Date(s) w Kansas?

by Nestor on Jun 30, 2008 5:02 PM PDT in Basketball Comment 7 comments

KU vs UCLA?: Adam Zagoria of zagsblog.net writes that KU will begin a home-and-home series with UCLA in 2009-10.

KU senior associate athletic director Larry Keating, who is charge of the Jayhawks’ scheduling, said if that series happens, it’d be part of the Big 12/Pac 10 Hardwood Challenge series.

“We’d like to play them,” Keating said of the Bruins. “We’ve talked in general about it with them in the past. We play Arizona this year (in the challenge) and will get a new opponent the following year (in Challenge). The schools talk, the leagues talk, and TV is involved (in making attractive matchups).”

Before going to the main point of this post we should note that Larry Keating is the father of Coach Kerry Keating (former Howland super assistant who is now the head coach of Santa Clara).

Anyway,I am all for this. UCLA-Kansas home and home series would be awesome. Despite the annual concern trolling (such as ‘hoop analyst’ named Steve Lavin) I have never had a problem with the way Coach Howland sets up his regular season schedule. The way he sets up his schedule is designed around teams that play the style of basketball that gets a young team ready for the conference season and the early round of tournament games. And the method of Howland’s scheduling seems to have yield results last few years. Moreover, members of BN have routinely dispelled the charges of Howland taking the easy way out when it comes to his scheduling.

That said, it is not a bad idea to schedule a home and home with opponents such as the caliber of Kansas (or North Carolina, Indiana, Duke). I do not subscribe to the theory that we shouldn’t be scheduling these games to protect our turf in Southern California. If teams like KU want to come in here they can easily schedule home and home series with programs like San Diego State, UC Irvine or Southern California.

This kind of game are incredible to gin up already high fan interest and put the nation’s spotlight squarely on our program. Moreover, since Coach Howland has rounded up our program as one of the unquestioned elite programs in the nation, we should have absolutely no fear in playing in this kind of game.

GO BRUINS.

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Sounds good

My guess is we’d play them at hoe in 2009 and away in 2010. We’re traveling to South bend to play Notre Dame in 2009 and Howland usually only schedules one tough roadie per season.

My only complaint with Howland’s scheduling is he sometimes doesn’t schedule a tough road game in advance on conference play. Personally, I like to get our players, especially the freshmen, in a tough road environment before Pac 10 play starts. In 2006-2007 we didn’t play a tough road game and lost at Oregon our first Pac 10 weekend. As long as we get a tough road game in before conference play I’m content.

by Ryan Rosenblatt on Jun 30, 2008 5:17 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Where is "hoe"

LOL!! That was one funny typo. You got a point there with a “true’ road game against a very tough opponent. I wouldn’t mind that at all. We have played Top 25 teams on neutral courts which I enjoy as well but there is nothing that’ll prepare a team than in an opponents home court where it will definitely be a “hostile environment”. I like Howland’s scheduling as well. The man knows what he is doing. Howland schedules team with a conscious effort to give our teams all types of different looks/styles because come tourney time, we have no clue who we are going to face.

by BlueReign on Jun 30, 2008 11:07 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Oh my typos are getting far more common

and far funnier. I have a busy summer so I check BN for a minute or two and on my phone half the time. When I do comment I do so quicky and rarely have time to proofread. Oh well, at least it provides some humor.

by Ryan Rosenblatt on Jul 1, 2008 9:06 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I like home and aways with top programs.

However, it seems like we keep setting up home and aways with top Big 10 and Big 12 schools, and not the ACC or the top of the Big East (ok, West Virginia’s not bad). In the last 10 years, it seems our biggest non-conference games have been with Kansas or Michigan St / Michigan, outside of West Virginia. For all of those schools, it was a big recruiting advantage to come to Los Angeles. Of course, those games provide great TV exposure, so its not exactly bad for UCLA. But its not Lawrence, KS is a hot bed for recruiting.

I guess my point is, while I like all these games, it would be nice to bring back North Carolina or Duke. Of course, maybe I’m crazy, since Kansas just won the title, and you never know how a school will be two years out.

by rfirpo on Jul 1, 2008 8:09 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Texas produces top prospects every year

So that got us into a hot recruiting base. Kansas will be worth it for the hype and exposure alone.

The SEC doesn’t have a consistently top program so who do we play there? Kentucky is down now, Florida missed the tourney last year, Arkansas hasn’t been a top program since ‘95 and Tennessee has only been
strong for a couple years. There’s no marquee program in the SEC that you know will be in the top 20.

The ACC only has Duke and Carolina that you know will be good. UNC hasnt Bbeen availabe in recent years because of games with Arizona and rarely will a team travel to play 2 teams from the same conference like that. Duke doesn’t like to play top teams on the road. They play good teams on neutral courts and we may see Duke this year anyways in the 2K Classic at MSG.

I would like to see us play another Big East team though. We played W. Virginia which was good, but I’d like to see more with the conference. With Georgetown up again that would be fun, as would Louisville.

by Ryan Rosenblatt on Jul 1, 2008 9:03 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Notre Dame is in the Big East

I forgot they’re in the BE for basketball so we have a home and hoe with a BE team this year and next. I still say Georgetown and Louisville would be fun though.

by Ryan Rosenblatt on Jul 1, 2008 9:09 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs