https://x.com/miamioh_bball/status/2011947474219323400?s=46&t=ZH1fFGwu8Q0191V3SgsUtQ
Steele mentions towards the end of hawktawk that the MAC will be moving to 22 games
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22-game schedule means you play everyone at home and away next season. To be honest, four more MAC games (including Akron and Kent again) instead of some of our non-DI/low-major games would have helped a bit in our SOS metrics.
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It’s also a tacit admission that the league has basically given up on getting better nonconference schedules. Those of us who grew up watching Miami play some of the biggest names in college basketball will regret this, but if those schools will no longer even return scheduling calls, then more MACTION beats another year of branch campuses and broke-ass bible colleges.
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This could be a good thing if the 4 additional MAC games replace the 3 non D1 games.
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Conference play in basketball should be a true round-robin. I welcome the change.
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College sports could really use some leadership that looks out for the collective well being of everyone
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@ Devil: Aren’t some of the local schools (Dayton, Xavier, Wright St, for example) kinda broke themselves and wouldn’t it be in their best interest to schedule a home-and-away with a quality program that costs very little to commute to/fro?
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Field of 68 members knew about this back in November. If you want your information 3+ months in advance, here is a link to remit your $1,000.
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Worth noting that the NCAA increased the total game limit from 31 to 32 starting next year, so this is effectively only removing three OOC games: NCAA votes to increase college basketball schedules to 32-game season beginning in 2026-27 - CBS Sports
True round robin is much more fair, and if this replaces two of the non-D1 games and one other misc game, it will be a much better schedule.
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If this means we are getting rid of the NAIA teams, then great. I agree with Phil.
Carm, neither Xavier, UC or Dayton will schedule 1 for 1s with us at this point. I suspect that Wright St. would.
Considering we’re in the middle of a home and home with Wright St, that’s a fair suspicion
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Yes, but it is remarkable how quickly things can change. Basketball OOC games are usually only scheduled 1-3 years out and, credit to the coaching staff, right now we are a substantially less desirable opponent. The downside of being good.
It would never have occurred to me 15 years ago that Dayton wouldn’t play us in Oxford.
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Wanna know what high major team has agreed to play us next year and what cool destination we have for a 26-27 MTE? Join the Field of 68 for $1,000 minimum donation today!
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The A10 isn’t some sacred cow. Dayton is a D3 sports school in football. They should be playing us every year. It’s a good game, will sell out and isn’t a huge expense.
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Obviously it’s the conference who makes the final decisions, but how much flexibility do we have with schedule requests? We have a long winter break, so you’d think it would make sense to load us up with January road games, but that hasn’t been happening.
Which connects to my larger scheduling complaints. If the two February games get flexed to Friday nights for national tv (which seems likely), we’d only have four Saturday home games all season, with one at the same time as the football championship and two during j-term.
Proposing this only half in jest- if MAC teams continue to be unable to schedule nonconference games that would allow the better teams to reasonably compete for the better quad system rankings then perhaps go to a 17 team MAC conference and play the 32 game season round robin with no OOC games. A less interesting season perhaps but since MAC teams would not be ranked using the current biased system it would be enjoyable to watch the power conferences squirm trying to justify keeping their 8 loss teams in and 1-2 loss MAC teams out of the tournament.
As has been mentioned, I think we’ll see more opportunities from local schools because financials have never been more important in the current NIL environment.
Wouldn’t UD, UC, and X be better off scheduling us 2 for 1 with no fees instead of buying 2 low major teams?
Dayton should be 1:1 and once we start beating the other “local teams,” then it will become 1:1 as we will sell out. Maybe a contract that if you win, you take back the home game to your place for next year!
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Good idea. Not sure anyone would do it, but good idea.