Yeah the coaches tend to pick the stretch of games to miss. They will coach the pre-season tournaments and then miss games they don't care about. Randy Bennett of St. Mary's did that, picked 5 game stretch he felt his assistants could win on pure team talent. It's all about the timing of an appeal and such, but everyone knows the game.

5 games would match Bennett's. But I think 9 is more likely, this is worse than SMC, in the same category of SMU and Syracuse.