.The DePaul game isn't the killer it was if you spend fractionally more money to bring in a couple Valley, A10, AAC teams rather than the dreck they chose. Is there a chance that you pick wrong and the game is more competitive than you want it to be? Sure but it's still most likely a double digit win against a team 200 places higher in the NET that the metrics are also going to reward.
No decent Valley or A10 programs would even consider a home only offer from Iowa State for any realistic amount of money. (The offer has been on the table for UNI and Drake since the Big Four Classic dissolved as CW has told us countless times, including very recently.)
maaaybe "the dregs" like Valpo or UIC might consider it out of temporary desperation but even their dollar figure would be far from marginal, I assure you. Unless you consider an amount ranging from something like Jon Heacock's salary down to our 3rd bball assistant's salary "marginal", because Iowa State sure doesn't.
We're talking something like lets schedule less SWAC teams and more America East or MAAC teams like Bryant or Iona, respectively. Which I actually think we can and should do and
that would cost a realistically manageable amount more. But we're not gonna get close to the top 100 SOS that way.
Every single AAC team would reject a home only offer from ISU out of hand. Now if you wanna debate whether a home and home with Tulsa, Tulane, Wichita St, or UAB moves the needle enough with the committee with no financial loss or additional cost to ISU, then that's fine, that's entirely debatable. But that's what we are working with here best case scenario IMO. And it's another discussion entirely than ISU can afford this or that and the committee's legitimate criticism will just evaporate away.
I think the criticism the big 12 received was a much more coordinated and effective tactic employed masterfully by the Big ten and SEC. They can and will move the goalposts when needed and the NCAA will follow suit like the feckless turds they are, to put it mildly. In their defense, the big 12 didn't exactly do much on the court to counter it in response, and that's on us for sure.
Lots of people need to get paid, lots of things need to be funded, and we just agreed to split the new TV deal with 4 more schools for less money than the already comparably small 31.7mil we thought we had coming. Illinois might have the money to throw around, we 100% do not.