(04-05-2017 02:24 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  My issue is if SU is going to have that mindset, I strongly wish the rest of the conference would go along (or continue to go along in many cases). SU has extremely limited flexibility in basketball because we have 4 legitimate OOC rivalries in basketball and at least 3 of them are against big name schools (St. John's, UConn, Villanova, and Georgetown). Scheduling 20 ACC games + multiple OOC rivals + anybody else interesting OOC is an issue - especially when the tourney committee doesn't accurately take circumstances of a win/loss into account.

IMHO, if the conference is going to 20 BB games and we're biting the bullet on Friday night games, I'd like to get love w/ conference tournaments - especially in basketball and lacrosse. Now I'll be the first to admit that the ACCT in NYC was designed to benefit SU the most, so don't take this post as a complaint. It's more a statement of my beliefs/opinions/perspective.

The 20 games is definitely a headache for OOC scheduling. As you point out, we have four rivals we'd like to get in as often as possible, in addition to commitments to the ACC-Big Ten Challenge and an annual multi team event that includes 1-3 games against national opponents.

Playing in the Brooklyn event this year and the Miami event next year commited us to only one strong OOC opponent as part of those events (South Carolina this past year, and Kansas next year), which provided some additional flexibility to play former Big East foes as compared to playing in Maui or the Bahamas. But at some point, we're likely to play in events with 2 or 3 strong opponents, and in those years we may only have room for one or two former Big East foes.

In general, though, I like the 20 game conference schedule because it will mean more visits from Duke, Louisville and UNC. The schedule rotation resulted in only one of those schools coming in during 2015-16 and will result in the same in 2017-18. With a 20 game schedule, every school will visit every other school twice over every three year period.

At some point, we need to focus more on our rivalries with ACC members, and less on former Big East rivals. These will be fostered by playing more frequently.