The unofficial online home for fans of the UAB Blazers. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

The bottom line is that we on BT HAVE TO trust our BB staff to make good scheduling decisions since they will be doing the leg work and signing the contracts anyways.

How teams were rated in 2011 to 2013 can be irrelevant to how they stack up in 2014 since there are hundreds of transfers now every year. Any team can look very different from one season to the next with a couple of these additions to their squad.

(05-28-2014 11:06 AM)ATTALLABLAZE Wrote:  Again, I will trust Haase. If he feels we should go two for one with Saint Louis and VCU, then I'll buy in. That said that isn't happening. We played Wichita State on a "neutral" site for a nice payout. While it was supposedly neutral there may have been 20 UAB fans there. We didn't play in their home arena. We also bought out a return game to Murray State.

I merely said those teams to illustrate how silly this is getting. Just let them make the schedule and you guys can ***** about it later.

And I will ***** about it later then. I bitched about it last year, and the year before. Maybe this year we can put four non D-1 teams on the schedule. Call me whatever you want to, but I like watching UAB play against decent basketball teams. That beautiful non conference schedule against the likes of FAMU and AAMU really helped us by the time conference play rolled around.

I think even Haase said he wanted to upgrade it and from the looks of it he is doing it. I hate watching us kill FAMU too. I just don't think we need to be giving some of those teams you mentioned two for ones and I don't think Haase does either.

I would rather reserve two for ones for high major teams. From what I understand we are looking at some MVC teams for home and homes. To me that is much better than FAMU or giving VCU a two for one when we know they will play us home and home when scheduling permits.

As bad as UAB as sucked, we have still be able to get home and home with very respectable programs. We're still going to schedule a couple of creampuffs even if teams like Auburn and USF appear on future schedules. My hope is that we stop playing Div II programs.

I wonder if Temple is thinking about scheduling 2 for 1's with programs like VCU, Creighton, and Wichita State??? They have sucked pretty bad the last few years as well.

(05-28-2014 01:53 PM)ATTALLABLAZE Wrote:  I think even Haase said he wanted to upgrade it and from the looks of it he is doing it. I hate watching us kill FAMU too. I just don't think we need to be giving some of those teams you mentioned two for ones and I don't think Haase does either.

I would rather reserve two for ones for high major teams. From what I understand we are looking at some MVC teams for home and homes. To me that is much better than FAMU or giving VCU a two for one when we know they will play us home and home when scheduling permits.

I'd absolutely prefer playing MVC teams home and home. I think you completely misunderstood what I was saying there. If the alternatives are 2 for 1's with the better non BCS teams, or games against SWAC schools, I'd prefer we loosen up what we are doing. All I know is it hasn't worked out the past 2 years, and if it doesn't work out again, I'm gonna be pissed again.

I remember one of the last times we played them, and it was looking pretty grim until PD3 willed us to victory.

I agree with most of what was said below. However what is new and totally ignored is how truly weak our conference schedule is now. A term used by the tournament committee in the past and loved by Dickie V is cupcake (an RPI above 150). If you play more than a five or so cupcakes at home equals no tournament.(ask UAT)

Eleven of 16 CUSA teams were cupcakes last year. In the future we can play at most one or 2 OOC cupcakes if we want an at large bid to the dance. Heck even changing seven bad loses to victories as AB suggested our RPI would only be a 75.(rpi forecast)

We can not expect RPI to be as good as it was in the old CUSA. Unless we do something DRASTIC. We probably need 6 games each year on a 2 to 1 with the big guys or home and home with very high mid-majors. That will be very hard to schedule since UAB was one of the cupcakes last year. We got a long way to go to get an RPI in the 40s

ATTALLABLAZE dan the teline='1401287749' Wrote:  We have had good RPIs without having to give in to Saint Louis ...if we were supposed to win our RPI would have been fine and we would have at least been in the NIT. Do I want a better schedule? Yes but not by giving teams equal to us two for ones. You simply don't do that. Again I trust Haase.

(05-28-2014 11:43 AM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  As a general rule, I would say we shouldn't do 2 for 1's with former conference members, but some of you do need to recognize where the program is right now.

