A Sea Of Red

Chris Lang brought up something that will be fun to discuss. He mentioned trying to get home and homes with top mid-major programs along with the trio or handful of P5 opponents we should play every year. So, thinking to next year if you were Ian who how would you build your schedule? We had 15 non-conference games last year, so lets use that as our starting point.

Mine:

Home opener vs Gardner-Webb - Big South Tournament Champs
Home vs Radford - Just like playing them
Away vs Georgia State - #14 in Mid-Major Top 25 and Tournament team
Away vs Army - We play them in football
Away vs Navy - played them this past year
Home vs New Mexico State - NCAA Tournament and #7 in Mid-Major Top 25
Home vs Hampton - In-state games are just fun.
Home vs Kent St. - Were in and out of Mid-Major rankings last year
Away vs. Austin Peay - Rematch and revenge
Away vs. UNCG - #10 in Mid-Major Top 25
Away vs. Wake Forest - Very winnable ACC game
Away vs. Ole Miss - No-brainer & Tournament team
Home vs. St. Johns - Chris Mullins in the house!
Home vs. Coastal Carolina - Beat Coastal
Home vs. VMI - Old school rivalry

There’s going to be a yearly ASUN vs MAAC starting next year.

I believe we have home games with Navy and Radford. I’m hoping no D3/NAIA games. We have to beef up the schedule because the ASUN is going to be strong next year.

ballah09 wrote:There’s going to be a yearly ASUN vs MAAC starting next year.

I believe we have home games with Navy and Radford. I’m hoping no D3/NAIA games. We have to beef up the schedule because the ASUN is going to be strong next year.

Why do you think that? It was pretty weak this year and next year Libsomb will be rebuilding. What teams looked like they will be taking a step forward next year? I hope you are right - a stronger conference make us a better team, polls wise.

UNF returns everyone minus Harchler (sp?) who got kicked off the team and they had nice stretch where they beat us. FGCU had a young team, beat Lipscomb, and has a very good recruiting class coming in. Jacksonville returns Bell and Notae and they played us tough.

UNF is going to be dangerous considering who they return and they all can shoot.

ballah09 wrote:UNF returns everyone minus Harchler (sp?) who got kicked off the team and they had nice stretch where they beat us. FGCU had a young team, beat Lipscomb, and has a very good recruiting class coming in. Jacksonville returns Bell and Notae and they played us tough.

UNF is going to be dangerous considering who they return and they all can shoot.

Curious as to why you say FGCU has a very good recruiting class. 3 signees and one verbal. All 4 are "default" 2 star recruits (meaning none have been actually rated by any of the major services.) Their offer lists are unimpressive, with the exception of Osborn Shema, a 7'0" 200 lb C from Rwanda who only has one other offer, but it is from UGA. They are also losing 4 players (most notably Haanif Cheatham) to transfer. Along with Cheatham, their other 2 top scorers were seniors.

Agree on N Florida. They should be our toughest competition next year. Lipscomb has 2 really good players to build around in Cooper and Asadullah, but they lose so much I have to believe they are at least a year away.

ballah09 wrote:There’s going to be a yearly ASUN vs MAAC starting next year.

I believe we have home games with Navy and Radford. I’m hoping no D3/NAIA games. We have to beef up the schedule because the ASUN is going to be strong next year.

I second the no D3 and NAIA games. I'll add another and say we need an all D1 schedule. There are plenty of D1 schools that we can schedule as our "practice/scrimmage" games.

It costs more to bring in a MEAC school for a buy game than it does an NAIA school. Significantly more. But considering Liberty's cashflow, that really shouldn't be an issue.

To add to the non-DI versus low DI games for "warm-ups" discussion, realize that the non-DIs don't count against the NET whereas scheduling low DIs actually hurt.

That's a great point. It's almost as if those games just occur in a vaccum.

Manson nailed it. Playing a low D1 school could potentially hurt your NET while non D1 games basically didn't happen where that is concerned. There is absolutely no reason not to play a couple of them and yes, I would agree that 3 is probably one too many. IMHO 2 is perfect, and we can schedule those games against teams from like-minded schools like Trevecca Nazarine or Summit and it helps them financially while giving us a chance to work the kinks out and get a look at some new players under game conditions.

Look at Wofford's schedule this year. That's what we should try to mimic. Their schedule allowed them to finish top 25 in KenPom and NET. Of course, it helped them that the SOCON had their best season ever.

I hope basketball doesn't "go backwards" after reaching next level, as most LU teams have in the past. i.e. football and baseball.

A Sea of Red wrote:Look at Wofford's schedule this year. That's what we should try to mimic. Their schedule allowed them to finish top 25 in KenPom and NET. Of course, it helped them that the SOCON had their best season ever.

