Alan, how does that compare to previous seasons in early August?

Much greater than I've ever seen before. Even with the enthusism around Jeff's hire, it's going to take 1) some wins and 2) some hard work to undo the past five years. Couple that with decllining student enrollment, Tuesday night league games, an increased number of night classes, and declining attendance at sporting events in general, these are tough times to be selling premium priced tickets.

https://ev7.evenue.net/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/SEGetEventInfo?... =

Isn't the schedule usually released around Labor Day every year, either the week before, or the week after?

Yuck. Two non-D1s in the regular season.

Are the two non-D1 games exhibitions or do they count against win-loss record?

#fireBoals

(I just thought I’d start the inevitable thread early. 😂😂)

Agree

Maybe he learned this strategy from Dambrot, whose schedules at Akron were often filled with cupcakes.

It's a shame to see a solid non-conference schedule get tarnished by scheduling Heidelberg and Rio Grande. There are over 300 division 1 basketball teams and we settled on those two teams to fill out the home schedule. Ridiculous.

Let me be clear on this ... I HATE having three non-D1 opponents on the schedule. And yes ... I know one is an exhibition so I'll let that slide.

But the other two are awful.

But if you dig a little deeper, the rest of the schedule is actually pretty decent.

You have two winnable games at home vs OVC teams (better than MEAC/SWAC cellar-dwellers)

You have a Campbell team coming in that was one win from the NCAAs (not a great game ... but another winnable home game)

You do get Purdue at home ... one of three guaranteed P6 games. Let me remind everyone, Saul only played 8 P6 games the last five years TOTAL. This tells me that Boals will NOT take the same approach and will try to schedule some major-conference opponents, especially once his kids get some more experience.

The road games at Iona and St. Bonnie are solid road games.

Throw in the Myrtle Beach Invite and the game at Villanova ... I think this is the best schedule Ohio hoops has had since Christian.

Saul's scheduling was pretty bad. One year he had a decent one littered with above-average mid-majors. But the year he actually had a team that could've maybe competed for an at-large ... his one P6 game was at Georgia Tech.

Buffalo was great last year ... but they also played at Marquette, at Syracuse and at WVU. Those are the type of schedules Ohio should be playing. And this at least is on the right track this year.

I think you'll see the multi-D2 games off the schedule going forward. I would have liked to see them gone NOW and replaced with a MVC/SBC/Horizon games or maybe an AAC/CUSA game. But I can understand trying to build some confidence with a young team.

I think we can let it slide this year ... but let's hope it's not a trend going forward.

100% agree with bshot

I think this schedule is good for this team this year. There is a wide variance in competitiveness and skill level playing the likes of Villanova and Baylor, then Rio Grande and Heidelberg and then a bunch in between. The deal we made with Purdue is outstanding and I hope we continue the strategy of roping in football. With our youth, having two of the first three games (including Capital) as tuneups may turn out to be helpful. If we need to go back to the drawing board for any reason, the Heidelberg game helps there as well. Furthermore, after Myrtle Beach, we're at home until conference play.

But from a spectator standpoint, it's pretty terrible. There is not one game in November or December that is both interesting and convenient for me coming from out of town, so there is 0% chance you'll see me in the Convo until MAC play.