Basketball Schedules

[JACKGUYII]

I'm amazed Amy Ruley is not taking more heat for the lackluster schedule she assembled. If my math is correct the Bison women have just 4 DI games and 2 of those are against the Jacks. The Jack women have 17 DI games and are playing against teams such as Rutgers,Alabama,Purdue,Oklahoma State and USC to name a few. Maybe it's a different philosophy or maybe Amy wants to pad her record one more year. I hope the rational isn't nobody will play us because of our reputation! The Bison men play 11 DI games and the Jack men 14 with both teams squaring off against their first DI opponent on Friday. Good luck against K State. Jacks take on Butler in their historic fieldhouse ( Movie (Hoosiers) championship game played there)..

[Bisonfan01234]

I think many schools were happy to schedule SDSU over NDSU because they don't want to lose.

[JACKGUYII]

Obviously you know less about basketball than football. The Jack women have gone to the elite 8 the past 3 years with a National Championship. I think there is more rational to make for DI teams to make for avoiding the Jacks rather than the Bison. With the men SDSU has clearly been more dominant than the Bison. I think the SDSU athletic administration as a whole decided they would be aggressive in scheduling the best competition out there. Bisonville01234 the question has been asked of you before when is the last Bison athletic contest you even attended?

[TheBisonator]

I cringe every time I look at the women's BB schedule and see Mayville State, Si Tanka-Huron, Minnesota-Crooston, Valley City State and Upper Iowa on there.

The only good thing I know that comes out of this is that this will be the VERY LAST year we ever have to play any of those schools in any sport.

[BisonBizzo]

JackGuyII, do you know what it takes to put a schedule together? I, myself do not, but have some ideas. I think it is unreasonable to make a judgement on their schedule this year. Sure it would be great to see more DI schools, but it is a transition year, the first year, and w/o a conference. I do know Maryland and Marshall were on the schedule and later cancelled. So it is impossible to make judgements on this years schedule after just comparing it to SDSUs'.

[BisonBizzo]

My thought would be to give it a couple years and then see how NDSU's schedule compares to SDSU

[JACKGUYII]

NDSU announced there intention to go DI well before SDSU and had more ample time to put together a quality schedule. Do I know what goes into putting together a schedule "NO" and I don't think it's relevent. All I need to do is compare the schedules and realize who was more sucessful than the other in scheduling games with quality opponents. How can one school with less time get 17 games against quality DI opponenets and the other get 4? That is quite a disparity and even though I think Ruley is one of the best coaches in womens basketball she clearly dropped the ball for this particular season!

[KTF]

I look at the scheduling issues as such. For example, after beating Montana Gene Taylor had a drop off in the top ranked teams interest in playing football games as they knew that NDSU was capable of beating them.

SDSU has a good to great bball program. However, SDSU has not beaten a highly ranked team (yet), I suspect it may happen as SDSU is always tough in bball.

Picture this scenario, SDSU beats Syracuse, Duke and another top 10-15 team within the month of January this year. How many top ranked (<#25) teams are going to want to play SDSU?

If your main sport is successful you are going to get noticed!! "Others" will think they have a great bball team, they are probably really good in football, baseball, etc...

Once SDSU is successful (beating top teams) I think SDSU will have a tough time scheduling highly ranked teams!

[Bisonfan01234]

Jack,

ask us in couple years when you're on the outside of the Big Sky looking in at NDSU.

[JACKGUYII]

I've heard the reason many area DI teams are hesitant to schedule games with SDSU and NDSU in Basketball is because they know about our crowd support and how difficult it is to beat us at home. The theory is once those schools see what it's like to play in Brookings and Fargo it will become increasingly difficult to get teams to schedule a home and home. The Jacks women's team will surprise some DI teams as they are loaded with talent. I believe this team if playing DII would win it all. The mens team on the other hand will struggle. We lost Andy Moeller to Mankato and Matt Jones will sit out another year and our two best freshman are being redshirted. I think this will be the most difficult season in the Coach Nagy era and I wouldn't be surprised if the Bison give us trouble this year.

[JACKGUYII]

Bisonville01234, that goes contrary to your earlier theories that Basketball is the key to getting into the BIG SKY?

[teamsioux]

Jackguy...what's the situation with Jones? Is it still to do with mono/whatever he had the last two years? how many years will he have left, I'm guessing one? What could of have been a phenomenal career has really had its ups and downs....hopefully everything gets figured out medically and he has a long healthy life outside of BB ahead of him!

[JACKGUYII]

He hasn't touched a basketball since the regional in Denver. He gave everything he had against the Sioux in Brookings and didn't have anything left after that. I dont think we would have won that game without him. There is a good article on him in a recent addition of the SDSU paper the "Collegian" in which he indicates he knew this summer he wouldn't be able to compete this year and may play baseball this spring. I don't know if they still know exactly what he has whether it's a chronic case of mono or lyme disease or what. Nagy calls him the best player he has ever coached. I personally have seen few players with the quick explosion off the floor. I doubt he will play in his final season of elgibility next year. Too bad smart kid with all kinds of potential. Early last year in Orlando I saw him dominate the eventual national championship team. WE are not the same team without him.

