Scheduling - Chief’s Take

[Chief00]

I hope we did not learn the wrong lesson from last season. We need to have a better team, not a worse schedule. Admittedly, not a suicide travel schedule but a well designed competitive schedule.

Quite frankly, we need a good schedule for recruiting, tournament seeding RPI and home gate revenue. For UConn, gone are the days you can have most of your elite OOC games at neutral sites. There are not enough good conference games to support that. People will pick and choose games rather than buy season tickets with a hefty UConn Foundation donation.

While we saw with the recent Home and Home with Georgetown and Villanova that these former Big East games are very popular with the fans and ticket sales, they should not be the only part of the OOC formula.

I usually agree with Dave Benedict but I was disappointed to hear he did not think the Arizona H/H series made sense. To have a National brand you need to play elite teams from around the country. It’s also unclear minus Villanova how good the rest of the old Big East is today.

While I love playing in MSG for exposure, recruiting and quite frankly fun - it should not come as a dagger to a quality home schedule.

So Chief is just leaving you with those thoughts to ponder this Memorial Day Weekend. Thank you Veterans.

 

[JMick]

I hope we did not learn the wrong lesson from last season. We need to have a better team, not a worse schedule. Admittedly, not a suicide travel schedule but a well designed competitive schedule.

Quite frankly, we need a good schedule for recruiting, tournament seeding RPI and home gate revenue. For UConn, gone are the days you can have most of your elite OOC games at neutral sites. There are not enough good conference games to support that. People will pick and choose games rather than buy season tickets with a hefty UConn Foundation donation.

While we saw with the recent Home and Home with Georgetown and Villanova that these former Big East games are very popular with the fans and ticket sales, they should not be the only part of the OOC formula.

I usually agree with Dave Benedict but I was disappointed to hear he did not think the Arizona H/H series made sense. To have a National brand you need to play elite teams from around the country. It’s also unclear minus Villanova how good the rest of the old Big East is today.

While I love playing in MSG for exposure, recruiting and quite frankly fun - it should not come as a dagger to a quality home schedule.

So Chief is just leaving you with those thoughts to ponder this Memorial Day Weekend. Thank you Veterans.

Are you implying you've seen the schedule?

 

[gampelcrazies]

I don't think they are going to do away with home and home's with teams like Arizona. They might take a break until the team gets back to being competitive.

What I took from Dave Benedict was they don't want to do multiple road games in the same season. It wasn't necessary to play @ Arizona and then 3 days later play @ Auburn before Christmas.

 

[Rico444]

Are you implying you've seen the schedule?

He can't answer that question. Gag order.

 

[Chief00]

Are you implying you've seen the schedule?

Next year’s schedule is basically done as far as opponents are concerned but that was baked in for some time and my understanding is it is generally public knowledge.
What prompted my post was Amore’s podcast with Dave, where he made that statement about the Arizona series (doesn’t think it’s a good idea).
I know for a fact he hears a lot of Big East stuff from the fans and former Big East foes have basically sold out the XL - and Hurley is a Northeast Guy - all good but I think national opponents have served us well.

 

[Chief00]

I don't think they are going to do away with home and home's with teams like Arizona. They might take a break until the team gets back to being competitive.

What I took from Dave Benedict was they don't want to do multiple road games in the same season. It wasn't necessary to play @ Arizona and then 3 days later play @ Auburn before Christmas.

Well, to get the home games you need the away games - so for a good OOC game at both Gampel and XL, which Chief thinks needs to be the standard - you have two elite OOC away games per season. Agree, we need smarter travel scheduling but you neglected to mention Dave was talking travel costs too.

 

[Chief00]

There is an old military adage - don’t fight the last war.
With a good, well coached team - last year’s schedule would have been fine. The 25 point blow outs were look in the mirror blowouts.

 

[Ha Who]

Remember when everyone was up in arms about the potential Notre Dame football series?

 

[Danzz]

We need to play top teams out of conference because there aren't many in conference. Less whining about the tough out of conference opponents and better development of our players would make sense. Just suck it up and win.

 

[Chief00]

We need to play top teams out of conference because there aren't many in conference. Less whining about the tough out of conference opponents and better development of our players would make sense. Just suck it up and win.

That’s the old Calhoun type spirit we need.

 

[Edward Sargent]

I hope we did not learn the wrong lesson from last season. We need to have a better team, not a worse schedule. Admittedly, not a suicide travel schedule but a well designed competitive schedule.

Quite frankly, we need a good schedule for recruiting, tournament seeding RPI and home gate revenue. For UConn, gone are the days you can have most of your elite OOC games at neutral sites. There are not enough good conference games to support that. People will pick and choose games rather than buy season tickets with a hefty UConn Foundation donation.

