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Duke being ripped for non-conference schedule
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Seahawk Nation 08 Offline
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Post: #1
Duke being ripped for non-conference schedule
Thought this would be of interest to Tribe fans since, of course, Duke hosts W&M on Nov 23 (they also play Elon in Greensboro on Dec 21). It also speaks to a wider problem regarding D-I College Basketball scheduling as a whole.


http://collegebasketball.nbcsports.com/2...the-sport/

Duke’s unimpressive non-conference schedule bad for the sport


By Rob Dauster
Jul 13, 2016, 10:35 AM EDT

Duke released their non-conference schedule on Wednesday, and while the highlights of the schedule will be the highlights of the non-conference season, there really isn’t all that much to sink your teeth into.

The Blue Devils will square off with Kansas in the Champions Classic at Madison Square Garden in what will likely be the most anticipated non-conference game in 2016. Duke will be the consensus preseason No. 1 team in the country while Kansas will likely be in the top five; we have them No. 3.

Duke also squares off with Michigan State, another preseason top ten team, in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.

But after that?

They play seven games against mid-major or low-major competition with absolutely zero chance of beating the Blue Devils; the spread in all those games will be over 20 points. Their date with Florida in the Jimmy V Classic is better on paper than it will be in person, and their trip to Vegas to play UNLV looked a lot more difficult before the UNLV program imploded.

And then there is the Hall of Fame Tip-Off tournament at Mohegan Sun Arena, where Duke gets Penn State (meh) in the opener before facing off with either Cincinnati or Rhode Island, both of whom are borderline top 25 teams. That game should be competitive, especially if Duke plays URI and the URI faithful make the hour drive to see the Rams play Duke, but it’s a sad state of affairs when the third or fourth best game that Duke will play in the first six weeks of the season is one that we hope will be competitive.

That’s how it works with college basketball early in the season, and it’s one of the biggest reasons that the sport continues to lose relevance. Less than a third of Duke’s schedule in the first two months of the season is worth watching for diehard college basketball fans, and only two of those games will convince anyone with something better to do than sit on their couch and watch sports to make the effort to see them play. More than half of their schedule comes against completely overmatched opponents.

And this is the norm.

Sure, Kentucky and Kansas and North Carolina may have had some better luck with their marquee games this season than Duke did, but that doesn’t affect the overall trend in college basketball: Too many of the games that get played are blowouts that aren’t worth watching.

You can’t blame Duke for Florida and UNLV being down. And it’s not their fault that the Hall of Fame Tip-Off committee couldn’t land another elite program for that event.

But it is their fault that they play seven games against relative no-names before Christmas, and who is going to tune in to see Duke put a 40 point mollywhopping on Maine or Grand Canyon when we can watch our fantasy football dreams whither away and die along with the rest of America?

(UPDATE: People seem to be taking this as a shot at Duke, and it’s not meant to be, so I’m going to elaborate a bit more on this.

This is not always the case, but generally speaking, the industry standard for high-major programs is to play at least seven of their 13 non-conference games at home. This generates revenue, whether it be making season ticket packages more appealing and easier to sell or profiting off of the food, apparel and parking that sports fans always seem to be spending their money on. Some programs require more than seven games.

This becomes a problem when you look at how Duke scheduled: They play two neutral site games in New York and two in Connecticut. Their trip to Vegas is, technically, a neutral site game, as is their game against Elon in Greensboro. If you bust out your calculator, that means that Duke has six neutral site games on their schedule — not unusual for the Blue Devils — which means that they cannot schedule a home-and-home for this season if the athletic department wants them to play seven non-conference games at Cameron Indoor Stadium. And that’s before you consider that the games against Grand Canyon and Marist are given to the Blue Devils by the organizers of the Hall of Fame Tip-Off, which is typical for the early season tournaments.

Now imagine that this is happening at all of the visible, high-major programs around the country. No one is going to volunteer to play a road game with getting a home game in return, and with the way that these schedules shake out, it’s impossible for a lot of these programs to actually play true road games.

