I get what you're saying since Kentucky is the only team in the SEC that moves the meter even a little, but for fans who know even a little bit about hoops, our conference home slate shouldn't be any worse. We'll get Florida and Vandy at home, presumably LSU won't absolutely suck, Missouri should be better, Mississippi State should be better.

It would be nice if we could add a Houston or SMU to the home slate in the fall though.

Off the top of my head, we should get sweet 16 teams Florida and South Carolina at home as well as "almost" sweet 16 Arkansas.

As well as a home game in the "SEC-Big 12 Challenge".

I forgot to add South Carolina, that's another solid home opponent even if next year they take a step back a bit

bobinator said:

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I get what you're saying since Kentucky is the only team in the SEC that moves the meter even a little, but for fans who know even a little bit about hoops, our conference home slate shouldn't be any worse. We'll get Florida and Vandy at home, presumably LSU won't absolutely suck, Missouri should be better, Mississippi State should be better.

It would be nice if we could add a Houston or SMU to the home slate in the fall though.

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Never thought about a home and home with SMU. I'd be for that.

Sure seems like we are getting to the point next year where teams like Auburn (Pearl's 4th season), Miss State (Howland's 3rd season), and Alabama (Avery's 3rd season)....you would think that at least one of those teams will finally 'break out' next year. All of those programs have been recruiting very well on paper and will have rosters that will be pretty well stocked with guys who were highly rated recruits. Pearl's roster alone, the guy has basically stacked three consecutive Top-20 ranked recruiting classes, and even with some misses that he has had, you'd think if he still has some decent mojo that Auburn is eventually going to be a lot better. Sure seems like now is about the time for all those coaches and programs.

bobinator said:

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I get what you're saying since Kentucky is the only team in the SEC that moves the meter even a little, but for fans who know even a little bit about hoops, our conference home slate shouldn't be any worse. We'll get Florida and Vandy at home, presumably LSU won't absolutely suck, Missouri should be better, Mississippi State should be better.

It would be nice if we could add a Houston or SMU to the home slate in the fall though.

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The opponents should all be better, but yeah -- none of them are going to move the meter... Depending on what happens these next 2 weeks and when the game is scheduled, Florida *might* end up being a marquee matchup, but who knows.

miller0926 said:

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Never thought about a home and home with SMU. I'd be for that.

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We should offer to play Houston here next year and then go there to open up their renovated arena in 2018-19. Seems like a win-win for both sides.

We'll be deep next year but zero experience at PG. i'dbe careful about swallowing more than we can chew in the first 5 weeks of the season. Sounds like everyone just want more excitement at home but how many losses do you want to risk that early?

The flip side of that is if you sort of throw all the freshmen to the wolves early, then we'll probably be pretty damn good by conference play.

We could eat 5 or 6 losses in non-conference and still be fine if you play a good schedule. That's what Vandy did this year. Plus we don't play the Big 12/SEC until the end of January.

And also the teams we're going to play in Brooklyn suck.

Good idea for UH game. Could make our home schedule much better with them and if we could somehow do the same with Texas or Baylor.

txag72 said:

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We'll be deep next year but zero experience at PG. i'dbe careful about swallowing more than we can chew in the first 5 weeks of the season. Sounds like everyone just want more excitement at home but how many losses do you want to risk that early

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Losing to good teams does not hurt you. Losing to bad teams and not beating any good teams hurts you.

There is no downside to playing a tough schedule.

Except some teams need to learn how to win. You might argue that point this year with all our close losses to good teams, then a 0-5 conference start. And we finisfed just as bad. We need to win.

txag72 said:

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Except some teams need to learn how to win. You might argue that point this year with all our close losses to good teams, then a 0-5 conference start. And we finisfed just as bad. We need to win.

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Oh that's why we sucked this year...because we didn't know how to win.

Thought it had to do with poor roster management, an inability to rebound out of a zone, no outside shooting and too many dumb turnovers. Apparently Admon, Tyler, DJ and co. forgot how to win over the offseason.

Maybe yea. Remember the seniors that were the leaders the year before? Did those same players forget all those skills they had the rest of their life this year?

txag72 said:

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Maybe yea. Remember the seniors that were the leaders the year before? Did those same players forget all those skills they had the rest of their life this year?

