If you’re following our message board you probably know more about this than I, but let’s take a second together to talk about the rapidly approaching 2012-2013 season schedule.
For season ticket holders it’s a thing of beauty. For those who are going to purchase on a game-to-game basis…it may be a nightmare. Regardless, whether you’re in the stands or on the couch, this season should make for some incredible VCU basketball viewing.
What things are looking like at this point in time…
Home OOC games
Wichita State (27-6) – 2012 NCAA tournament team (lost to VCU in round of 64)
Stetson (9-20)
Alabama (21-12) – 2012 NCAA tournament team (Round of 64, coached by former VCU coach Anthony Grant)
Western Kentucky (16-19) – 2012 NCAA tournament team (Round of 64)
Fairleigh Dickinson (3-26)
Lehigh (27-8) – 2012 NCAA tournament team (Round of 32, upset 2nd-seeded Duke)
Road OOC games
Old Dominion (22-14) – CIT tournament
East Tennessee State (17-14)
Update* Winthrop (12-20)
Neutral site OOC games
Battle for Atlantis tournament featuring matchups against some of the following teams (TBD)
Duke (27-7) – 2012 NCAA tournament (Round of 64)
Missouri (30-5) – 2012 NCAA tournament (Round of 64)
Stanford (26-11) – 2012 NIT Champion
Memphis (26-9) – 2012 NCAA tournament (Round of 64)
Minnesota (23-15) – 2012 NIT runner-up and new home to former VCU AD Norwood Teague
Louisville (30-10) – 2012 NCAA tournament (Final 4)
Northern Iowa (20-14) – 2012 NIT (2nd round)
Add to that an upgraded conference schedule that includes home games against Butler, Dayton, Fordham, George Washington, La Salle, UMass, Richmond and Saint Joseph’s, and road games against the likes of Charlotte, Duquesne, Rhode Island, Richmond, St. Bonaventure, Saint Louis, Temple and Xavier, and you’ve got three additional 2012 NCAA tournament teams for a grand total of seven before we even figure out who exactly VCU will face in the Battle for Atlantis this November. That’s at least four more than last year’s slate, having only ODU, George Mason and Richmond advance to the NCAA tournament in 2011, three teams that VCU has played every season for the past couple of decades.
So that puts us at four NCAA tournament teams coming to the Siegel Center, three we’ll face on the road, and possibly several more in paradise.
