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23-24 OOC schedule thread

Your ACC schedule is 20 games plus some number of conference tournament games. That is double or maybe more than your total number of OOC games. Our ability to earn a bid is ALWAYS going to come down to the ACC record. Pitt would have to schedule like Gonzaga to have an OOC that could compensate for a bad ACC record.

Unless you are worried about your actual seed line, the quality of your OOC is not all that important. I am much more interested in Pitt getting a bid in 2024 than I am in what number their seed is.
Sure, but what I’m saying is that Clemson had a 14-6 record in the ACC, and ended up in the NIT because they scheduled a bad OOC schedule and performed badly against that bad schedule.

A schedule like we had this year (a four team tournament with quality opponents, WVU, a conference challenge game, and another high major opponent, plus a half dozen low majors) is totally fine going forward. I’m not opposed to adding Duquesne and going with five low majors, or if you want to schedule lean you could swap out the Vanderbilt equivalent with Duquesne and keep the six low major buy games.
 
Sure, but what I’m saying is that Clemson had a 14-6 record in the ACC, and ended up in the NIT because they scheduled a bad OOC schedule and performed badly against that bad schedule.

A schedule like we had this year (a four team tournament with quality opponents, WVU, a conference challenge game, and another high major opponent, plus a half dozen low majors) is totally fine going forward. I’m not opposed to adding Duquesne and going with five low majors, or if you want to schedule lean you could swap out the Vanderbilt equivalent with Duquesne and keep the six low major buy games.
odd, the Styx classic "too much time on my hands" keeps playing in my head reading this thread...
 
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How often is Duquesne going to be Q2? He doesn't want to risk a Q3 or Q4 loss in an early season rivalry game. Clemson's loss to South Carolina kept them out of the NCAAT.
Really, Clemson’s loss to South Carolina kept them out of the tourney, it had nothing to do with their overall OOC SOS?
 
Updated to reflect our Dec 6 at WVU. I like that they are moving this game from Halloween to the normal college basketball season. It was terrible to play that game as early as they did when no one realized college basketball started. It now seems likely, we will host an SEC team.
 
Updated to include the ACC schedule. Get Duke and UNC at home. Dont like having to play Clemson, Wake, and NC St twice. Those schools seem to have our number. We have beaten NC St twice recently but haven't beaten Clemson in what seems like 10 years and Wake always beats us unless we make 18 3s.
 
Updated to include the ACC schedule. Get Duke and UNC at home. Dont like having to play Clemson, Wake, and NC St twice. Those schools seem to have our number. We have beaten NC St twice recently but haven't beaten Clemson in what seems like 10 years and Wake always beats us unless we make 18 3s.
Clemson Basketball is like UNC Football. Just seem to have our number.
 
1. Florida or Baylor in Brooklyn
2. Florida, Baylor, or Oregon State in Brooklyn
3. NIT cupcake (home)
4. NIT cupcake (home)
5. ACC/SEC Challenge (Calipari @ Pitt?)
6. @ WVU
7. Open
8. Open
9. Open
10. Open
11. Open

ACC Schedule
Play Twice
Syracuse
Louisville
Duke
Clemson
Wake
NC State

Home Only
FSU
UNC
VT
UNC

Road Only
BC
GT
Miami
UVa


Pitt really has to put a lot of thought and effort into scheduling now that we appear to have a program that has turned the corner a bit.

- Do we continue to schedule WVU? I am leaning towards no but if we do, we certainly have to play the game later than Halloween. There's no juice for that game that early and I dont think its a good idea to be playing a HOF coach that early especially when you will always have somewhat of a new team. If you are going to play them, it has to be in December. I just think its a bad matchup and one we should avoid.

- Quad 4 home games: The NIT will give us 2. The Mountain West only plays 2 or 3 per year and I think we need to look at what they do. Those games dont help you. Now I get it, if you play Kent State or Akron, you could lose and that hurts more than a Q4 home win. So its a delicate balance.

- Penn State/Duquesne? Should we play these teams instead of WVU? PSU is always going to have a respectable NET since they are in the B10 but will almost never beat us at home as The Pete will always be amped for that one and its a program where you could win on the road. We arent going to beat WVU in Morgantown very much. Duquesne could help our NET.