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You really believe Alex Caruso didn't know how to win until he was a senior? Danuel House didn't know how to win until he was a senior? Jalen Jones didn't know how to win until he was a 5th year senior?

I get the "learn to win" thing, but it usually applies to first year coaches or exceptionally young teams. This is going to be maybe the best roster we've ever had, let's go play some folks.

Dude, I said SOMETIMES teams just need to learn how to win. There are a thousand variables.

bobinator said:

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I get the "learn to win" thing, but it usually applies to first year coaches or exceptionally young teams. This is going to be maybe the best roster we've ever had, let's go play some folks.

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Assuming one has to "learn" how to win, does beating a bunch of cupcakes teach you that?

Learn to win is probably the wrong way to word it, but it can help a young team to gain confidence by winning games early on. Again though, that really to me only works if you have a new coach and the team sucked before or you have some insane roster turnover maybe.

wac, have you NEVER heard coaches or others say that before? It's not like I made it up. It's just a shortened version of what bobinator is saying.

txag72 said:

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wac, have you NEVER heard coaches or others say that before? It's not like I made it up. It's just a shortened version of what bobinator is saying.

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actually, no I've never heard a coach say what you are describing. I've never heard a college coach, when asked how they won anything of significance, say "well we were able to beat Kansas/Duke/UNC because we learned what it takes to win by kicking UT-PanAm's ass back in November. Really it was beating them and South Dakota State where these kids learned what it takes to win at this level"

bobinator said:

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Learn to win is probably the wrong way to word it, but it can help a young team to gain confidence by winning games early on. Again though, that really to me only works if you have a new coach and the team sucked before or you have some insane roster turnover maybe.

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Agree that certain programs are not ready to step on the court against quality teams until they've mastered the basics, and playing a crappy OOC schedule may be beneficial to a coach in certain situations. BCG taking an 0-16 team and letting them kick the crap out of a bunch of cupcakes probably helped them get that losing taste out of their mouths. Or maybe more importantly, it gets the fans excited about a team, which has a tangible effect on the team's future performance.

Between Hogg, Davis, Williams, and Gilder, if we're not ready game 1 to compete and handle being on the floor with good opponents, we've got other issues than the schedule to worry about.

Rothstein tweeted out the Arizona game will be Dec 5th in Phoenix as part of DH w/ St Johns & Grand Canyon.

Mustang1 said:

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Rothstein tweeted out the Arizona game will be Dec 5th in Phoenix as part of DH w/ St Johns & Grand Canyon.

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Arizona got some good news today

wacarnolds said:

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bobinator said:

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Learn to win is probably the wrong way to word it, but it can help a young team to gain confidence by winning games early on. Again though, that really to me only works if you have a new coach and the team sucked before or you have some insane roster turnover maybe.

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Agree that certain programs are not ready to step on the court against quality teams until they've mastered the basics, and playing a crappy OOC schedule may be beneficial to a coach in certain situations. BCG taking an 0-16 team and letting them kick the crap out of a bunch of cupcakes probably helped them get that losing taste out of their mouths. Or maybe more importantly, it gets the fans excited about a team, which has a tangible effect on the team's future performance.

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The pre-conference schedules for both BCG and MT were horrible. Just miserable. Both liked their teams to get wins. We used to excuse it by saying nobody good would schedule us because they had nothing to gain because our reputation was bad. I think the coaches just prefer it.

Izzo and Coach K changed non-conference scheduling for the better.

CapCityAg89 said:

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The pre-conference schedules for both BCG and MT were horrible. Just miserable. Both liked their teams to get wins. We used to excuse it by saying nobody good would schedule us because they had nothing to gain because our reputation was bad. I think the coaches just prefer it.

Izzo and Coach K changed non-conference scheduling for the better.

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This is sort of true, but it's not the whole truth. As our team got better under BCG, our schedule got better, and our scheduling under Turgeon was okay. Not spectacular, but we weren't exactly lining up 12 cupcakes every year.

'08 - NIT tip-off (Ohio State, Washington), Alabama, @Arizona, LSU
'09 - Arizona, @Alabama, LSU (in Houston),
'10 - 76 classic (Clemson, WVU and Minnesota were all ranked), New Mexico (in Houston), @Washington,
'11 - Ole Spice Classic (we would have played better teams had we not lost to Boston College...); Washington, Arkansas (in Dallas)