SEVEN POSTSEASON QUALIFIERS HIGHLIGHT NON-CONF. SCHEDULE

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August 12, 2010

SEVEN POSTSEASON QUALIFIERS HIGHLIGHT MEN’S BASKETBALL NON-CONFERENCE SCHEDULE

RICHMOND, Va. – Seven postseason qualifiers and a possible trip to “The Mecca of Basketball”, Madison Square Garden, highlight the 13-game 2010-11 non-conference schedule for the Virginia Commonwealth University men’s basketball team.

“Overall our schedule presents a wide variety of challenging opponents,” Head Coach Shaka Smart said. “We’ll have the chance to test ourselves in extremely hostile environments and against various styles of play. This early set of games in November and December will tell us quite a bit about ourselves heading into CAA play.”

Wake Forest, Cornell and Richmond highlight the possible seven postseason qualifiers that the Black & Gold could face during the 2010-11 campaign. The trio combined for 75 wins last season and all made trips to the NCAA Tournament. Wofford and Winthrop also made trips to the “Big Dance” to put a possible five tournament teams on the Rams’ slate.

“The opportunity to play several NCAA Tournament caliber teams will go a long way towards preparing us to reach our own NCAA aspirations,” Smart said.

UAB and South Florida round out the postseason squads that VCU will match-up against with both schools posting 20+ wins and earning a bid to the NIT.

Smart and his Rams will open up the season with the annual U.S. Army Downtown Showdown exhibition contest against Division II powerhouse Virginia Union on November 5th.

Mike Dement and the Spartans of UNC Greensboro visit the Verizon Wireless Arena at the Stuart C. Siegel Center to kick off the 2010-11 regular season on Friday, November 12th. Dement has tallied over 320 wins in his 24 seasons on the sidelines.

The Rams then head to Winston-Salem, N.C. to participate in the Preseason NIT with a four-team pod including Winthrop, Hampton and the host school, Wake Forest. VCU will take on Winthrop in the first round, and play either Wake Forest or Hampton in the second game. The Demon Deacons are a tough out on their home court, posting a 30-2 in non-conference games over the past four seasons.

With two wins in Winston-Salem, VCU would travel to Madison Square Garden for two games against opponents that could include national powers Tennessee, Villanova and UCLA. If the Rams do not advance to New York City, VCU will have the possibility of hosting two preseason NIT games in the comforts of the Siegel Center.

“We are pleased to be a part of such a prestigious early season tournament,” Smart commented. “I like that our team has the opportunity to advance to Madison Square Garden if we play well enough in our first two games in the tournament.”

The Black & Gold will face stiff competition on the road with contests at South Florida (Dec. 1st), Richmond (Dec. 11th), UAB (Dec. 21st) and the ESPNU BracketsBusters on the docket. The Bulls went 20-13 last year with home wins over Pittsburgh, UCONN, Cincinnati and Virginia. Reigning A-10 Player of the Year Kevin Anderson will lead the Spiders who are coming off a record-setting 26-9 campaign and trip to the NCAA Tournament. UAB represents another formidable road foe after posting a 25-9 mark last year. Head Coach Mike Davis has led the Blazers to a 34-2 mark in home non-conference games over the past five years.

At home in December will be two very intriguing opponents for Rams fans with in-state rival VMI (Dec. 8th) and new-look Tulane (Dec. 18th) visiting the Siegel Center. The Keydets have boasted the nation’s most prolific offense over the past four years and are returning their top six scorers, while Ed Conroy will be trying to rebuild the Green Wave into a powerhouse in Conference USA, as he did with The Citadel, where he posted the school’s second-ever 20-win season last year.

Smart and his crew will be opening up a new trend at the Verizon Wireless Arena with a Christmas tournament, which features Wofford, Cornell and New Hampshire this year.

VCU will open the tournament against a very talented Wofford squad that went 26-9 last year and nearly pulled an upset of Wisconsin in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The Big Red became the story of the NCAA Tournament after posting a 29-5 record and making a run to the Sweet 16 last year. New Hampshire returns its top four scorers from a year ago and will be picked among the top teams in the America East.

As always final non-conference game will come in late February when the Black & Gold hit the road for the ESPNU BracketBusters. Game date, time and opponent will all be announced during the first week of February.

The conference portion of the VCU schedule is set to be announced by early September.
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After reading this, we MUST win 14 or more games in the CAA. Then win the CAA Tourny with hopefully a high seed if we are to get into the NCAAs. However, next year's sched. including at home is shaping up nicely. Gonna be young next year. We need as many home games as posible next year.
 
this is probably the worst out of conference home schedule i've ever seen. i'm dissappointed. hopefully the CBI Championship taught us how to win on the road...
 
