2019-20 Schedule Thread

[Washingtonian]

Now that the off season is here, we can piece together next seasons schedule. I believe we are done with the home and home's with JMU, GA Southern, and W & M.

The Mountain West challenge is in the 2020-21 season.

We are in the Cayman Islands Classic based on this (as is South Florida, Loyola-Chicago, New Mexico State, Colorado State, Old Dominion, and Washington State. An 8th team will be announced later):
https://twitter.com/JonRothstein/status/1085624259286892544

The thread about that tournament is here: http://masonhoops.com/board/threads/2019-cayman-islands-classic.1732/

 

[Walter]

I was hoping we would continue to play JMU annually.

 

[JDK]

I was hoping we would continue to play JMU annually.

Perhaps we should aspire to Power Conference schools and a tougher schedule rather than the Harrisonburg Hicks.

 

[Five Two]

Perhaps we should aspire to Power Conference schools and a tougher schedule rather than the Harrisonburg Hicks.

Why can't we do both? There should always be room on the schedule for a home-and-home with ODU and JMU.

I don't think our model this year is all that bad to mirror next year:

Buy 5 games at home. Probably get a wide mix of RPI/NET teams

3 home-and-homes. Guessing the MWC falls into this group. DP has said he wants to keep old CAA regional rivalry games/regional games that are close to home so again, hoping we have one or both of JMU and ODU. Temple might be a good fit here too.

Cayman Classic looks to be a 3 game tourney, not the guaranteed 2 home games and 2 at the destination. It still only counts as 1 game against the schedule limit placed by the NCAA

Get paid- I do think we need to go on the road and get paid. The chances of bringing a power 5 school to Fairfax for a home-and-home is low. I'm not sure how we got Penn St to agree to it last year. Take the money and use it to help buy the 5 home games. Or, would we be open for a 2-for-1? Might a school like Maryland, who has documented financial issues, be willing to agree to a 2-for-1 with us instead of paying American or Navy to play in College Park?

 

[GMUgemini]

Why can't we do both? There should always be room on the schedule for a home-and-home with ODU and JMU.

I don't think our model this year is all that bad to mirror next year:

Buy 5 games at home. Probably get a wide mix of RPI/NET teams

3 home-and-homes. Guessing the MWC falls into this group. DP has said he wants to keep old CAA regional rivalry games/regional games that are close to home so again, hoping we have one or both of JMU and ODU. Temple might be a good fit here too.

Cayman Classic looks to be a 3 game tourney, not the guaranteed 2 home games and 2 at the destination. It still only counts as 1 game against the schedule limit placed by the NCAA

Get paid- I do think we need to go on the road and get paid. The chances of bringing a power 5 school to Fairfax for a home-and-home is low. I'm not sure how we got Penn St to agree to it last year. Take the money and use it to help buy the 5 home games. Or, would we be open for a 2-for-1? Might a school like Maryland, who has documented financial issues, be willing to agree to a 2-for-1 with us instead of paying American or Navy to play in College Park?

I don't have a problem continuing to play JMU. And, yeah, we should probably take a buy game from a P5 school. I think we got Penn State to come here, because they like to recruit the DMV and they aren't very high profile basketball program in the Big 10 (like an Ohio State or a Michigan State don't need to come play us to be visible to recruits). So maybe Paulsen and Co tries to find another school like that (from the SEC maybe -- we got Mississippi State to sign a home-and-home with us, and that was before the Final Four, literally two years before)?

We need to be thinking about playing fewer North Carolina Centrals and more Vermonts, too, and largely facing our P5 schools at neutral sites. That's what we started doing from 2006-2011 and it worked out pretty well.

 

[phoenix-arizona]

Come to the Pacific NW.

 

[GMUgemini]

Come to the Pacific NW.

Washington State? Oregon State?

I would drive to Tucson in a second to watch them play Arizona (which is southwest, but whatever), or make it really easy and play Arizona State. I might even fenagle a trip to LA or San Diego if we play any of the schools in that area. She’d to Vegas too (I don’t know about Reno).

