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Billiken scheduling for 2004-05 season


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I was listening to Frank C's show this morning and he mentioned that SLU may be very close to lining up a non-conference game with Duke next year.

I hope that SLU demands a home & home. This could mean getting SLU v. Duke in the new arena. If it is just a road game, I don't see much sense in going to Cameron b/c that could just be ugly.

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but how could we "demand" anything from Duke? I hope it is true but it wouldn't shock me if it was a 2 for 1 or something like that. And while we would get hammered at Cammeran Indoor it would still help the RPI since RPI doesn't care how much you lose by.

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... it would be a definite upgrade to our pitiful out-of-conference schedule if we replace NC T&A, Savannah Smiles and any directional school on the menu but might we also be looking to replace GaTech and Zona? I am sure those contracts are expiring as well.

We've played Duke twice in my lifetime and both post-Ekker. In both cases, we got pummelled. It did nothing as far as upgrading our program whatsoever. One game is a 10 yard sprint. We need the marathon to get this anywhere.

I remember the game at Duke. I seem to recall the Dookies all screaming "shut out, shut out" as we scored our first points something like 10 minutes into the game or so and were wiped out long before that. What does getting embarrassed like that get you? Maybe some of the same stuff getting embarrassed by Louisville does.

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>... it would be a definite upgrade to our pitiful

>out-of-conference schedule if we replace NC T&A, Savannah

>Smiles and any directional school on the menu but might we

>also be looking to replace GaTech and Zona? I am sure those

>contracts are expiring as well.

>

>We've played Duke twice in my lifetime and both post-Ekker.

>In both cases, we got pummelled. It did nothing as far as

>upgrading our program whatsoever. One game is a 10 yard

>sprint. We need the marathon to get this anywhere.

>

>I remember the game at Duke. I seem to recall the Dookies

>all screaming "shut out, shut out" as we scored our first

>points something like 10 minutes into the game or so and

>were wiped out long before that. What does getting

>embarrassed like that get you? Maybe some of the same stuff

>getting embarrassed by Louisville does.

Why in the hell wouldn't you want to play Duke. Hell, the Bills played Arizona to the wire, beat # 2 Louisville last year, if you could get a home game, even if it means 2-1, why not take it? Liddell, Polk, maybe Lisch and co. taking them on in our on-campus arena in two years? Bring it on! It would be fun.

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... I take it you've met my mother?

Forgive me as I believe I am a product of external influences ... namely 30 or so years of being associated with a program (SLU) that has done a hell of a lot more negative in that time than positive. Over that time, I think maybe 3 years of Gray-Douglas-Bonner were good but resulted in no NCAA appearances, which take the luster off. Two years of Claggs-H-Hmark that were the best. One year of the Legend and one Miracle in Memphis. But without that miracle, I seem to recall that that year wasn't all that great either. To me, I count the Clagg years with the Hughes year and that add ups to three out of thirty ... a whopping 10%. Some time ago a thread discussed "mediocre." Is a 10% success rate mediocre?

If you read my post, as you did and copied it, I should have attached it to skip's post. I am only disagreeing with skip's assessment that playing Duke would enhance our recruiting. As I noted, we've played them twice that I can recall and it meant nothing. Besides, playing a Duke or a GaTech or a Zona means nothing when you get the three or so dogs on the schedule that we did this year.

I would welcome playing Duke but only caution that other than the one game, it means absolutley nothing if its a stand alone watermark. It means something if we play Duke, and Zona, and Kansas and Illinois (or a combination thereof with others) and augment those games with other nonconference games against Bradley, SIU-C, SMS, Mizzou, and others of local note ... not importing crap teams from North Carolina, Louisiana and I-don't-even-know-where-Savannah-Smiles-is- located state. You win those along with your conference and then you start getting the national rep and the national recruits OR you manage to keep the local pipeline open. Its ambitious .... there is no guarantee we would survive a schedule like that given who's on our roster today. But if you're going up, you've got to make the committment and I remember Biondi saying what, ten years ago, that he wanted to be Top 50. Seems to be taking a little too long for my liking.

