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TSU88

2019 OOC opponents

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Personally, I don’t think the OOC slate is bad; Florida, Vermont, Kent State, Cornell, UMBC, GW, the tournament in Charleston & the one in DC. I have no problem with us playing Morgan State & while I would prefer not to play a D3, I seem to recall that last year just about every other team in the CAA (if not every other team) played a D3. Heck, hasn’t MD played Bowie & Catholic U recently?

 I do agree that, compared to other CAA teams, our home OOC schedule is lackluster. I don’t know what the remedy for that is

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The remedy is....well, it's pretty tough.  Why can Elon and UNCW get Ol' Roy into their building?  Probably because someone in both programs has a special connection to Roy and he'll do them a favor and bring his Heels in to stomp them.  Does Pat have any of those type of connections?  No idea.  Scheduling at our level is not easy at all because it takes two to make a matchup and I've gotta think that they reach out to a number of A-10/MAC/Big East etc. teams to bring in but the vast majority of those teams are, frankly, too scared to take a road game against a school like us.  Why won't Maryland come play us at SECU even if it was a 2 or 3 for 1?  Same goes for a Georgetown or a Virginia/VA Tech or a West Virginia.  It's because those coaches look at it as a no-win proposition.  They don't feel like they need to come into the Baltimore market with their team to mine recruiting and playing against someone like us does nothing for their power rating especially if they should happen to <gasp> lose to us.  As a result, we have to scrounge around and get what we can.  Personally, I think it's right that we play the Baltimore teams just like I think it's right that all the Philly teams play against each other (even more so if Drexel gets left out).  We can't help it that those teams might be down or that people in Baltimore aren't basketball fans enough to pay attention to the locals.  I also give Pat and Tim credit for getting us into these various tournaments these last couple of years.  Fort Myers was perfect for us, Bahamas was the right class but we weren't ready for it, and Charleston is definitely a step up but it'll be a great barometer to show us what we need to do for the conference season.  As for the Goucher game, I don't like it from the standpoint that it's a D3 game that's essentially an exhibition.  But having it as the 2nd game of the season and a tune-up before Florida and the Charleston Tournament will get everyone a good amount of reps because depth is going to be necessary in 3 games in 3 days against 3 likely difficult opponents.

I'm just curious to hear others' opinions on who they think we should be bringing in and if they understand how scheduling these games works.  

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I agree that the home schedule is not very exciting but the overall OOC is solid. I'm not paying for the games so I'm not going to defend playing locals and D3 teams, but what is wrong with getting new teams like Kent State and GW? ACC teams are not showing up at SECU. No Big 10 teams are. Temple is not showing up again at SECU. Now would I like to get maybe ODU and VCU back in a home-and-home? Sure. We played ODU already (not a success). You also have to remember you are building a home schedule to play teams you can beat in front of the students before they leave on break. Getting Kent State and GW makes more sense than say an elite A-10 team and a top C-USA team.

Now looking back, maybe Skerry could have gotten a Providence or a Pitt because he coached there? Inglesby did get Notre Dame to play though Mike Brey having coached at Delaware helped. So it's really as Chris said about connections with the high-major program you want to host and you basically have to play a 2-for-1 or 3-for-1. Back in the day, we never hosted any big teams at the Towson Center aside from Louisville (because we lucked out and they needed a team) and Michigan (Brian Ellerbe was the coach, former Loyola coach). The Towson Center absolutely rocked for those games unlike any other matchup other than the ECC championship in 1990 and 1991. SECU has never quite rocked like that and to me, there is not atmosphere because people are wandering around the concourse when there is a big crowd. But I digress.

