It would seem pretty stupid to me to make the schedule any tougher than this, with a brutal league schedule of 20 games.
JFC stop using logic.Yep. Almost everyone plays at least a few terrible teams that they slap around. You have to fill out a home schedule.
31 maximum games. (28+MTE)
10 away games from the big 12. 3 neutral games. At iowa.
This leaves you 17 home games, which is about what Iowa State wants (and taking a home and home deal reduces that in the future). 10 of those are big 12 games. One is Marquette.
So you're down to 6 games ISU really has in its control. Now look at where they fit in the schedule:
Half of those are very early in the season. Most P5 teams want to be warming up vs bad competition those first few games. Getting another P5 team to come in there is going to be difficult as they don't want to be playing a tough game any more than we do.
One of them is in between a tough 4-game stretch (Maui\Marquette) and Iowa. It makes sense scheduling-wise to catch a breather.
The last 2 bookend finals week. Never a time you really want to be scheduling anything tough and a great way to see a random upset. Plus there's little value in forking out money to get fans a better game a couple days before christmas when people have a lot of family stuff going on.
Either way there's not a team out there that doesn't have gimmes, and ISU isn't some exception, so there's really nothing to complain about.
Minus Maui and Marquette, this is pure garbage again. We should be better than this ****.
Plus how do we know staff hasn't tried to get another power 5 program at home but they want a 2 for 1 type deal.
Ohio St would not play us at Hilton, we had to play them in DSM.Valid point not many good teams want to visit Ames when ISU is on a roll. We (the fans) bring it strong for good home games. There are a handful of coaches that don't mind but most would rather pass on that.
Might not be popular, but I'd still rather play Drake and UNI than Morgan State or IU Indy.
Do it as a three year rotation. Two games in Ames, then in year 3 play "at Drake" at Wells Fargo Arena.I wish there was some way to just play Drake at Wells Fargo. Forget the Capital Classic crap with Iowa and UNI.
**** em' tbfMight not be popular, but I'd still rather play Drake and UNI than Morgan State or IU Indy.
It would seem pretty stupid to me to make the schedule any tougher than this, with a brutal league schedule of 20 games.
Bad non-con team wins do us more favors than piling up a few losses against good teams start to finish. Any win > any loss.It would seem pretty stupid to me to make the schedule any tougher than this, with a brutal league schedule of 20 games.
In the current landscape of college basketball, next years ISU team is going to have about as few unknowns as a P6 team is going to have.Meh even with what we have coming back we have plenty of new players to integrate into the system. The goal is to be strong in March I'll take the cupcakes in Nov to learn to play together and gain confidence.
This narrative needs to die.We'll likely be ranked in the top 10 preseason polls and this schedule is pretty weak. That is probably part of the equation why we were the last #2 seed this year. If we want to be amongst the best we need to schedule better non-conference teams. We may not get some to come to Hilton but beating teams on the road or neutral courts in the non conference could mean the difference in seeding in March.
Why? It was the clear reasoning by the committee.This narrative needs to die.