Michigan Basketball non-conference schedule released
Per @UMichBBall
Date | Opponent |
11/3 | vs Grand Valley State (ex) |
11/11 | vs North Florida |
11/13 | vs Central Michigan |
11/16 | Southern Mississippi |
Maui Invitational (Lahaina, HI) | |
11/20 | TBA |
11/21 | TBD |
11/22 | TBD |
11/26 | vs UC Riverside |
B1G/ACC Challenge | |
11/29 | at North Carolina |
12/9 | vs UCLA |
12/12 | at Texas |
12/16 | at Detroit (Pizzarena) |
12/21 | vs Alabama A&M |
12/30 | vs Jacksonville |
Keep in mind, B1G play will start in early December so expect the B1G opener to be tucked in somehwere during the 10 days layoff between the UNC and UCLA games.
glad that BTT is in Madison Square Garden a week before everybody else, said nobody, ever.
As regards schools that will take buy games, UNF is legit. They'll give more of a challenge vs. a school like Alabama A&M, and they won't hurt the RPI overly much either.
Jacksonville's a little less good, but they're still at least mid-tier in a conference (Atlantic Sun) that tends to rank 20th overall among all conferences.
(I had NKU season tickets when the Norse were in the A-Sun, so I know way too much about Atlantic Sun basketball!)
Well said
Because we get the softest, fluffiest cupcakes that ever cupcaked. I don't know about these teams, but the no-name schoools we play are usually ranked in the 225+ range where if we played someone in the 100-150 range, we're still winning that game, but it helps our RPI more.
got them all riled up about it a couple of weeks ago and now it is the in thing.
Bingo...especially confusing when most of these same folks will still be 100% into football season anyway when we're playing these cupcake teams.
Based only on LAST YEAR's RPI's, and the new column criteria by the selection committee (see: http://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/ncaa-tournament-commit…), here is how Michigan's Non-Conference schedule shapes up:
Column 1 opponents: 2 (UCLA, NC)
Column 2 opponents: 0
Column 3 opponents: 1 (Texas)
Column 4 opponents: 7 (everyone else, other than MAUI invitational opponents)
TBD: Maui Invitational Opponents (Column 1 - Notre Dame, VCU; Wichita St.; Column 2 - Marquette, California; Column 3 - LSU; Non D-1 - Chaminade)
Of course, the Big Ten Schedule will help tilt that more toward the top.
Riverside being on the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend is interesting. Michigan did go with the standard 13 game Non-Conf schedule (there was some speculation it might only be 12).
If my math is correct, even with the two B10 conference games in early December (i.e. on Dec 2nd and 6th), in order to play the other 16 conf. games before the early BTT tournament, Michigan will have *no* mini-bye's in their Jan-Feb schedule. 2 games per week over 8 weeks. It will be interesting to see if they can avoid games with only a one day break (i.e. a Sun-Tue, or Thu-Sat pairing), as Michigan has avoided those well recently.
By its previous year, what only matter is what their RPI is this UPCOMING year, which we won't know until at least midway through the season