Texas Tech, Notre Dame, St. Louis
I can confirm that you do make this rant annually.
Fans can only compare the schedule to every other team out there, and yes I agree today's scheduling leaves much to be desired (looking at you UL).
However, you cannot judge the schedule poorly because big name schools are down, we didn't necessarily know this ahead of time.
And why would we schedule 6-8 more really difficult teams when our opponents have cupcake city?
I would love to see tough games every week. But, seeding is still very important, and I would assume most fans want a balance of a good schedule and a high seed, over a schedule that is 10 times harder than everyone else and risks our seeding allowing others to just waltz right in without our credentials.
Last edited:
Because the SEC is usually a joke, especially with Florida now probably falling back to a middle of the pack team. We need to see good competition before the NCAA's so we're not shell shocked. The SEC usually offers very little resisitance.
Revisionist history is almost always wrong. 'ganner918' is correct. This schedule is no weaker than it has always been.
And you can not complain about power conference teams being in a down year, because that is impossible to predict when the schedules are made.
The power conference vs power conference formats are actually pretty cool (which did not exist in the past). I find it interesting when they pair these conferences together for a weekend / week.
Now we just need to bring back the UKIT!
And you can not complain about power conference teams being in a down year, because that is impossible to predict when the schedules are made.
The power conference vs power conference formats are actually pretty cool (which did not exist in the past). I find it interesting when they pair these conferences together for a weekend / week.
Now we just need to bring back the UKIT!
You just made a nice argument, the same one that every coach and school makes to justify playing 5-7 games against North Southwestern Technical School for the Blind. And I agree that you can't know for sure that Ohio State, UCLA, and UL are all likely to be down this year. That's at least a good-faith effort to schedule interesting, competitive games.
But don't you see how this becomes a self-generating cycle? "Everyone else does it, why should we put ourselves at a disadvantage?" Which just leads to a lot of crap games that no one really wants to see.
I'll get off UK momentarily, and jump on Duke. Duke's OOC schedule this year is 13 games, same as UK. 9 of those are at home, 1 is in Chicago against UK, 3 are part of different events in NYC. 0 are on the road. Of the 9 homes games, you have games against Siena, Bryant, Yale, Utah State, Indiana, Buffalo, Georgia Southern, Elon, and Long Beach State. That's 1 game against a power conference foe. Which is, in a word, pathetic. And that type of schedule has become par for the course for just about any school of any standing.
There's almost no reason to schedule road games for upper echelon teams. You don't play road games in the tournament, tournament games aren't played in tiny cramped gyms, and your fan base will follow you. So basically, it's just giving yourself a disadvantage and losing revenue for no real reason. That's why we see so many neutral court games between big teams.
The biggest problem, imo, is the RPI. I can't fathom while they still use it. With some careful selection, you can rocket up on the RPI with minimal challenge. Think of it this way: you're at a bar and there's a 7 ready to take you home now, or you can hit on the 10 who very well may reject you. Which one do you take?
All of which is correct. But here's the question- does that attitude make the sport better, or worse? Because that's what I'm talking about. Not the financial reasons, not the short-term value of adding numbers to the W column, but whether there's any value to the sport as a whole in Duke playing 8 home games against non-power 5 schools, at least 5 of which probably couldn't win those games even if Duke only put 4 guys on the court?
And UK is NOT a good example of your average market demand. UK could play a middle-school team, and you'd still probably get 20,000 in the stands. At places that aren't UK, or the small handful of places where basketball is a really big dog in the sports' landscape, are you really drumming up interest in your team and sport by scheduling a whole bunch of crap in November and December? I guarantee you that, at the majority of power 5 schools, you'll have almost 0 problem finding a free ticket to a basketball game in November or December, because no one cares and no one really expects someone to pay to see that type of game.
Who gives a damn whats better for the sport as a whole. If it goes against whats best for the program, then do whats best for the program. Scheduling road games against top 25 opponents is just asking for a loss.
and it will always be that way until the NCAA does away with conference officials and makes it NCAA officials as a whole. Because we go play up in wisconsin for example..... the deck is stacked against us..... You think Big 10 officials are going to give us breaks or are they out to make the big 10 look better? And its exactly the same here at UK.... Most of the time the SEC officials will give us breaks against OOC foes because making the SEC look better is what the SEC wants.
and it will always be that way until the NCAA does away with conference officials and makes it NCAA officials as a whole. Because we go play up in wisconsin for example..... the deck is stacked against us..... You think Big 10 officials are going to give us breaks or are they out to make the big 10 look better? And its exactly the same here at UK.... Most of the time the SEC officials will give us breaks against OOC foes because making the SEC look better is what the SEC wants.
I think part of the problem is that athletic directors across the country have put way more emphasis on arbitrary win totals then they should. I think a lot of the current scheduling philosophy derives from a coach's desire to "almost" have 20 built in wins each year so he can go to the athletic director and say "we didn't make the tournament yet again, BUT we won 20 games this year so let me keep my job!" The other issue is that teams like Syracuse Louisville and Duke have figured out that if you completely blow off the non-conference and refuse to hardly ever play a true road game in the non-conference or only play 1 and schedule one really good team in the non-conference and still perform well in conference play the tournament committee won't punish you. Until the committee starts dropping teams a seed line for poor non-conference schedules this isn't going to stop. Look at NCAA football right now! There selection committee makes it known they expect title contenders to play 1 serious non-conference game each year and suddenly we have the most challenging non-conference scheduling taking place in the last 20 years!
Well, I guess I'll see you at that Duke/Elon game. I know I've had that circled on my calendar for months now.
If you circled every game on your calendar........... ... its like the old saying, if every one was special.... then no one is.
