May as well start looking towards the upcoming season. Here are the known games so far:
Nov 11 @ Monmouth - Season Opener
Nov 27 Vs LaSalle
Dec 11 Vs St Joe's - Supposedly the end of yearly matchup for foreseeable future
Dec 16 @ Rider
Did I miss any that have been announced? Have to assume we will be playing Penn at the Palestra this year.
The School/Bruiser usually tries to get one really tough game a year against a power conference. I wonder if that will happen this year with a new leader? He may even schedule a game against an Ivy league school.
(07-30-2016 12:14 AM)Dragon For Life Wrote: [ -> ]The School/Bruiser usually tries to get one really tough game a year against a power conference. I wonder if that will happen this year with a new leader? He may even schedule a game against an Ivy league school.
Here's some updates...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016%E2%80...tball_team
11/20 at N Texas
12/3 at High Point
12/18 vs. Kean (DH with Women vs. SJU)
I think I was told that the game at Rutgers for the Scarlet Knight Showcase is on Sunday 11/13.
Why in the Hell are we playing Kean? Is it because we've lost to D2 schools the past two years so we're going to try a D3 school? Is it to start building a rivalry for the announcement that we don't like how D1 is moving towards more money flowing to the athletes so we're dropping down? Hope Kean brings their entire staff down for the game so the DAC has people in it.
Looks like this may have the rest of the schedule:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...=791105110
Home Vs Hartford and Niagara
Away at Quinnipiac (like their gym)
Penn game listed as 12/28
The schedule if it is accurate and almost fully complete is not a bad one. If anything its a good building block schedule to build confidence for the future. Especially when we get two hopefully quality transfers next year. I am not that happy with Kean, but the past 2-3 years we played a school that wasn't D1 and it would finally be nice to beat them. We lost to USP and Alaska it is time we turn the corner haha.
I don't think it really matters if we play Kean or not. Win or Lose, it has no effect on our RPI or that of the conference. Our pre-season SOS is really irreverent in a season like this. I'd rather they play an easier schedule, and try to get some wins to help build confidence going into the CAA season. If they beat Kean, it means nothing. If they lose to Kean, it will be embarrassing for about 3 days, and then everyone will forget about it, because so few people really care about Drexel basketball.
(08-02-2016 09:56 AM)J.B. Wrote: [ -> ]I don't think it really matters if we play Kean or not. Win or Lose, it has no effect on our RPI or that of the conference. Our pre-season SOS is really irreverent in a season like this. I'd rather they play an easier schedule, and try to get some wins to help build confidence going into the CAA season. If they beat Kean, it means nothing. If they lose to Kean, it will be embarrassing for about 3 days, and then everyone will forget about it, because so few people really care about Drexel basketball.
OMG I agree with J.B.. wow what a world haha
For a first year coach trying to engage students back into the program this is...very underwhelming
With that group, while easier, it will be hard to convince students to attend those games. For those that want crappy local teams I am sure you are thrilled with having Penn, St Joes, La Salle, Rutgers, Rider, Monmouth.
St Joes is always a fun game and should stay on the schedule, same with Penn (even when they are also atrocious).
Rider, La Salle, Rutgers? No thanks.
Monmouth? Last year was a fluke for them, most years there is nothing to be gained playing them.
Hartford? If we had a DH with the women playing Hartford as well then I would be ok with it, but just the men, no thanks.
Quinnipiac, North Texas do nothing for anybody.
Niagara has been down since their coach came to Hofstra, so I do not see any gain there anymore other than losing recruits to them by allowing their staff extra days in Philly.
So that leaves High Point. They are usually fighting for a tournament bid so this is a game that I am fine with in almost any year.
My summation:
Good: St Joes, Penn, High Point
Eh: Monmouth, Niagara
Bad: Rutgers, Hartford, Quinnipiac, North Texas, La Salle, Rider
I'd say that any sub D1 game is 25% neutral and 75% bad outcome. Neutral would be winning and nobody getting hurt, the other three options are winning with somebody getting hurt, losing, or the double whammy - losing and somebody getting hurt. This is the third year of the nicer seating and two of those years have featured paying to watch a glorified exhibition game. If you wind up playing a sub D1 school due to an exempt tourney, as with UAA last year, fine, but after three years of "meh" and one of dreck, I'd rather pay for an all D1 home slate. Plus you have to get an exemption from the league to play a sub D1 team unless that's been changed.
You'd think the two city home games would get a rise out of students, but looking at those dates, I suspect they were agreed upon by SJU and LaSalle to be when students are off campus. Beyond that, if we play a more up tempo game and have some success, maybe that will help get some more students out to games. I'll probably be renewing just out of shear curiosity for something new than anything else.
My prediction is that there will be 1-2 games left to be scheduled and one will be a tough-ish away game. Monmouth should still be a good game as their best player is coming back after a great year last year.
(08-03-2016 12:23 PM)DrachenFire Wrote: [ -> ]I'd say that any sub D1 game is 25% neutral and 75% bad outcome. Neutral would be winning and nobody getting hurt, the other three options are winning with somebody getting hurt, losing, or the double whammy - losing and somebody getting hurt. This is the third year of the nicer seating and two of those years have featured paying to watch a glorified exhibition game. If you wind up playing a sub D1 school due to an exempt tourney, as with UAA last year, fine, but after three years of "meh" and one of dreck, I'd rather pay for an all D1 home slate. Plus you have to get an exemption from the league to play a sub D1 team unless that's been changed.
