(01-30-2024 12:19 PM)epasnoopy Wrote: (01-30-2024 11:53 AM)chihuskie Wrote: Tennis at NIU ....
what a waste of money.
IMHO
Baseball and softball are the biggest money waste.
Baseball and softball play 65-70% of their games on the road every season because they start the season in February.
2024 baseball team has 21 straight road games to open their season. Only 20 home games in a 57-game schedule.
2024 women's softball team has it worse. They play 26 straight road games to open their season. Yikes! Only 17 home games in a 55-game schedule.
https://niuhuskies.com/sports/softball/schedule/2024
These schedules are nothing unique with teams in this part of the country. Northwestern softball plays it's first 23 games away from Evanston. NW baseball plays its first 20 games away.
DePaul softball plays 20 games away.
UIC softball plays its first 25 games away. UIC baseball mixes in some games in March but doesn't always get to play them based on the weather.
Milwaukee baseball plays its first 23 on the road.
Wisconsin softball plays its first 30 games on the road.
Illinois softball pays its first 19 games on the road. Illinois baseball plays its first 14 games on the road.
A lot of the road games are tournaments or multi-team events where you aren't traveling all over the place for each game but you go and play 4 or 5 games at a location. For example, NIU softball goes to Cedar Falls, IA for the Doc Halverson UNI-Dome Classic where they play 5 games against 5 different teams (UNI, Western Illinois, Omaha, Butler and Drake), then they go to Mobile, AL for the South Alabama Tournament where they play 5 games against 4 teams (South Alabama, UAB, Eastern Kentucky, and Central Michigan), then they go to Bowling Green, KY for the Western Kentucky Hilltopper Spring Fling Tournament where they play 5 games against 3 teams (SIU, Western Kentucky, Dayton), then they go to Missoula, MT for the Montana Tournament where they play 5 games against 2 teams (Montana, Holy Cross). Then they start conference play which just happens to have the first 2 series scheduled on the road...which is out of their control.
As for baseball, they first go to Abilene, TX for 4 games against Abilene Christian, then go to Baton Rouge, LA for 4 games (2 against LSU and 2 against Northwestern State), then they go to Iowa City for a game against Iowa and then to Cincinnati for 4 games against Cincinnati before the conference season starts up. And again, the first 2 series are scheduled away, which is not in their control.
But again, none of this is unique for baseball and softball. Every university, even the ones with fieldturf spend a lot of the early, non-conference season away from home.
The issue is the season starting in February and that's on the NCAA and they don't seem inclined to changing it. A 56 game season seems, imo, like a lot of games and could be cut down by 10 (or more) which would change the start of the season.