Generally, I think you need to minimize the Q4 games and play more MAC, CAA, A10, SoCon, CUSA teams or the better teams from the Ivy, MAAC, Patriot, or AE. No more NEC or HBCUs.
I’d play LaRoche away every year before I scheduled Centre County JC in anything that put a dime in their pocket.
 
ACC needs to cut its conference schedule back to 18 games. Twenty is too many if you want a couple more attractive OOC games. With 18 ACC you can play two more good OOC games without negatively impacting your overall season W-L record opportunity.
 
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ACC needs to cut its conference schedule back to 18 games. Twenty is too many if you want a couple more attractive OOC games. With 18 ACC you can play two more good OOC games without negatively impacting your overall season W-L record opportunity.

Disagree a million percent. There is no guarantee those "attractive" non-con teams will be any better than a typical ACC team. And nothing is preventing these teams from playing a good non-con team instead of Coppin State
 
Disagree a million percent. There is no guarantee those "attractive" non-con teams will be any better than a typical ACC team. And nothing is preventing these teams from playing a good non-con team instead of Coppin State


Yeah, the reason why most coaches favor 18 conference games over 20 isn't because they can schedule more attractive OOC games. It's because with 18 conference games they can schedule two more guaranteed wins to make their record look better.
 
Yeah, the reason why most coaches favor 18 conference games over 20 isn't because they can schedule more attractive OOC games. It's because with 18 conference games they can schedule two more guaranteed wins to make their record look better.

Exactly. Look at Pitt last year. Had we had an 18 game schedule, we wouldn't have scheduled Arkansas and Penn State and beaten them. We would have scheduled 2 cupcakes. Perhaps those 19th and 20th ACC games were @ UNC and Miami and got us in the tournament instead of beating Niagara and Rider.
 
With 20 conference games you become even more dependent on the other conference teams OOC schedule and performance.
 
I think home and away with Duquesne makes sense. Maybe they play it at PPG Paints and make it even easier for Pitt fans to readily attend.

I was ok not playing this game when we were bad….it was kind of a lose/lose proposition. Still kind of is.
We did that PPG game and it was a good idea. Should revive that.
 
1. Florida or Baylor in Brooklyn
2. Florida, Baylor, or Oregon State in Brooklyn
3. NIT cupcake (home)
4. NIT cupcake (home)
5. ACC/SEC Challenge (Calipari @ Pitt?)
6. @ WVU
7. Open
8. Open
9. Open
10. Open
11. Open

ACC Schedule
Play Twice
Syracuse
Louisville
Duke
Clemson
Wake
NC State

Home Only
FSU
UNC
VT
UNC

Road Only
BC
GT
Miami
UVa


Pitt really has to put a lot of thought and effort into scheduling now that we appear to have a program that has turned the corner a bit.

- Do we continue to schedule WVU? I am leaning towards no but if we do, we certainly have to play the game later than Halloween. There's no juice for that game that early and I dont think its a good idea to be playing a HOF coach that early especially when you will always have somewhat of a new team. If you are going to play them, it has to be in December. I just think its a bad matchup and one we should avoid.

- Quad 4 home games: The NIT will give us 2. The Mountain West only plays 2 or 3 per year and I think we need to look at what they do. Those games dont help you. Now I get it, if you play Kent State or Akron, you could lose and that hurts more than a Q4 home win. So its a delicate balance.

- Penn State/Duquesne? Should we play these teams instead of WVU? PSU is always going to have a respectable NET since they are in the B10 but will almost never beat us at home as The Pete will always be amped for that one and its a program where you could win on the road. We arent going to beat WVU in Morgantown very much. Duquesne could help our NET.

Generally, I think you need to minimize the Q4 games and play more MAC, CAA, A10, SoCon, CUSA teams or the better teams from the Ivy, MAAC, Patriot, or AE. No more NEC or HBCUs.
We don't play Notre Dame this season?
 
Oh man. The first rule of scheduling is to avoid MEAC teams. We better leave the starters in and win by 50. A 20 point win will hurt us.
Add Mizzou at home.

It’s a pretty good OOC schedule. WVU, 2 of Baylor/Florida/Oregon St, Mizzou. The rest will almost definitely be mid majors, but it’s a decent schedule, along with the 20 game ACC where we play Duke twice etc
 
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