They got hammered at Duke, Ohio State and Kansas this past season. If you play enough of those, you're bound to make one relatively close, but do you really want to absorb than many losses every season?

Totally forgot about that San Diego State game! Could you imagine a top 10 team in the Convo? That would be amazing to see. Miami, on the other hand, probably had 4k tops for that game!!

Huh?

@Duke -34
@tOA&M -21
@Dayton -12
@Wright St -15
@Belmont -11
@Kansas -27

I think coaches need to schedule to the team they have.  Charlie schedules the same every year.   If he has the horses then by all means take on a tougher schedule but he hasn't had a team that could handle a gauntlet schedule since 2005.  Fiami also has an advantage in that they have a bunch of schools right down the road that they have long standing series with.  We have Marshall. 

But on a side note, I think if you have the chance to schedule Duke you do it no matter how tough the rest of your schedule is. 

Opinions on basketball scheduling actually are quite varied. With the new MAC schedule home game mandates the program is moving toward buying home games against lessor foes. Going back to the Hunter years, at least 2 if not 3 BCS programs were on the schedule and games against the A10 (back when it was as good as the Big East) were quite regular. This is back when they played 8 non-conference games instead of 14. The Larry Hunter era had the program playing higher profile basketball than his successors.

1997-98 Non-con games (8): St. Bonaventure, West Virginia, Rhode Island, Kentucky
1998-99 Non-con games (8): Syracuse, Rhode Island, West Virginia, George Washington
1999-00 Non-con games (12): George Washington, Houston, Iowa, West Virginia, Gonzaga, Bradley
2000-01 Non-con games (9): Virginia, Wisconsin, Duquense, West Virginia, Arizona State
2001-02 Non-con games (9): Duquense, DePaul, Wisconsin, St. Bonaventure, North Carolina
2002-03 Non-con games (9): Providence, DePaul, Wisconsin, St. Bonaventure, Kentucky, Virginia
2003-04 Non-con games (11): DePaul, Wisconsin, Duquense, Butler
2004-05 Non-con games (9): Butler, Duquense, Florida
2005-06 Non-con games (9): Rhode Island, Cincinnati, Kentucky
2006-07 Non-con games (14): Marshall, St. Bonaventure, Louisville, St. Joe, Rhode Island, Cincinnati
2007-08 Non-con games (16): Temple, St. Bonaventure, Maryland, Kansas, St. John's, St. Mary's, George M.
2008-09 Non-con games (14): George Mason, Tulsa, Louisville, Xavier, Marshall
2009-10 Non-con games (17): Marshall, Tulsa, Illinois State, Pittsburgh,Georgetown,Tennessee
2010-11 Non-con games (17): Kansas, Marshall, Illinois State, St. Bonaventure, Temple

Each of the last 3 seasons have only featured 1 BCS school on the schedule. In the Larry Hunter era the program played 2-3 BCS programs a year. Based on the length of the non-conference today the program should be playing 4-5 BCS schools and not 1 a year. Generally some of the worst SOS years have been since the schedule was pared down (2009-10 numbers were helped by Georgetown and Tenn games).

2010-11 SOS (#164)
2009-10 SOS (#101)
2008-09 SOS (#165)
2007-08 SOS (#128)
2006-07 SOS (#150)
2005-06 SOS (#171)
2004-05 SOS (#136)
2003-04 SOS (#161)
2002-03 SOS (#113)
2001-02 SOS (#184)
2000-01 SOS (#155)
1999-00 SOS (#109)
1998-99 SOS (#120)
1998-97 SOS (#122)

Miami has NEVER drawn well at home. Maybe when Wally was there in his last few years. They don't care in Oxford. Not in football or hoops, unless they have a Trent or Wally type and they are being hyped on a national scale. Every time we played them in the late 70's at Millet the place was empty, and they had good teams coming off NCAA wins and we are their "arch rival". I attended a game there against us during Wally's Jr year and it was barely half full. So don't compare their situation with ours.

Here is Marietta College's article on playing the Bobcats this year...some nice quotes from players and coach.

http://news2.marietta.edu/node/1356

Thanks for posting.  I think as one reads this article you get the sense that the whole town of Marietta will be paying attention to this game and that many will make the trek to Athens.  Show them a good time and some will come back for other Ohio games.  This is one way to begin to build fan following in other parts of Southeastern Ohio.  I remember very vividly years ago -- in the Snyder Era -- talking to some fans at halftime of a game at the Convo.  These fans had come from Marietta, and they told me they made the trip for as many games as possible because they thought we had such a good program.  They were not alumni and had no other direct connection with OU, other than they liked our brand of basketball.  I've often wondered in recent years how many of this type of "regional fan" we still have.  My guess is not many.  This game will help us re-acquaint these fans (or their sons and daughters) with the excitement of Ohio basketball.  My hat's off to Jim Schaus and John Groce for "thinking out of the box" on this one. 

Rumor mill starting to swirl about the OOC schedule a little more. My "in the know" buddy said that two of our other home games are...

North Carolina A&T and Morgan State

Are we joining the MEAC? 

We first have to beat teams like Robert Morris, St Bonaventure, Oakland, IUPUI, Marshall and others on our schedule.  Until we prove we can handle these regional mid majors we aren't ready for bigger teams anywhere. Kanas? come on we lost to IUPUI, Oakland and Robert Morris at home last year. We also lost at 300 rpi CMU.  We gotta stop laying some major eggs before we beef up the schedule. Groce needs to get the team to close games out they should win. We pissed away too many games last year,   

Shouldn't all this become official very soon?  Like, this week?

I'm sure I am late on this, but at Wright State on Dec. 17th to return bracket buster from 2 years ago.

If that truly is the OOC home slate, I don't care if you're an optimist or whatever...that's just simply brutal.  Just awful no matter how you wish to spin it.  Honestly, Marietta College will be the highlight for me out of that bunch of teams and I don't care if they're the top of their league or not.  I purchase an extra season ticket each year so I can bring one guest per game and it will be near impossible to get someone who's not a die-hard to want to attend any of those games--even for free.

   Attendance for the San Diego State / Miami Red-Chickens game :  1858      

        We've had more people than that show up at one of our Bobcatattack Tailgate Party's in Pepsi TailGreat Park.

___________________________________________________

 Dennis "Gman"