MBB announces home&home with Cincinnati

Submitted by Wolverine Devotee on

Cincinnati & Michigan will play a home & home series starting 12/17/16 in Cincinnati, sources told @CBSSports. Return game in AA in 2017.

— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) January 14, 2016

jman077

January 14th, 2016 at 6:43 PM ^

Me too, but things do look up considerably after 2016 and 2017. Arkansas, Washington, VA Tech, UCLA, Oklahoma, and Texas all come up between now and 2026. There's a P-5 game either home or away on the schedule every year, and in almost every year there's room to add a second one. We're also scheduling a more diverse set of mid-majors. I think it'd be fair to say that things are trending in the right direction.

drzoidburg

January 16th, 2016 at 9:59 PM ^

I highly doubt they add a 2nd one on top of the 9 game conference, unless it's like a neutral site with notre dame. More likely they get rid of some of those you mention to "make room" for notre dame

But yeah it's better. Haven't had a marquee home and home since oregon a decade ago

rlcBlue

January 14th, 2016 at 10:56 PM ^

Cans of corn (and cans of other vegetables) were stored on the top shelf in the dry goods store. When you wanted one, the clerk wouldn't bother to get a ladder; instead he would stand below the shelf, tip the can off the shelf with a broom handle, and catch it. So when an outfielder is standing still waiting for a fly ball to drop into his glove, it's a can of corn.

 

Tomato can is from boxing. People use empty tomato cans for target practice; hit the can one time and it falls over. A boxer who falls over after being hit once is a tomato can. The slang term for an unchallenging opponent then got extended into other sports.

funkywolve

January 14th, 2016 at 6:40 PM ^

is going to schedule some tomato cans.  The question is what level of tomato can?  UM pretty much went to the bottom of the can with some of the teams this year.  Ideally, you want the weakest teams on the non-conference slate to be around 200 rpi/kenpom.  These should still be relatively easy W's while at the same time not killing your SOS, particularly the non-conference SOS.

Maize in Cincy

January 14th, 2016 at 4:43 PM ^

This is very odd because Cincinnati will not be playing in their arena next season as it is getting renovated. I guess UC is trying to get some big home games to keep their season ticket holder base as they will most likely be playing downtown or there are even rumors about playing at Xavier but that's unlikely.

LSAClassOf2000

January 14th, 2016 at 4:41 PM ^

It seems like the non-conference schedule this year was very front-heavy too this time around, so having a game like this in December should hopefully work towards balancing that out a little bit. Like some have said, these are really the sorts of games we should be scheduling anyway, or at least as much as possible. 

allintime23

January 14th, 2016 at 4:58 PM ^

Hate this. Nobody cares if you beat Cincinnati. Everyone cares if you lose to Cincinnati. You're better off playing a perennial top fifteen team that a team that hovers toward the bottom of the poll to unranked every year.

ST3

January 14th, 2016 at 5:54 PM ^

we're talking about basketball, right?

I think this is cool because Ohio State always gets a hard time for not playing home-and-homes with Cincy and other Ohio schools.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnati_Bearcats_men%27s_basketball

With over 1700 wins, the Bearcats are one of the 20 most winningest basketball programs of all-time. The school's merits include two national titles, six Final Fours, and 29 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament appearances. Cincinnati has appeared in the last five NCAA Tournaments, and 19 of the last 24, with an all-time tournament record of 44–28. 30 All-Americans have played for the Bearcats.

NittanyFan

January 14th, 2016 at 8:06 PM ^

I'm not sure what you expect?

No offense, but that's not unequivalent to a Bearcats fan saying Michigan is a "non-credible" OOC foe for Cincinnati.  After all, UC has been in the NCAA 5-straight years, and now they're playing someone OOC who didn't even make the NIT last year? 

Moonlight Graham

January 14th, 2016 at 5:48 PM ^

season about who we should play in non conference. UC qualifies. I like their idea that UM should ALWAYS play Oakland and U of Detroit instead of wtf opponents like Bryant, Delaware State, Northern Kentucky and Houston Baptist(?!??!). They played EMU last year (sorry) but no MAC teams this season; should go back to that as well: at least one of the Michigan directionals or Toledo. And I also didn't mind somebody more regional like Bradley, or a Valparaiso. 

It just seems like some of those bottom-feeder opponents were chosen at random from a barrel full of scraps of paper with 300 "D1 schools that play basketball." 

jman077

January 14th, 2016 at 6:47 PM ^

Ooh. Should be right after finals week and only a four hour drive. Maybe it'll even be an afternoon game so I can do the whole thing in one day. Sounds fun.