Although I agree that our schedule could be better, it certainly doesn't look as bad as Mason's. BigE has posted it in a new thread in the Around the CAA forum. Our OOC schedule looks suspiciously like our old Sun Belt Conference schedule and there is nothing wrong with that. All we need now is Charlotte, with whom we used to have a pretty good rivalry.

Our schedule is what it is. Maybe not what we want, but no amount of hand wringing and teeth gnashing is going to change it, at least this year.

P.S. I guess Mason didn't want any part of Radford this year. :lol:


viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3773
 
We had a decent schedule last year until our OOC shat the bed. If we win, it wont matter.

P.S. I will do my best for my team to win in Tampa this year. I have an idea.
 
Worst home schedule? Close maybe, but I still think 2008 was pretty soiled (sloppy UR team plus UMES, Elon, Longwood). And look at all we had to do to get into the NIT...if we didn't win the regular-season, we would've been OUT imo. 2004 & 2006 were bad, but at least we had WKU, UAB (2004) and UR, CofC (2006).

The best home team we have on the schedule is WOFFORD. And you know what, they are scheduling like they know they will be a historic team (returning almost everyone from a team that almost beat Wisc. in the NCAAs, had 26 wins)

Cornell was senior-laden and had a guy named Donahue on their bench (Courtney may surprise...). UNCG, Tulane? Teams with >10 wins don't deserve analysis! VMI is a decent one - local, plus nice entertainment value for those who know their style.

Overall though, the message is simple - win on the road. That's our mission, and we should be able to do some damage if we gel early.

At least in 2004 we had WKU, UAB. In 2006 we at least had Richmond, Charleston. In 2008 we had a sloppy Richmond (and a bunch of BS - UMES, Elon, Longwood).

SN: I'm sure this has been discussed to no end, but what ever happened to Alabama (I've been way out of the loop - someone have a link to our discussion on it up here?)? Did they cut us a check, or is it beginning next year?
 
SN: I'm sure this has been discussed to no end, but what ever happened to Alabama (I've been way out of the loop - someone have a link to our discussion on it up here?)? Did they cut us a check, or is it beginning next year?[/quote]

The Alabama series starts next year.
 
we have the opportunity to play up to 3 BCS teams in the NIT....can't ask for much more than that
 
More whining about the non-conference schedule, I see.

I'm surprised some of you haven't figured out that power conference teams do not want any part of VCU. They do not want to lose to a mid-major conference school on the road, and they surely do not want to lose to a mid-major conference school in their own building.

Middle-of-the-road power conference teams don't want to play us.

Look at Mississippi State. The quintessential "first team out" of the at-large selection. They lost at home by 14 points to Rider College, and many analysts believe that loss destroyed any chance they had at an at-large bid before the SEC schedule even started. Notre Dame could have very easily found themselves in the same boat after losing at home to Loyola Marymount. The public perception is that, with very few exceptions (Butler, Xavier, Gonzaga), power conference schools are tougher than mid-major conference schools. Nobody wants to lose to a team from a conference they've never heard of. A team like Georgetown would rather lose to Auburn than Utah State even if Utah State has a better RPI.

Last year W&M was able to schedule games at Maryland and at Wake because they were picked to finish dead last in the conference with a RPI around 300. Power programs will take easy wins where they can get them. It says something when big-name schools know and respect your program.

Top-of-the-heap power conference teams don't want to play us.

Why? Because they have 330 other schools calling them up trying to get a game with them. When you are on top, everyone wants a piece of you. So you'll take your share of big-name matchups (Kansas vs. Tennessee, UConn vs. Texas last season, Duke vs. Michigan State this season) and your share of small-time schools looking to show their players what "the best" looks like (and as close to a guaranteed win as you can get in the game of basketball). As for games that could be competitive against programs that don't draw a big national audience? Forget about it. Why would a team like Kansas play against us when they could play against a nationally recognized program like UNC or UCLA? It surely helps with recruiting for big programs to say that not only do they play against the best of the best in conference, they go out and play against other big boys out of conference too.

And please don't get into the whole "we should really be in the Big East" argument. Look how well that worked out for DePaul.

So that leaves us with good mid-major programs (Wofford, UR, UAB) and solid power conference teams (Wake, USF). All of those programs finished with a RPI inside the top 100 last season and look to be very competitive this season. But I guess it's not good enough for some people. If you want to root for a team that gets to play marquee matchups year in and year out, go root for Georgetown or UNC. Root for the team, not the names on the schedule. I'm getting tired of hearing people whine about our out-of-conference schedule like we can go out and schedule whoever we want whenever we want.
 
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