Dream Schedule

I was listening to a college basketball podcast and they were discussing Drake. The podcasters said that Drake has one of the top 10 RPI's in the land right now, but they're not getting the respect they should. For those of you who don't know, the Drake Bulldogs are currently 19-1 and undefeated in conference play.

Who is their only loss? Their first game of the season against St. Mary's, 72-66.

Anyway, getting back to my point. I looked at Drake's schedule and it isn't really that great. Kenpom.com has their SOS at 72. They play in a mid-major conference that is highly regarded. This got me thinking about UCSB.

A lot of people, myself included, felt that the Gauchos had what it takes to dominate the Big West, taking only a loss or two. We also believed (naively now) that UCSB should be able to get out of their non-conference schedule with 2 or 3 losses. Mission accomplished.

This whole Drake thing made me wonder two things. First, what if UCSB was undefeated in Big West right now and/or had only three losses? To answer that question, their two out-of-conference losses do not look bad right now. Both Stanford and UNC are top 15 material. I think if UCSB had only three losses, they'd be at the fringe of the Top 25 right now.

The second thing I thought was, what teams could we schedule to make our out-of-conference better? This is the subject of this post. I thought of our limited means and scheduling realities (sort of) and came up with a "dream schedule."

This dream schedule could accomplish several things. First, it would put more pressure on our team/coaches to play at a consistently higher level. Second, I think it would draw more fans out to the games. Third, we might actually be able to start pulling in better recruits. Make sense, right?

So, here it is, the dream schedule. We get 11 out-of-conference games, plus the Bracket Buster game. We also end up playing a game the next season against the prior year's Bracket Buster opponent. Tournaments count as one game. This is no particular order.

1. Utah State - Bracket Buster opponent

2. Tournament - Stanford's maybe

3. UNLV - Always a good game

4. UNC - We get them next year at home, but I doubt we always get to play them

5. San Diego St. - Instead of USD, why not continually take on a school in SD from a bigger conference?

6. Fresno St. - Gives us a presence in the Valley

7. Bracket Buster opponent - Hopefully, we're playing well so we get a good home match-up

8. St. Mary's - Nice Northern California game against one of the WCC's best teams

9. SJSU/Santa Clara/USF- Another NorCal game so recruits in the Bay Area can come see us

10. Cal/Stanford/USC/UCLA - I know it's hard to convince a big conference team to play us because nothing positive can come out of it for them, but I think we should be able to get one of them a year. If we get Stanford in their tournament, wipe them off this spot and pick from one of the other three teams, preferably USC or UCLA because we need one LA OOC game. You have to play one or two big dogs each year to prove your mettle.

11. BYU/Utah - These teams are usually pretty highly regarded

12. Nevada/New Mexico State - This game can be scheduled in conjunction with the game out to UNLV.

One thing that struck me when writing this out was that the schedule isn't really that ridiculous. Most games would be within California. Some games would require a little bit of travel, but nothing really expensive. A lot of this depends on other teams schedules, so it's not just a one way street. Regardless, I would love to see the Gauchos play a schedule like this. I think this schedule also maximizes their resources. It keeps them close to home, which should limit the wasting of limited resources.

If they were able to take on a schedule like this, I think it would do wonders for them. They would increase their Strength of Schedule and RPI (I hope). Recruits would get a chance to see the Gauchos no matter where they were in California, as we'd be playing close to each major metropolitan area.

For those of you who don't see many Los Angeles area games on tap, it's because I felt that our Big West schedule provides us with plenty of opportunities for the recruits to see us during the season. With games against CSUN, CSUF, UCI, LBSU, and, to a lesser extent UCR we have ample time down in LA.

If you have a moment or two, I'd love to hear what the readers think about this schedule. Post a comment with an opinion on the schedule or make up your own dream schedule. I'll post the good ones in another post sometime in the next week or so.