We have one chance almost every year to go to the Dance. Most times, its win the C-WHO or whatever conference tourney. We still have that opportunity here, on March 7th. What's the problem with playing as Michigan State, Temple, Coppin State and others have done in the past? That being an overall rigorous, out-of-conference slate? So what if you lose it all .... I didn't see Tom Izzo panicking in December.

If you feel I'm negative, that's okay. I understand that and you're not the first. You won't be the last and I respect your opinion for what its worth. For the record, I say play Duke ... play 'em one-and-done, play 'em 2-for-1. Play em straight up. Play at a neutral site. But don't think that Duke is an end all ... because we've been there before and it hasn't improved us much in the grand scheme of things. Its a part of the equation ... but not the total equation.

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Tom Izzo has questioned whether or not it was a good idea playing such a difficult OOC schedule. He feels as thouh he did not do his players confidence well and although they look like locks for the Dance, he has stated that he would not schedule so difficult again.

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Being without Reggie for three games kinda limited our scheduling options. Even at the end of the season we had to scrap like heck to beat a bad Houston team so I seriously doubt we would have beaten a top 150 RPI team in the first month of the season. Scheduling Duke with all the turnover we'll have next year would be suicide.

The ideal schedule IMO would be to limit the cupcakes to two, play one heavyweight, two NCAA tournament teams and fill out the rest of the schedule with top 100 cailber teams. We would have a reasonable chance of going 8-3 every year in that non-conference scenario while still maintaining a good strength of schedule.

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>Good point. But instead of Duke, I'd ratchet it down a

>notch and arrange to play a Kansas, Texas or Florida on the

>road. A 30 point blowout at Cameron Indoor serves no

>purpose.

No but it won't kill us either (getting blown out by Duke help, not hurt, our RPI). You sign the deal to get the game in St. Louis the following year. Our teams should be get more skilled and athletic each season.

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>Coach K doesn't schedule up-and-coming programs on the road.

> If you don't play Duke on a neutral floor in a tournament

>somewhere or at Cameron, you'll never play them.

If it is not 2-1 (which we were discussing in the thread), then I'm less interested. I think "never" is incorrect. Stop and think about it. The scheduling of a game in St. Louis may be a price Coach K is paying for the recruitment of Livingston from Peoria. I can't come up with an instance off the top of my head but I'm certain Coach K has scheduled games in distance locations against less than top competition as a "thank you" to a top recruit.

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>Good point. But instead of Duke, I'd ratchet it down a

>notch and arrange to play a Kansas, Texas or Florida on the

>road. A 30 point blowout at Cameron Indoor serves no

>purpose.

If you recall, we went on the road last year and got slammed by Arizona. This year, we got the return game against Arizona and damn near pulled off a victory. The same thing could happen with Duke, don't you think?

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"If it is not 2-1 (which we were discussing in the thread), then I'm less interested. I think "never" is incorrect. Stop and think about it."

Look at the out-of-state freshmen and sophomores on Duke's roster. Ewing -Texas, Dockery - Illinois, Williams - Oklahoma, Deng - New Jersey. Any Duke road games over the last two years in those locations? Nope. K doesn't have to schedule payback games to get blue chip recruits. Duke is Duke, they're on TV more than Leave it to Beavaaah ... reruns.

But Duke was more than happy to play Valparaiso and Butler this season and last -- at home.

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All things are possible in life. If we can't start from this premise then there is no need for further discussion. Duke does in fact play road games. Thus, the potential exists that recruiting considerations have some bearing upon scheduling--either for current recruit (i.e., Livingston) or potential future recruit (i.e., Tyler Hansborough) or both.

We must be bored because my comment related to a 2-1 deal (assuming that was in play). Just going to Cameron Indoor to get pummeled is less appetizing.

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Duke will and does play home and home series. going back the last four season per Kenpom's rpi site

Duke has had Home and Home series with:

St. John's, Georgetown, Michigan, Portland, Boston College, Michigan, Ohio State, and Temple

they appear to have one neutral site game per year with a big team ie Texas, UCLA, Stanford

The only team I do not get about the above is Portland, but it was near near their game against Stanford which was a neutral site game. I suppose it allowed them to adjust to the time change....or perhaps it was for a player from Oregon

Thus with the above teams I have no doubt that a Home and Home with SLU is possible, or perhaps a home and Neutral (at the dome)(part of a double header)

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