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As mentioned above scheduling at our level is certainly not easy.  I do not expect an “Power 5” school to come to the SECU every year because it is just not going to happen. But once every two or three years there must be some kind of team that gets people on campus and around the area excited to see at Towson.  
This is what the 7th season (damn time flies) of the arena and who was the biggest name team to come?  Temple?  You can’t tell me that we cannot get Temple type of schools to come in every other year or so.  They are going to hang their hat on Kent State and George Washington as headliners but that is not going to move the meter.  Like Chris said earlier you must play the local teams.  It helps to keep cost down as you do not have to worry about travel and hotel stays, but those savings could be used to help draw other teams to play us.  Villanova is not walking through that door, but a Providence can.  I mentioned no Power 5 schools but when we think like that, we think Michigan or Ohio State, but Rutgers can certainly walk through our doors. (Haven’t we scrimmaged them in the past?), we have a relationship with Penn State through lacrosse we should be able to get them to walk through those SECU doors.  
We talk about getting recruits that stay here and are productive all four years.  It helps in recruiting when you can say “this place will be jumping when you are on the court in front of a packed house when we play Temple, Penn State, Rutgers, Providence, fill in any other type of level school, in this building.”  Instead of hey Vermont and Kent State are coming in.”
I think part of the lack of name teams coining on our end is the fear that there will be more of the visiting fans than our fans.  That maybe true, but I was at both the Louisville game and the Michigan game and I can tell you Towson Center was rocking the then “Fight On Towson Tigers!”
I understand the athletic department does not want teams coming in to town and blowing us out, but you have to get people talking and scheduling the right teams helps that cause.
 

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Blazer definitely brings up some good points -- don't have to shoot for the stars, can still get the lower-end of the power 5 conferences -- Rutgers, Vandy, Wake, etc.  Those schools could definitely stand to market themselves to the Baltimore recruiting market.  

But an athletic department that doesn't want to schedule teams that might/will likely blow us out is an athletic department with a loser mentality.  We're not gonna try to schedule Carolina, a team that will guarantee a sellout and a nice financial kick in the ass, because there's gonna be more blue in the stands and we might lose by 25?  That's a bad precedent to set.  I would hope that no one anywhere would think like that...but nothing would surprise me about ours.  

One last issue about scheduling the biggest of the big teams -- they won't play on campus.  The last time we played a 'home' game against Maryland, we had to play it at the Arena in '95 and we got hosed.  We can call up Duke or Kansas or someone of that caliber and they'll be like, 'sure we'll play you but let's go downtown or to DC.  Duke's done that to Temple for years -- we won't play in your 10,000-seat on campus arena but we'll gladly go down Broad Street to Wells Fargo.  That's the arrogance of those schools and unfortunately, the little guys give in because the payday is that much bigger.

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On 7/4/2019 at 2:04 PM, Chris Datres said:

No surprise you'd have that reaction.

Right back at you.

On 7/5/2019 at 1:27 PM, Chris Datres said:

What's your solution then?

Well it starts with the AD. The philosophy for home games just isn't good.  I can understand the crappy dates (during breaks) like we normally have if they are against good teams, but not against the bad ones.  it is nice that they do have early games and dont start on the road.  We aren't getting UNC, Duke, etc thats obvious but we should be able to get 2 for 1's with the Penn State's, Rutgers, Temples, Georgetown, Marylands, VCU. Other teams in the CAA get those. Some of those teams are better than us, some are worse, but they get them. One weekend game and its against Goucher?  Weekend vs weekday games are night and day in regards to attendance.

Most of The A-10, MAAC, Am. East, NEC are very close to campus. I do like the DC games even though Tulane was even worse than us last year!

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Just about every power conference team is going to try to play the bulk of their non-conference games at home so it makes it difficult to get them to SECU no matter what level they are in their conference. I do agree that once every 3 or 4 years we should be able to get one of them to come to SECU in a 2-for-1 if we try hard enough, and don't mind stacking a bunch of road games in a future schedule.

I do like that we are involved in the Battle for the Capital event. Those teams are a good level for us and have the possibility to be high-level mid-major squads, and it is bus ride back. I also liked the Atlantic City Tournament last year. Taking advantage of close neutral-site games gives any local fans a chance to travel nearby, isn't too much of a financial outlay, the tournaments often draw at least a decent level of competition. I hate the D-3 games (as does everyone), but I think the coaching staff has done a decent job the last couple of years of finding some good neutral-site tournament opportunities. 

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On 7/11/2019 at 1:48 PM, mat1992 said:

 

Good job on their part splitting the brackets up. Would be nice to win atleast  one there again but unlike 4 years ago this field is solid to very good. We are the weakest in it

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