So what happens is that the low- and mid-major programs willingly accept a big check and a chance to play on national television in exchange for, in all likelihood, taking a whipping on the road.

And so what we’re left with is this situation, which no one can argue is good for the sport of college basketball even if, individually, it is in the best interest of the individual programs.)

If we really want people to pay attention to college basketball outside of the month of March, they need to be provided with something worth paying attention to. That’s true of just two of the 13 games that Duke, the biggest brand and the preseason No. 1 team in the country, announced today.

Anyway, here is Duke’s full schedule:

Nov. 11: Grand Canyon

Nov. 12: TBA

Nov. 15: vs. Kansas (MSG, Champions Classic)

Nov. 19: vs. Penn State (Mohegan Sun Arena, Basketball Hall of Fame Tip-Off)
Nov. 20: vs. Cincinnati/Rhode Island (Mohegan Sun Arena, Basketball Hall of Fame Tip-Off)

Nov. 23: William & Mary

Nov. 26: Appalachian State

Nov. 29: Michigan State (ACC/Big Ten Challenge)

Dec. 3: Maine

Dec. 6: vs. Florida (MSG for Jimmy V Classic)

Dec. 10: vs. UNLV (Las Vegas)

Dec. 19: Tennessee State

Dec. 21: vs. Elon (Greensboro, N.C.)

*(NOTE: Duke’s release initially included Marist as their Nov. 12th opponent, but they subsequently announced that game had not yet been confirmed.)
(This post was last modified: 07-13-2016 02:37 PM by Seahawk Nation 08.)
07-13-2016 02:33 PM
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BigTribe2 Offline
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Post: #2
RE: Duke being ripped for non-conference schedule
Seems like an odd date for a college game...11/23 is the day before Thanksgiving.
07-13-2016 03:37 PM
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nogretheogre Offline
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Post: #3
RE: Duke being ripped for non-conference schedule
Lucky we get them with only 2 days rest after 2 back-to-back tournament games.
07-13-2016 03:37 PM
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hktribefan Offline
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Post: #4
RE: Duke being ripped for non-conference schedule
(07-13-2016 03:37 PM)BigTribe2 Wrote:  Seems like an odd date for a college game...11/23 is the day before Thanksgiving.

It's a perfect date. The year we beat Wake and Maryland the games were on Saturday after Thanksgiving and day before New Years Eve. Get teams while they're worried about other things. Will be a tough game, and we probably lose it nine times out of ten, but playing on dates like that gives the best chance.
07-13-2016 04:36 PM
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Tribeheart Offline
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Post: #5
RE: Duke being ripped for non-conference schedule
Have to, also, assume most of the Cameron Crazies will be gone home for the holiday. Duke has the #1 SF, PF and C in their freshman class, along with a PG who is top 30. Amile Jefferson back with a med redshirt waiver, and Grayson Allen....Tough matchup.
07-13-2016 04:45 PM
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tribe_pride Online
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Post: #6
RE: Duke being ripped for non-conference schedule
That is actually not a horrible schedule:
Grand Canyon - Won the regular season WAC last year RPI 91
Kansas - Obviously a great team RPI 1 last year
Penn State - .500 team last year RPI 125
Cincinnati - 3rd in AAC last year RPI 48
W&M - RPI 67
App. State - Bad team RPI 259
Michigan State - Great team RPI 12
Maine - Horrible RPI 317
Florida - RPI 55 - decent
UNLV - RPI 147
Tennessee State - RPI 152
Elon - RPI 160

While you can argue that they are not playing away games (bunch of neutral site games) their schedule is not horrible. 6 of 12 games in top 100 from last years RPI with only 2 games greater than 160 plus an ACC schedule. They will wind up with as many top 25 games as any other team between their OOC and ACC schedules.
07-13-2016 06:18 PM
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TDenverFan Online
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Post: #7
RE: Duke being ripped for non-conference schedule
RPI wise it's fine but if you're a Duke fan the home slate is probably pretty disappointing. Aside from MSU, we'd be the "best" home game (In terms of RPI), and not many Duke fans are really gonna care about that game.
07-13-2016 06:39 PM
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