Agree with most of what is said here. UAB has to build back up to respectability. I don't know if it's absolutely necessary to give up a 2-1 to get some of these high mid majors on the schedule but if that's what it takes then do it. As someone pointed out, it's certainly better for the team than scheduling some crap team at home. Some of you guys need to realize that right now UAB is perceived as a mediocre program at best. You can't live in the past forever.

I understand and agree with much of the above - but there's another side of the coin. If our conference schedule is filled with cupcakes, and we *have* to play those, then if we lose a couple of games to those guys somehow, suddenly it's our RPI that's dragging down someone who scheduled us.

There are guys further up the food chain whose fans are going to ***** just as hard as we are about scheduling US. There are coaches who know that if we get a bad break or two or two they'll going to hear about scheduling us. Some of those poor guys are liable to hear it if they lose to us and also liable to hear it if they beat us but we drag down their RPI.

That's just reality guys, it's not like we have not had losses to poor teams we never should have allowed to beat us the last couple of years.

Losing Tulane and adding WKU is an upgrade for basketball IMHO.

This league needs to step up including us.

UAB, Charlotte, USM, WKU, La tech, UTEP and ODU need to stop losing to sub 200 teams period.

The bottom half simply needs to not be putrid.

Add MTSU to that list as well. The upper half of our conference should be decent most years.

The thing that will hurt us is if all the teams above schedule like we all did last year. It drags us all down when the collective SOS OOC is terrible. I understand we don't want 14 teams with 3-10 records entering conference play, but Tulsa was able to move their RPI quite a bit in conference, and they didn't win crap out of it.

I still think the league needs to entertain some form of scheduling to have the best teams play each other twice. It is really going to suck if we have teams fighting for at larges having to play UTSA at home in their last game or two and watching their RPI drop after a win.

My bad, Yea MTSU. I have no desire to play DII teams and wish the conference would penalize teams for playing them. You want a creampuff, play an in state one.

I really have no problem playing a DII team as the opening game of the season - as an exhibition that does not count - so we could "practice" against someone else. Beyond that we should not play them...

(05-28-2014 10:48 AM)blazers9911 Wrote:  And MB, I do know we played Wichita recently. We also did that with Dayton. I'm really saying we need to have multiple games like these, and that we need to do what it takes to get them on the schedule.

Our schedule has potential as it is right now, but if our options are 2 for 1's with top 50 teams or 7 more 250+ games, I'm going to choose the former. If we can't get 2 for 1's or better with those teams, then I think we need to try and get as many home and homes at possible with teams in the 51-150 range. I know it's not easy, but it's not rocket science either. Hell, give Georgia State a call at this point.

Have said it before...have no idea why we are not playing each other in every sport.

I had a blast the last time we played over there. We took their gym over and kicked their butts.

It was kinda weird for me. I went to GSU back in the stone age.

Things have changed. We're sort of good now.

(05-29-2014 02:17 PM)panama Wrote:  Things have changed. We're sort of good now.

People are selective when they want to refer to the past and the future...lol

(05-29-2014 02:38 PM)BamaScorpio69 Wrote:  

(05-29-2014 02:17 PM)panama Wrote:  Things have changed. We're sort of good now.

People are selective when they want to refer to the past and the future...lol

Only one way to find out.

Lol. The past for me at GSU is 1974.

Things have changed.

(05-29-2014 12:53 PM)panama Wrote:  

(05-28-2014 10:48 AM)blazers9911 Wrote:  And MB, I do know we played Wichita recently. We also did that with Dayton. I'm really saying we need to have multiple games like these, and that we need to do what it takes to get them on the schedule.

Our schedule has potential as it is right now, but if our options are 2 for 1's with top 50 teams or 7 more 250+ games, I'm going to choose the former. If we can't get 2 for 1's or better with those teams, then I think we need to try and get as many home and homes at possible with teams in the 51-150 range. I know it's not easy, but it's not rocket science either. Hell, give Georgia State a call at this point.

Have said it before...have no idea why we are not playing each other in every sport.

How has UAB and Ga Tech never played a basketball game??...it just seems like it would've happened over the last 4 decades