Anyone who thought that UConn would not continue to play a bunch of puff pastry in the early season and would suddenly replace the Umass-Lowells and Maines with Michigans and Kentuckys really doesn't get it. What we'll see is some nominal improvement in the non-conference schedule, but not a wholesale replacement of the pastry with Top 25 teams. I would expect to see maybe a couple of the real low level programs replaced by (current) A-10 level teams and maybe 1 more team from a power conference. In some respects, last season's early season schedule is the model. Four teams from major conferences, Michigan State, NC state, Washington and Wake, A couple from better mid-majors (New Mexico, Harvard, Fordham) and backfill with lower level programs (Quinnipiac, Maryland Eastern Shore, Stony brook, Vermont). 2010-11 was another example of what we've got in store, though that was probably a little bit of an upgrade from the typical future schedule. When you compare that with some more typical seasons like 2011-12 that was 2 schools from major conferences, Arkansas and Florida State, with the rest pretty much mid-majors and lower, Coppin State, UNC-Ashville, Maine, Wagner, Columbia, Holy Cross, Harvard, Fairfield, Central Florida. I'm not really considerin gthe current quality of the programs so much as their "status." Even if they go winless, Wake will have a better RPI than Ashville just because of the company they keep, and more folks will watch that game based on name recognition alone. But the UM-Lowells and Eastern Shores and similar games aren't going away entirely.
