2026-2027 Season Schedule Thread

[thebiasedannouncer]

Good- games vs USF and High Point. Home and home improvement, two top 100 (hopefully) opportunities. 2nd game of 3 vs ODU (even though they suck), so we have an old rival. An exhibition game against Villanova is cool. Maybe if we win, then @2011WinOverVillanova will change his username to 2026WinOverVillanova , lol.

Meh- our MTE sucks as usual, I can’t believe UMKC is in it, but I suspect we had to take that to get the chance to play Bradley. Also, the neutral game against Towson is meh, but some behind scene stuff caused it to happen.

Bad- too many buy games, a d3 home game, and the buy games are of poor quality. Woof.

Like @Patriotsince81 said, the staff is most likely doing the best they can and calling all the programs they can think of to setup games and work with the logistics they have available. At least our home and homes got better, but we still are suffering in the neutral game / MTE opportunity department. Until we make the big dance, I suspect our opportunities will continue to not happen.

Overall grade C.

Allegedly we had a better MTE set up that collapsed which was better, and we took one with the best game we could get (in this case Bradley).

 

[thebiasedannouncer]

General thoughts:

I actually think about half of this schedule is totally acceptable in a bubble. Bradley isn't elite, but they've been a solid program the last near decade and should be a decent neutral game.

High Point and USF are very nice starts to home and homes. High Point away will be a serious challenge and do not sleep on the Bulls, even with Bryan Hodgson now at PC.

Towson on a neutral site, in which we get paid for participating in said neutral site game, is better than having Towson come here and should be a Q3 game.

ODU and Longwood at home are perfectly reasonable in state teams and obviously ODU has a draw among some of the fanbase still (they could also maybe finally turn a corner this year).

UMBC is not great, but was a tournament team and is certainly near 'best you can get' categories for an opening night game.

Marist will end up as a Q4 game almost certainly, but if they played in the CAA instead of the MAAC, their last two teams would have been right on the edge of being Q3 games. Known defensively stingy group, so at least there's a style aspect to playing them too.

Three MEAC teams in Morgan St., NC Central and Coppin plus Bryant is really what grinds my gears. For us, you really should have no more than two 'need to blow out this team for it to boost the metrics' games on your schedule. All four of these (bar a surprising turnaround by Bryant) will be in that category. And the Non-D1 game against McDaniel will literally do nothing for metrics, but it will likely mean a healthy dose of some freshmen and maybe some Preston-Mendy to rest the guys before conference play.

If you throw in a William and Mary and say Merrimack in there instead of Bryant and one of the MEAC teams, that's still not a great schedule that can secure you a tourney bid, but it would be much closer to a B than a C- like the real one actually is.

Such is life. I'll be there for a couple. Almost certainly the Monday night opener against UMBC. Wish High Point was on a weekend because I'd go down for that too.

 

[NewPatriot]

neutral game against Towson is meh

Towson is a very underrated opponent. They play alot of 6'8 230-240 pound widebodies and beat the crap out of you...they beat Liberty in an MTE last year...something Mason could not accomplish at home

They manage to pull 2 or 3 P4 transfers and Alex Atkinson(Mason's first transfer target this year).

I would not automatically put this one in the win column.

 

[mkaufman1]

Towson is a very underrated opponent. They play alot of 6'8 230-240 pound widebodies and beat the crap out of you...they beat Liberty in an MTE last year...something Mason could not accomplish at home

They manage to pull 2 or 3 P4 transfers and Alex Atkinson(Mason's first transfer target this year).

I would not automatically put this one in the win column.

Considering we have won like 90% of our games all time vs Towson or something absurd - we should be able to handle this. If we cant beat a mid pack CAA program on a neutral floor I have some serious questions where we are as a program.

Allegedly we had a better MTE set up that collapsed which was better, and we took one with the best game we could get (in this case Bradley).

Correct - we had the Paradise Jam but then teams bailed or something.

 

[jkh1978]

I believe that High Point is going to be an up and coming team that people will recognize as being one of those teams... but that realization will come too late and we'll get burned if we lose that game.
Catch-22... fans won't come out to this schedule. Can't get better MTE without more fans. Can't get better competition if there's too much risk we'll beat the competition...

But twenty plus wins is still something

 

[Ben Chwarmer]

Six teams that finished top-three in their league, including three conference champions, along with three NCAA Tournament teams and one NIT team from last season.

Idk why we are hating so much.

 

[mshin5]

Considering we have won like 90% of our games all time vs Towson or something absurd - we should be able to handle this. If we cant beat a mid pack CAA program on a neutral floor I have some serious questions where we are as a program.


Correct - we had the Paradise Jam but then teams bailed or something.

