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I know we are at least a month away from the schedule being released, but are there any recent rumors pertaining to an elite team opponent as referenced in 'Ask the AD' recently?

Seton Hall?? Syracuse?? They seem like the obvious possibilities... Indiana??

Urbana/Findlay/Tiffin

San Diego Falcon wrote:Urbana/Findlay/Tiffin

if only Dakich were still here

Hey, if a big time BCS school like Ohio State can play VMI, Eastern Kentucky, and Coppin State then why can't a small mid major like us play Urbana/Tiffin/Findlay etc without getting all kinds of flack?

Because playing teams like that don't prepare your team for upper echelon teams, thus making you less competitive.

BGDrew wrote:Because playing teams like that don't prepare your team for upper echelon teams, thus making you less competitive.

Not to mention the RPI hit we take in March should we wind up on the bubble. Schools in the Big 10, et al. can afford to schedule down in the OOC sched, since a pulse is about all that's required by the selection committee come tourney time.

I'm hoping to see an Atlantic-10 double header. The Men vs Temple and on the same day the Ladies could play St. Bonaventure!

TG1996 wrote:

BGDrew wrote:Because playing teams like that don't prepare your team for upper echelon teams, thus making you less competitive.

Not to mention the RPI hit we take in March should we wind up on the bubble. Schools in the Big 10, et al. can afford to schedule down in the OOC sched, since a pulse is about all that's required by the selection committee come tourney time.

Exactly.

If you schedule those sorts of teams I don't EVER want to hear anyone complain about getting snubbed from an at large bid.

cowboyjoe wrote:Hey, if a big time BCS school like Ohio State can play VMI, Eastern Kentucky, and Coppin State then why can't a small mid major like us play Urbana/Tiffin/Findlay etc without getting all kinds of flack?

In theory, you are correct. Everyone should be at liberty to schedule a few sure wins. But there are a couple of differences here. When a BCS school does it, they are still playing another Div I-A team. When we do it, we are scheduling Div II and III teams.

Second, those BCS schools still get plenty of opportunities to play the power teams simply because they play in a league with them. Any major school almost certainly will play 8-10 games against top 20 teams through the course of league play. So they have ample opportunity to build a resume for the NCAA tourny. MAC and other mid-major teams only get have the OOC schedule to play top 20 teams. If we start filling up those 8-10-12 (?) games with the likes of Dennison and Defiance, it leaves us fewer chances to play legitimate Div I schools (like Furman and Arkansas St ), much less any top 20 teams and our tourney resume falls short.

I'll guess that Findlay, Dennison, Capital, and or Owens will be on the schedule again this year. BG has played them for 15 plus years and my guess is will continue to play them. You gotta have some OOC home games.

If you want people to take the program seriously then schedule known D1 mid-majors and above on the home schedule even if it hurts the record a little. I would like to see regional D1 rivalries develop with the likes of one or more of the following:
Oakland, Cleveland St., Wright St., Youngstown St., Xavier, Butler, Indiana St., Valpo or someone else in the OH-MI-IN tri-state area.

It would be nice to know for a fact that we have 1 or 2 or more nonconference games to look forward to every year like other school do (Miami for example with UC in football and Xavier in basketball - correct me if I'm wrong).

I like a few surprises and new faces but with as many non-conference games as we have it would be nice to have a traditional rival. And I don't mean with a DII or DIII school because this, IMO, hurts our reputation more than it helps it in the region resulting in a smaller fan base.

Funny you should mention Valparaiso. Our women play Valpo in Anderson Arena the same day the football team is at Eastern Michigan I believe. With Valparaiso moving into the Horizon League this season at least in Men's Basketball I believe this would be Valparaiso playing down a level. They are not in a league that put multiple teams into the NCAA last year. However, I still believe it would be a great rivalry and could help us come March.

FalconTurf wrote:If you want people to take the program seriously then schedule known D1 mid-majors and above on the home schedule even if it hurts the record a little. I would like to see regional D1 rivalries develop with the likes of one or more of the following:
Oakland, Cleveland St., Wright St., Youngstown St., Xavier, Butler, Indiana St., Valpo or someone else in the OH-MI-IN tri-state area.

It would be nice to know for a fact that we have 1 or 2 or more nonconference games to look forward to every year like other school do (Miami for example with UC in football and Xavier in basketball - correct me if I'm wrong).

I like a few surprises and new faces but with as many non-conference games as we have it would be nice to have a traditional rival. And I don't mean with a DII or DIII school because this, IMO, hurts our reputation more than it helps it in the region resulting in a smaller fan base.

This was a well-reasoned, well-written post, and I disagree with it completely.

1. History has proven that fans show up when the team wins--period. That more than any other factor is the key.

2. Rivalries don't just develop out of thin air. There needs to be a history or something at stake that gets people's blood boiling. I highly, highly doubt a manufactured rivalry with a Horizon or Mid-Continent basketball school will inspire the Falcon Nation the way our genuine rival--Toledo--does. Miami, the one school you mentioned, doesn't really have comprable rival in within the MAC itself. (Miami/OU is mild compared with other MAC fueds, more like Abercrombie and Fitch vs. Hollister pillow fight)

3. For all the caterwauling about last year's non-conference schedule, it still included a home game with South Alabama, who was coming off an NCAA Tournament bid and was (and still is) one of the hottest mid-majors in the country. If people don't already "take the program seriously" by now and recognize that this is Division I basketball played at an extremely high level, it's never going to get through to them. Also, we have played both Oakland (at home) and Wright State in the past two years.

4. Continuing to dwell and harp on the lone D-III contest we play is tiresome. It's a single game, and as cowboyjoe pointed out, it's really no different than the exhaulted Buckeyes scheduling Coppin State and Loyola of Chicago.

5. The nitpicking over issues such as this seems to be more a product of frustration over the downturn the program has taken the last 5 years than a "What if we're on the bubble?" question. If the committee wants to screw us, they'll screw us. In 2002, we defeated Evansville, Indiana State, Marist, Detroit and Michigan (at home) non-conference, among others. That's two Valley teams, two upper-echelon regional mid-majors and a BCS team at home. You can't and won't get any better than that. I won't even go into the resumes of recent screw-job victims like Hofstra to prove that relying on the committee to be logical and consistent is a risky proposition.

JoeFalcon wrote:5. The nitpicking over issues such as this seems to be more a product of frustration over the downturn the program has taken the last 5 years than a "What if we're on the bubble?" question. If the committee wants to screw us, they'll screw us. In 2002, we defeated Evansville, Indiana State, Marist, Detroit and Michigan (at home) non-conference, among others. That's two Valley teams, two upper-echelon regional mid-majors and a BCS team at home. You can't and won't get any better than that. I won't even go into the resumes of recent screw-job victims like Hofstra to prove that relying on the committee to be logical and consistent is a risky proposition.

While that's a very valid point, I'd rather make the committee have to explain themselves for leaving resumes like that out than have us give them the easy way out with some of the OOC schedules we've had in other years.

It has gotten better, though, and it sounds like the work is in place to continue that trend, which is nice.