 

[The Great PATSby]

I was hoping we would continue to play JMU annually.

I don’t think we will play them again until Louis Rowe is fired... so after next year. Rowe has some serious anomosity against Paulsen.

 

[The Great PATSby]

The way our season played out... I have a feeling they’re going to try to schedule a poor OOC schedule and try to get some confidence back in the boys. The problem is, they seem to play down to the level of competition.

 

[mkaufman1]

Host Syracuse Unc and duke

Kidding.

Definitely want to see jmu on the schedule again. That said no idea who they are lining up. I do think they’ll look to do a road buy game to get extra buy games at home.

 

[Walter]

I don't have a problem continuing to play JMU. And, yeah, we should probably take a buy game from a P5 school. I think we got Penn State to come here, because they like to recruit the DMV and they aren't very high profile basketball program in the Big 10 (like an Ohio State or a Michigan State don't need to come play us to be visible to recruits). So maybe Paulsen and Co tries to find another school like that (from the SEC maybe -- we got Mississippi State to sign a home-and-home with us, and that was before the Final Four, literally two years before)?

We need to be thinking about playing fewer North Carolina Centrals and more Vermonts, too, and largely facing our P5 schools at neutral sites. That's what we started doing from 2006-2011 and it worked out pretty well.

I saw a list of where Big 10 grads live and DC area was either #1 or #2 for Penn State.

I would think UVa and Tech would be willing to play us in Fairfax for the same reason.

 

[MasonFanatic]

I feel like we know less about our OOC than we've ever known.

I would expect to see the JMU series renewed and W&M replaced with ODU, but that's just a guess.

The idea of buying games with other good midmajors is a great one. Yes, we lost to both Penn and Vermont, but we should keep doing that.

There might be a non-bracketed home game in the Cayman Islands Classic against one of the other 7 teams.

 

[MasonFanatic]

I don’t think we will play them again until Louis Rowe is fired... so after next year. Rowe has some serious anomosity against Paulsen.

Rowe basically admitted he was in the wrong in the presser, so I'm not sure that's really a thing. We'll see.

I'm sure Mason really wants to get Justin a game in Harrisonburg as a senior homecoming.

 

[FreeGunston12]

Perhaps we should aspire to Power Conference schools and a tougher schedule rather than the Harrisonburg Hicks.

I would much prefer for our schedule to keep us close to home the next couple of years than go all across the country in search of P5 games to lose. Even better if we can stay in state and earn some bragging rights over the likes of Longwood, Radford, JMU, ODU, Hampton, Norfolk State, Liberty, W&M, VMI. Give our in-state students something to hold over their peers. Establish a pattern of winning at home (even if it means scheduling cupcakes). Maybe that will help with the fan culture and gameday atmosphere?

Bottom line: we desperately need to increase our win total. No one is going to care about our strength of schedule if we don’t win 23+ games.

 

[Washingtonian]

ODU is in the Cayman Islands classic, so it's possible we get matched up with them there. Davidson did play Charleston twice this season, once in a tournament and once in Charlotte.

We have played the ACC, SEC and Big 12 in buy games in recent years. I am guessing the Big 10 is next (Minnesota to give Mar a homecoming, maybe).

 

[masonjoe]

I'm sure Mason really wants to get Justin a game in Harrisonburg as a senior homecoming.

This will be the only highlight of next season...

 

[GSII]

I saw a list of where Big 10 grads live and DC area was either #1 or #2 for Penn State.

I would think UVa and Tech would be willing to play us in Fairfax for the same reason.

Why so Bennett can laugh at us and Reuter?

 

[GMUgemini]

Why so Bennett can laugh at us and Reuter?

Hey, UVA played us at home with the virus here...why not Tech?

 

[GSII]

Hey, UVA played us at home with the virus here...why not Tech?

Tech, yea, bc they didn't sell us any lemons ......yet.

 

[MasonFanatic]

32 Game Schedule

The most you get is 31 games, and that's only if the Cayman Islands tournament hooks us up with a non-bracketed game against one of the other 7 participating schools (ODU?).