You'd think the two city home games would get a rise out of students, but looking at those dates, I suspect they were agreed upon by SJU and LaSalle to be when students are off campus. Beyond that, if we play a more up tempo game and have some success, maybe that will help get some more students out to games. I'll probably be renewing just out of shear curiosity for something new than anything else.
On the non D1 game. My opinion is we should never EVER play a team that is not D1. The only exceptions would be like last year where it was not planned and was in a tournament. The only other exception is if we have some outstanding player as a senior from far away and the only option of letting that player play in front of his hometown team/area/family and there are no better options than a team below D1. We should never be hosting a non D1 team.
On the 2 home games against City teams. It always works out that way, and I doubt it is by accident. St Joes has generally always been right around Thanksgiving. I have a hard time believing La Salle gets anyone excited home or away. This schedule would make bamf excited since almost every ooc game is against locals. For me, that does nothing to build excitement since the teams we are playing are typically horrendous, though I imagine that is the best we can locally.
(08-02-2016 01:47 PM)dan10 Wrote: [ -> ]For a first year coach trying to engage students back into the program this is...very underwhelming
With that group, while easier, it will be hard to convince students to attend those games. For those that want crappy local teams I am sure you are thrilled with having Penn, St Joes, La Salle, Rutgers, Rider, Monmouth.
St Joes is always a fun game and should stay on the schedule, same with Penn (even when they are also atrocious).
Rider, La Salle, Rutgers? No thanks.
Monmouth? Last year was a fluke for them, most years there is nothing to be gained playing them.
Hartford? If we had a DH with the women playing Hartford as well then I would be ok with it, but just the men, no thanks.
Quinnipiac, North Texas do nothing for anybody.
Niagara has been down since their coach came to Hofstra, so I do not see any gain there anymore other than losing recruits to them by allowing their staff extra days in Philly.
So that leaves High Point. They are usually fighting for a tournament bid so this is a game that I am fine with in almost any year.
My summation:
Good: St Joes, Penn, High Point
Eh: Monmouth, Niagara
Bad: Rutgers, Hartford, Quinnipiac, North Texas, La Salle, Rider
So who DO you want to play? We're not going to get any power conference teams to play here. They best we'll ever do is Penn State at the Palestra. So 2 Atlantic 10 teams are coming to the DAC. Historically its been rare for the A-10 to come to the DAC. And getting 3 Big 5 schools to come to the DAC is a big deal. Seems to me that any other team would be "Meh" or "Bad" on the DanMeter.
One way to engage students is to win a lot, and I think that is what the underwhelming schedule is designed for
As a first year coach at Drexel winning builds confidence especially when it comes to recruiting. All of these games seem winnable on paper except maybe monmouth.
Yeah,
I'm not really sure what the critics are expecting from our schedule. Would you rather they start the season 9-4 with an easy schedule, or 4-9 with a tough schedule? Either way, they're not getting into any postseason tournaments based on SOS. It's pretty simple. Finish 1st in the CAA and get to the NIT. Win the CAA Championship get to the NCAA Tournament. Finish with a winning record and try to convince the AD to spend some money and they get into a smaller tournament. SOS has no bearing on any postseason tournaments based on the way things are set up right now for Drexel and the CAA.
Bruiser's teams played some really tough schedules the past few years to start the season. How'd that work out for them?
The only huge negative would be if we have an average w/l even with this easier schedule. I am hoping that next year assuming we have a bounce back year we will schedule tougher schools while bringing in new talent.
Average w/l would be 15-15, which would be a 9 game improvement. I don't see how that would be a negative. Going by KenPom's NCSOS rankings, Army never played an OOC schedule that was better than 292 during Spiker's tenure. I know, it's Army, but even they rarely scheduled down Divisions, and when they did, it was the season opener. I'm sorry, but that Kean game really bothers me unless some type of connection/special reason can be made. The rest of the schedule is pure "meh," but we've got quite a toxic hole we need to get out of.
Drach you have a valid point, but were you just as upset when they played USP or Alaska under Bruiser? My guess for Kean is no one in the area wanted to play Drexel or the calendar for scheduling anyone else on that day couldn't happen.
Of course I was upset when they played UAA last year, that happened because they lost their first game in the GAS. As I said upthread, if they get stuck playing a sub-D1 team because of the way the brackets played out in an exempt tournament, fine, not much you can do. If I recall, the game with USP was scheduled kind of last minute after someone backed out of a game with us (want to say Syracuse, but since the Zone is dead can't go check), again, not much you can do in that case. Another scenario where I would understand would be a GMUesque defection where you lose conference games and can't find extra OOC games to make up for the lost conf games. Final one would be some kind of link, a la LaSalle playing Rowan a few years ago to celebrate the anniversary of Dr. G winning a National Title as HC at Rowan. The game with Kean does not seem to satisfy any of those, so just play one fewer game and give the guys a break, but I'm guessing the athletic department budgets for a certain number of home games. Hope Kean travels well.