2023/24 Men’s Basketball Schedule

[refrigeratorraider]

Full schedule known 08/24/23:

Nov 10 @ Colorado State
Nov 14 Toledo
Nov 16 @ Indiana
Nov 20 Louisiana (Gulf Coast Showcase, Estero, FL)
Nov 21 Hofstra/Buffalo (Gulf Coast Showcase)
Nov 22 Iona/High Point/Long Beach St/Illinois St (Gulf Coast Showcase)
Nov 29 IUPUI
Dec 2 @ Davidson
Dec 7 Bethel
Dec 12 Western Kentucky
Dec 19 Miami
Dec 22 Muskingum
Dec 29 @ Green Bay
Dec 31 @ Milwaukee
Jan 4 Cleveland State
Jan 6 @ Purdue Fort Wayne
Jan 10 @ Robert Morris
Jan 12 @ Youngstown State
Jan 18 Green Bay
Jan 20 Milwaukee
Jan 25 @ Cleveland State
Jan 28 @ IUPUI
Feb 1 Youngstown State
Feb 4 @ Northern Kentucky
Feb 8 Detroit Mercy
Feb 10 Oakland
Feb 17 Robert Morris
Feb 22 @ Detroit Mercy
Feb 25 @ Oakland
Feb 28 Purdue Fort Wayne
Mar 2 Northern Kentucky

[refrigeratorraider]

Raiders returning to the gulf coast for an MTE:

[wsuraider09]

I believe the WKU game will be the last of a 4-game series that we inked several years ago that was interrupted by scheduling issues and COVID. FWIW, the home team has won the first 3 in the series. If the league is "serious" about mandating buy games, it doesn't leave a lot of room open for the schedule since we know we're playing 3 games in the Gulf Coast (which is a bracketed tournament unlike most of the MTEs we have played in).

This season we played in 31 regular season games, 3 of which were at the MTE, take out 20 conference games and the 3 games we know we're playing already in the OOC, and the 3-4 buy games the league is supposedly going to mandate, we're really only looking at adding 2 or 3 home & homes to the schedule. Hopefully we can get a few lined up with peer teams like we've seen in the past (Marshall, Indiana State, WKU, anyone from the MAC, etc.) With ALL the HL teams looking for buy games now (allegedly), we may have to be branch out a bit, but I'd imagine after a down year, we could probably get bought by OSU, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, Purdue, Cincinnati, Xavier, etc. with relative ease if the schedules align.

[beatud]

Mar 8, 2023 11:02:31 GMT -5 wsuraider09 said:

I believe the WKU game will be the last of a 4-game series that we inked several years ago that was interrupted by scheduling issues and COVID. FWIW, the home team has won the first 3 in the series. If the league is "serious" about mandating buy games, it doesn't leave a lot of room open for the schedule since we know we're playing 3 games in the Gulf Coast (which is a bracketed tournament unlike most of the MTEs we have played in).

This season we played in 31 regular season games, 3 of which were at the MTE, take out 20 conference games and the 3 games we know we're playing already in the OOC, and the 3-4 buy games the league is supposedly going to mandate, we're really only looking at adding 2 or 3 home & homes to the schedule. Hopefully we can get a few lined up with peer teams like we've seen in the past (Marshall, Indiana State, WKU, anyone from the MAC, etc.) With ALL the HL teams looking for buy games now (allegedly), we may have to be branch out a bit, but I'd imagine after a down year, we could probably get bought by OSU, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, Purdue, Cincinnati, Xavier, etc. with relative ease if the schedules align.

If Davidson is a little higher ranked in NET than they were this year, that would take care of the first of the four games (135 NET is lowest quad 2 road game).

[Big D]

Mar 8, 2023 11:36:07 GMT -5 beatud said:

If Davidson is a little higher ranked in NET than they were this year, that would take care of the first of the four games (135 NET is lowest quad 2 road game).

