They scheduled 1 non-D1 (which I don't care for).. the other is an exhibition which should be a glorified practice.
The program has to get to a point where they would not be viewed as a "bad loss". It'd also be fantastic if the league would help them out. Some kind of scheduling alliance between the A10, MWC and maybe the MVC that creates a bracket busters type of situation. Every team gets a home game and an away game.
I agree with you and others who object to non-DI opponents being scheduled OOC. The level of competition during practice is superior to what we get from these DII-DIII cup cakes, so what's the point? To give the 2-3K fans in attendance a rise?
The A10 is not unique in the challenge of scheduling solid OOC games. As you point out, the MVC, MWC, and maybe the American and CUSA all face the same challenge and are comparable to the A10 - most years - in talent. So what is keeping these teams from scheduling each other during the OOC portion of our respective schedules??? Really...I want to know because it strikes me as absurd that it isn't happening.
There's a much better shot that Tulsa, Temple, Colorado St, New Mexico, and Mason, etc., catch fire during the season and lift the collective SoS/Net than the patsies that typically get scheduled.
The P5 conference teams (and their fan base) love blasting inferior teams during the OOC portion of the schedule because it's FUN to watch your team dunk 14 times on alley-oops, knowing none of it matters when it comes to Selection Sunday. Finish slightly better than .500 in league play and you're competing for a national championship.
AS AN ADDED BONUS: The mere fact that you compete in a P5 conference means you get a shot to win a
conference championship - from Thursday to Sunday - in front of a national audience (also very exciting!!), while the mid-majors get to strut their conference-title stuff only on Saturday and Sunday on the minor cable channels - ESPN 2, USA, TNT, MASN, etc.
It's all so biased to favor the P5.
In sum: stop scheduling these very weak sisters. I want every team that we play OOC to be capable of beating us.
Under CTS, more often that not, it won't happen, so the joke is on them (shssh!).
Hopefully.
but for what its worth, it might not be Mason who can't let you print tickets. They use ticketmaster as a vendor, and they may not allow it. If I recall they had some help videos out to show how to retrieve tickets. Sucks that the trouble still happened, but hopefully next time it wont.