That is basically what we played this year. Same number of non D1s and they played 1 more P5 ( went 1-4). In fact, there are a bunch of similarities. Their NET certainly benefited from how good the SOCON was this year, but it was mainly because of the league having deep quality. What happened in post season seems to indicate that Wofford was in fact the only team in that conference on a level with Liberty and Lipscomb.

oldflame wrote:

A Sea of Red wrote:Look at Wofford's schedule this year. That's what we should try to mimic. Their schedule allowed them to finish top 25 in KenPom and NET. Of course, it helped them that the SOCON had their best season ever.

That is basically what we played this year. Same number of non D1s and they played 1 more P5 ( went 1-4). In fact, there are a bunch of similarities. Their NET certainly benefited from how good the SOCON was this year, but it was mainly because of the league having deep quality. What happened in post season seems to indicate that Wofford was in fact the only team in that conference on a level with Liberty and Lipscomb.

They played 4 teams ranked in the top 33, we played 0.
They played 2 teams ranked 300+, we played 4.

A Sea of Red wrote:

oldflame wrote:

A Sea of Red wrote:Look at Wofford's schedule this year. That's what we should try to mimic. Their schedule allowed them to finish top 25 in KenPom and NET. Of course, it helped them that the SOCON had their best season ever.

That is basically what we played this year. Same number of non D1s and they played 1 more P5 ( went 1-4). In fact, there are a bunch of similarities. Their NET certainly benefited from how good the SOCON was this year, but it was mainly because of the league having deep quality. What happened in post season seems to indicate that Wofford was in fact the only team in that conference on a level with Liberty and Lipscomb.

They played 4 teams ranked in the top 33, we played 0.
They played 2 teams ranked 300+, we played 4.

They lost to all those top 33 teams. Did that really help them? Having said that, I can see us upping the ante and playing 5 or 6 P5s in the future. As it was, 4 was I believe the most we have ever scheduled. Where those teams finish in the NET is kind of out of our control.

As far as 300+ teams are concerned, I believe 3 of our 4 were part of tournaments we were in. We faced Bama, Kent St., Austin Peay and Vandy in those same tourneys.

ballah09 wrote:There’s going to be a yearly ASUN vs MAAC starting next year.

I believe we have home games with Navy and Radford. I’m hoping no D3/NAIA games. We have to beef up the schedule because the ASUN is going to be strong next year.

The ASUN/MAAC 'challenge' will only feature two teams from each league next season, and the ASUN's representatives are Kennesaw & Stetson (the MAAC's are Iona and Monmouth)...it's not really a challenge in the same mold as the ACC/Big10 (at least not yet), but just a weekend showcase down in Orlando that will have two ASUN and two MAAC teams face off in a pair of games.

http://asunsports.org/sports/mbkb/2018- ... 0226hqzpkk

WinthropEagleFan wrote:

ballah09 wrote:There’s going to be a yearly ASUN vs MAAC starting next year.

I believe we have home games with Navy and Radford. I’m hoping no D3/NAIA games. We have to beef up the schedule because the ASUN is going to be strong next year.

The ASUN/MAAC 'challenge' will only feature two teams from each league next season, and the ASUN's representatives are Kennesaw & Stetson (the MAAC's are Iona and Monmouth)...it's not really a challenge in the same mold as the ACC/Big10 (at least not yet), but just a weekend showcase down in Orlando that will have two ASUN and two MAAC teams face off in a pair of games.

http://asunsports.org/sports/mbkb/2018- ... 0226hqzpkk

Wow. Talk about a nothingburger.

oldflame wrote:

WinthropEagleFan wrote:

ballah09 wrote:There’s going to be a yearly ASUN vs MAAC starting next year.

I believe we have home games with Navy and Radford. I’m hoping no D3/NAIA games. We have to beef up the schedule because the ASUN is going to be strong next year.

The ASUN/MAAC 'challenge' will only feature two teams from each league next season, and the ASUN's representatives are Kennesaw & Stetson (the MAAC's are Iona and Monmouth)...it's not really a challenge in the same mold as the ACC/Big10 (at least not yet), but just a weekend showcase down in Orlando that will have two ASUN and two MAAC teams face off in a pair of games.

http://asunsports.org/sports/mbkb/2018- ... 0226hqzpkk

Wow. Talk about a nothingburger.

Yeah, and then they are skipping a year before the next one...seems pretty odd. And it's weird that the ASUN threw in its two weakest programs, while the MAAC has its champion in the event.

I was thinking the same thing.

Stetson is there due strictly to proximity to Orlando.