[BisonMav]

I'm amazed Amy Ruley is not taking more heat for the lackluster schedule she assembled. If my math is correct the Bison women have just 4 DI games and 2 of those are against the Jacks. The Jack women have 17 DI games and are playing against teams such as Rutgers,Alabama,Purdue,Oklahoma State and USC to name a few. Maybe it's a different philosophy or maybe Amy wants to pad her record one more year. I hope the rational isn't nobody will play us because of our reputation! The Bison men play 11 DI games and the Jack men 14 with both teams squaring off against their first DI opponent on Friday. Good luck against K State. Jacks take on Butler in their historic fieldhouse ( Movie (Hoosiers) championship game played there).. * *
Amy has won 5 National Championships, and is in the basketball Hall of Fame. I trust her judgement with the schedule. She has earned the right not to be second-guessed by any armchair Dickie Vitale.

[BisBison]

Right on BisonMav, Amy has earned the right to schedule this year any way she thinks is best for her team. Watch out next year JackguyII.

[scottheck]

I've wondered this for months about both the men's and women's programs compared to the Rabbits. Amy is well-respected at all levels of the game and shouldn't have a problem getting games. From what I've gathered in various conversations, I think a lot of the scheduling is done at the AD level and it's all about connections. However, Taylor came from a DI program and should have those connections.

It's a mystery to me? ???

[Siouxpreme]

Why should any of this be a mystery to you guys? ??? ???

I'm sure Amy demanded to play Si Tanka, Crookston and Mayville this whole season. Taylor chose to put all his extra DI dollars in the football pot. You guys added what, 19 or so schollies to football (and expensive ones at that considering there is no reciprocity with Mississippi or Illinois or Florida). To put it in terms you guys understand - he's feeding the cream to the football program and letting the runt basketball programs survive on powered milk, at least this year. Next year, he'll upgrade the b-ball programs to skim milk because he has to to be in compliance with DI scheduling. Face it, you guys don't have the financial capacity to do it all at once. If Taylor had given priority to b-ball, Teammakers would have lynched him. He had no choice.

BTW, congrats on the lowest rated indy D-I men's b-ball program by Sportsline. Some great publicity, for sure. ;D :o

Oien at SDSU is doing just the opposite. Basketball is getting the cream and the football program (four home games and one or two schollies increase?) is being fed watered down skim milk. He didn't have a choice either. The basketball fans would have run him out of town if they didn't have a decent schedule.

[roadwarrior]

According to an article in the Forum last spring, NDSU has 13 full rides in men's bb this season and 15 full rides in women's. * SDSU was reported to have 11 for the men and 12 for the women this season.

Is this the powdered milk you were referring to?

[JBB]

I digress:

Is that one idiots *post, you know racist mascot sucks, *actually less offensive than 1234? *It added nothing unless you like to watch the court jester act the fool.

How do you set up a poll?

Its one thing discussing this matter with an esteemed DI collegue from SDSU. Its another to read idiot speak from a hanger-on to North Dakotas only remaining DII school.

[Bison_Dan]

suepreme is that like what hockey is at und?

[Bisonguy]

JACKGUYII,

Give the schedules a little time. Amy rarely backed down from a challenge in previous years, so I'm guessing there's some sort of reasoning behind it. It seems like NDSU's scheduling is all or nothing this year as far as DI. Football was as much DI as possible (all but two games), women's soccer was all DI, and VB had the vast majority of the schedule DI (enough to be an RPI counter) even though the team was very young. Different scheduling philosophies for different coaches.

Maybe the guarantees weren't good enough this year without being an RPI counter, so Amy wanted to wait until next year.

If next year's schedule looks anything close to this year's, then there will be reason for concern.....

[JBB]

We were talking about that at coffee this morning Bisonguy and came to a similar conclusion. We also thought that maybe the BISON coaches werent willing to be as ambitious as SDSU because we werent as good. Better to keep the schedule small and grow with our players than greatly overschedule our existing teams. At any rate IM really looking forward to tonights game. Win or lose its a big step for us.

[D]

You can look at it from 2 points of view. Either schedule a lot of good teams and get obliterated, or schedule an easier schedule with a fairer share of non-D1 opponents and pick up some wins. Pick your poison, their will be pros-cons to each side, and people nit-picking about either decision. That being said, I think the NDSU men scheduled a lot smarter then the SDSU men did. As Mcfeeley said today, the jump from D2 to D1AA is one thing, but the jump from D2 basketball to D1 (the top 175 teams at least) is a whole 'nother bird. Those teams will obliterate NDSU and SDSU this year, which were going to be down years for each program even if they were still in the NCC. What is better then, get some wins against the non-D1 schools or schedule half your games against D1 programs and get beat by an average of 30 per outing. I can guarantee that recruits will look at NDSU's 14-14 and see it as a better season then SDSU's 10-18 record against better competition. IMO, relative success early is better for the transition then jumping into it head over heals. We'll see though.

[tony]

Next year's schedule will only have (at most) three non-DI teams on it.

Edit: When I say "will have", I mean the rules say that NDSU must have no more than three non-DI games.

[WYOBISONMAN]

There is a lot of validity to what D has to say. I think our schedule is fine for BB this year. We all knew that year one would be a good bit painful in BB, and that is fine. The jump to D1 BB is indeed a tougher jump that the one to D1-AA FB. With in a few years NDSU will have a program that will compete well in the Big Sky Conference.

[JACKGUYII]

The best part of SDSU's approach to getting out and taking our lumps this year on the road with DI competition is many of those teams will be returning to Frost next year. We both have to play predominately DI competition next year and with NDSU's approach you will have few DI home games again next year. Next year should be a lot of fun in Brookings with all of the home games in football and a basketball schedule that will provide some home DI games. I agree that both of the Mens teams are down this year and most likely would not have been a factor in the NCC. The women however on both sides are very talented and should win a lot of games.