While we saw with the recent Home and Home with Georgetown and Villanova that these former Big East games are very popular with the fans and ticket sales, they should not be the only part of the OOC formula.

I usually agree with Dave Benedict but I was disappointed to hear he did not think the Arizona H/H series made sense. To have a National brand you need to play elite teams from around the country. It’s also unclear minus Villanova how good the rest of the old Big East is today.

While I love playing in MSG for exposure, recruiting and quite frankly fun - it should not come as a dagger to a quality home schedule.

So Chief is just leaving you with those thoughts to ponder this Memorial Day Weekend. Thank you Veterans.

I do think the travel schedule is an issue and was an issue last year.

 

[jibsey]

I don't think they are going to do away with home and home's with teams like Arizona. They might take a break until the team gets back to being competitive.

What I took from Dave Benedict was they don't want to do multiple road games in the same season. It wasn't necessary to play @ Arizona and then 3 days later play @ Auburn before Christmas.

Going into last season I don’t think we anticipated being flattened by both of those teams. We had a good strong schedule last year because we were going to be good. Didn’t quite get there.

 

[willie99]

I don't think they are going to do away with home and home's with teams like Arizona. They might take a break until the team gets back to being competitive.

What I took from Dave Benedict was they don't want to do multiple road games in the same season. It wasn't necessary to play @ Arizona and then 3 days later play @ Auburn before Christmas.

I think the Auburn game was about 40 hours after AZ and after a long flight. Three days would have been much better

 

[Chief00]

I do think the travel schedule is an issue and was an issue last year.

I agree, but it’s called poor planning or an effort to save a few travel bucks NOT a reason to avoid national elite OCC games.

 

[August_West]

That’s the old Calhoun type spirit we need.

Calhoun feasted on cupcakes

 

[metsfan2323]

Play the local rivals and save money and travel time. The athletic department needs to cut costs any way they can and doing so does not make us a mid major, it's just the smart thing to do. We need to focus on doing smart things. Hurley is a tri-state recruiter so playing locally should help recruiting. 95% of the fanbase would rather see us play St John's, and Seton Hall than Arizona and Auburn so its a win, win and yes you can mix UMASS and URI games in there too, it's all good.

 

[Chief00]

Play the local rivals and save money and travel time. The athletic department needs to cut costs any way they can and doing so does not make us a mid major, it's just the smart thing to do. We need to focus on doing smart things. Hurley is a tri-state recruiter so playing locally should help recruiting. 95% of the fanbase would rather see us play St John's, and Seton Hall than Arizona and Auburn so its a win, win and yes you can mix UMASS and URI games in there too, it's all good.

You don’t get the national stage thing.

 

[goskis2018]

You don’t get the national stage thing.

Yeah I'm with Chief on this one. Since we aren't in a conference with any nationally relevant names it is important to keep ourselves associated with the Arizonas, Michigan states, Ohio states etc. Obviously we can't get blown out but if we don't play them at all we can truly forget about ever getting back to where we were

 

[freescooter]

Right now we just need to win more than we lose. Get back to the tournament and make noise. Then worry about the schedule.

 

[metsfan2323]

You don’t get the national stage thing.

The national stage is the NCAA Tournament, make that and you are on the national stage. Nobody remembers our game last year against Arizona nor should they. The national media doesn't really pay attention to NCAA basketball until football season is over.

 

[gtcam]

You don’t get the national stage thing.

I agree the national stage thing is important but the AAC is a brutal travel conference
It does make a difference as far as wear and tear is concerned on the players
I don't know what the answer is (beside get out of the damn AAC) but traveling across the country all the time is BS

 

[methodology]

I don't think they are going to do away with home and home's with teams like Arizona. They might take a break until the team gets back to being competitive.

What I took from Dave Benedict was they don't want to do multiple road games in the same season. It wasn't necessary to play @ Arizona and then 3 days later play @ Auburn before Christmas.

Wasn't Benedict responsible for the scheduled Auburn game?

 

[Danzz]

Calhoun feasted on cupcakes

Very true. Calhoun teams played a lot of cupcakes but we were in the BE then. Cuses's schedule was embarrassing. The AAC is a different animal.

 

[Chief00]

I agree the national stage thing is important but the AAC is a brutal travel conference
It does make a difference as far as wear and tear is concerned on the players
I don't know what the answer is (beside get out of the damn AAC) but traveling across the country all the time is BS

I think you play some AAC , Big 10 and ACC teams. That way the travel is easier. Let’s be honest too - winning on the road makes travel a lot easier.

 

[Chief00]

Wasn't Benedict responsible for the scheduled Auburn game?

He was but the context was the first year - finding a OOC home opponent from a major conference.