The HL scheduling rumor is that they are mandating each HL member schedule 3-4 BUY games vs Q1/Q2 teams. Davidson is part of a home/home series. It wouldn’t count if the HL is serious about this buy game BS.

[wsuraider09]

Mar 8, 2023 13:06:26 GMT -5 Big D said:

Mar 8, 2023 11:36:07 GMT -5 beatud said:

If Davidson is a little higher ranked in NET than they were this year, that would take care of the first of the four games (135 NET is lowest quad 2 road game).

The HL scheduling rumor is that they are mandating each HL member schedule 3-4 BUY games vs Q1/Q2 teams. Davidson is part of a home/home series. It wouldn’t count if the HL is serious about this buy game BS.

So a H/H or a 2 for 1 deal with a p5 team wouldn't count? I know we've done this with UC before, as has NKU. I believe YSU got a deal with WVU in the last few years due to Calhoun's connection to them...

So we have to straight out be bought? I don't get what that accomplishes if one of these other types of deals can be worked out. (Or we don't know that they wouldn't count at thisn point?)

[Big D]

Mar 8, 2023 13:15:51 GMT -5 wsuraider09 said:

So a H/H or a 2 for 1 deal with a p5 team wouldn't count? I know we've done this with UC before, as has NKU. I believe YSU got a deal with WVU in the last few years due to Calhoun's connection to them...

So we have to straight out be bought? I don't get what that accomplishes if one of these other types of deals can be worked out. (Or we don't know that they wouldn't count at thisn point?)

This was already addressed in the HL news thread last week. Here is the tweet that started the rumor.....

And this is what I said about this rumor then......

The HL wants to get out of the bottom 1/3 of conferences we have been stuck at for several years now. They finally figured out that the only 2 ways of doing that is winning more games and scheduling better. The conference can’t mandate you win more games, but they can mandate you schedule better. The goal from what I hear is to get schools to stop scheduling D2/D3/NAIA buy games at home and to replace those games with road Q1/Q2 games. Revenue wise, it should be a wash for most schools in comparison. You’ll make as much money from being bought as you would have gotten from having a home gave vs a non-D1 team. Scheduling wise, playing non D1 teams doesn’t help our conference’s NET. Playing (even if you lose) Q1/Q2 teams helps our conference’s NET.

I am all for the HL forcing our members to play a better schedule. I’ve been advocating that for over a decade. I’m not a fan of mandating having everyone accepting x number of buy games. I would prefer that they force teams to all schedule games knowing their average OOC SOS hit a specific number. If you can put together a good enough OOC schedule to make it beneficial for your school and the conference it shouldn’t matter how many buy games you play. Mandating x number of games be buy games just makes the conference look even more like a low major than we actually are. It basically says our conference is full of a bunch of low level whores that are up for sale. You would never see a respectable mid-major conference do that, but we all know the HL is no longer a respectable mid-major conference.

[ohiopirate]

Didn't really want to start a new thread but just saw the email that the team is going back on a foreign trip to Italy this summer.

So we will have some games under our belt before our OOC schedule next year.
Could even help prevent some transfers perhaps if players don't want to miss a possible once-in-a-lifetime trip to tour Italy with their teammates maybe?

[raiderbill]

Hmm, Interesting point Pirate, also it might make a player consider not transferring if we play against a better schedule and they get a chance to measure themselves against better competition.

[Dr J]

BigD, does the league get a portion of buy games?

[wsuraider09]

We may get a different look at WKU as they have just fired head coach Rick Stansbury who was brought in 7 years ago after 2 short years as an assistant at Texas A&M but is most known for his extended tenure at Mississippi State. WKU did not make the NCAA tournament under his leadership.

Certainly a chance the Hilltoppers lose some talent with his departure.

[Big D]

Mar 11, 2023 17:33:46 GMT -5 Dr J said:

BigD, does the league get a portion of buy games?

No

[refrigeratorraider]

[freewind]

Do we know what dates the team will do the Italy trip?

[refrigeratorraider]