Paradise Jam would’ve been nice. Have some decent teams this year.

 

[gmujim92]

I believe that High Point is going to be an up and coming team that people will recognize as being one of those teams... but that realization will come too late and we'll get burned if we lose that game.
Catch-22... fans won't come out to this schedule. Can't get better MTE without more fans. Can't get better competition if there's too much risk we'll beat the competition...

But twenty plus wins is still something

High Point won 31 games last season, beat Wisconsin in R64 and pushed Arkansas to the brink with a shot at the Sweet 16. They replaced 11 players from that team so like us have lots of turnover, but they will almost certainly be favored to beat us on their home floor. That game can’t hurt us unless they just absolutely run us out of the gym.

 

[tblack33]

Solid D schedule. I’ve said it a million times already so I won’t belabor it but just very uninspired, particularly with a price increase this year.

Something needs to change to get us over the scheduling hump, other teams in our league who regularly finish worse than us are scheduling better.

Agree with whoever said it earlier, we won’t have any idea what this time actually is until February.

 

[2011WinOverVillanova]

@mkaufman1 - You inspired it so Mason’s next NCAA tournament win will be my next user name change even if it is a mouthful. But for now… Our win over Villanova in 2011 is our most recent trip to the mountaintop so it stays.

 

[mkaufman1]

Paradise Jam would’ve been nice. Have some decent teams this year.

I honestly don’t know what happened there. Eventually someone will tell me the exacts

 

[Stoolguy]

The staff has done everything they can do to attract some big name teams. There were some bigger names that were somewhat in the works but they fell through. The struggle, as some of you have pointed out is that better teams don’t want to possibly lose.

For the USF game, look forward to some cool things coming from athletics. If you’re not a season ticket holder, get your tickets for that game asap!!

An off topic note: one of my good friends plays for NCCU, it’ll be a fun watch. They also play @ vcu.

 

[Where's the party?]

When students are out, how are they going to get anyone from the area to go visit a D3 game when there's other things going on at the holidays? EBA is going to sound like a library.

Redskins play that day (assume a 4:40 game). Doubt I'll be going to see a D3 team. Rather do a longer Redskins tailgate.

 

[PDGL Hoops]

Lack luster and if we lose more than 1-2 we are hoping to get back to the NIT.

 

[EXpatriot13]

Lack luster and if we lose more than 1-2 we are hoping to get back to the NIT.

It's pretty much A10 tournament or bust for us.

 

[Verdad]

Overall meh OOC schedule like this certainly reduces our overall likelihood of having an at large resume in the end, but keep in mind that the OOC is only one piece of the pie, and with the OOC and the conference schedule, there are two pieces of the pie. Better one is, more the other can lag.

1 or 2 losses, with no losses to anyone other than HP or USF and we put ourselves into position to perform well enough in conference to get onto the bubble. Better our conference opponents are, the better the opportunity we have.

Margin of error is basically zero. No bad losses, some Q1 wins, and make it to semi's and...

 

[KAOriginal]

Hmmmm

1) OOC is an extended practice session for in conference. With pretty much a whole new roster, makes sense to play it that way and hope for the best.

2) No P5s...age old.problem as mentioned before...not good enough anymore to warrant interest from bigger schools.

3) Tony's 4th 20 season on the horizon...smells like he's playing for extension but more than likely the next job....

Yay us!

 

[CarlD]

Bewildered to see McDaniel on the schedule. I'm only aware of them because they play in the same D3 conference as my undergrad school. That game will either be a boring blowout, or a huge embarrassment.

 

[gmujim92]

Hmmmm

1) OOC is an extended practice session for in conference. With pretty much a whole new roster, makes sense to play it that way and hope for the best.

2) No P5s...age old.problem as mentioned before...not good enough anymore to warrant interest from bigger schools.

3) Tony's 4th 20 season on the horizon...smells like he's playing for extension but more than likely the next job....

Yay us!

He’s already got an extension and needs an NCAA bid to land a significantly better job than Mason. This is not an at-large OOC schedule unless we go undefeated and then wreck shop in the A-10 — probably need 28 wins minimum before the conference tournament to have a competitive profile.

I do think there’s a certain logic in not over scheduling when you have to replace almost your entire roster every year, but no P4 games is a red flag — if we are on the bubble come March, it will look like we ducked the toughest competition and that becomes another reason to keep us out.

 

[Jack Strop]

Back in Georgetown's hey-day, I remember their out of conference schedule being ridiculous. They did nothing but pound on these little Catholic schools during OOC and then run as a top-three in the Big East. John Thompson, Jr. would say he didn't want to schedule difficult games because "it puts too much pressure on my kids." But then again, that was John Thompson, Jr.