Butler at UIC

[MikeCash]

Bradley's loss at UIC is looking better all the time. The Flames have only lost once at home all year, and they have Butler within a point deep in the second half right now.

[dogsrus]

Bradley's loss at UIC is looking better all the time. The Flames have only lost once at home all year, and they have Butler within a point deep in the second half right now.

Sorry that loss will NEVER look "better".

[BradleyBrave]

Sorry that loss will NEVER look "better".

Agree 100%. We should never open on the road in a cracker-jack box like the crappy UIC Pavilion, and we should never open on the road against a conference that's perceived to be below us. Opening the year at Butler wouldn't even be acceptable IMO. I don't even want to get started with the scheduling of 4 Horizon road games. The poor scheduling is a primary reason we don't have the 'sexy' looking record like CU and ISU right now.

[GoMilwaukeePanthers!]

... we should never open on the road against a conference that's perceived to be below us. Opening the year at Butler wouldn't even be acceptable IMO. I don't even want to get started with the scheduling of 4 Horizon road games. The poor scheduling is a primary reason we don't have the 'sexy' looking record like CU and ISU right now.

You'd have a hard time scheduling games then, considering you just ruled out EVERY conference besides the BCS six. You'd think you would be happy knowing you have four HL teams (from what may end up as a top 10 league both this year and next) coming into your place next year.

As for the UIC Pavilion being a "cracker-jack box" and "crappy", it seats over 8,000 people, is fairly new, and never struck me as that bad in any way for watching hoops the two times I've been there...

[Da Coach]

The poor scheduling is a primary reason we don't have the 'sexy' looking record like CU and ISU right now.

Bradley's non-conference SOS (Strength of Schedule) is far better than either Creighton's or ISU's. In fact, it is better than 8 of the 9 other teams.
You can't have it both ways. Either a team schedules creampuffs so that they record looks prettier, or they schedule tougher to impress the NCAA selection committee. Creighton dropped out of an early season tournament in Alaska because they didn't want to play North Carolina and a couple other good teams, and they reshuffled their non-conference schedule to include teams like Houston Baptist, Savannah State, Mississippi Valley State, North Carolina Central, and Arkansas Little Rock. Yes, MVC power Creighton played all those creampuffs and won them all. Illinois State's non-con schedule was also bad, but not as bad as Creighton's.
If Bradley played a schedule like that, I suspect you and most of the Bradley fandom would not be happy with it.

Non-conference SOS numbers in the right column--

http://kenpom.com/conf.php?y=2008&c=MVC

[numbr_9]

i like the hard schedule. although so many horizon league opponents isn't so great.

Id always rather have a difficult schedule than an easy one. We want to believe our team is great; i say we need a chance to prove it. If we had won those games we'd be lovin on this schedule.

JL & KK scheduled to give us a shot. we came up short in too many games. Id rather try and fail than not try at all.

[GoMilwaukeePanthers!]

i like the hard schedule. although so many horizon league opponents isn't so great.

Again, who would you rather Bradley scheduled? Home-and-homes with Duke, UNC, and Kansas? There are only so many quality teams out there from non-BCS conferences, and I'm willing to bet the upper-division HL teams make up a large percentage of them, at least the ones that are close in proximity. (Travel = lots 'o $$)

[BUBraves2006]

I respect your opinion UWM, but personally, I think the UIC Pavilion is a dump. It would finish last in sporting venues in the Chicago area, in my mind.

I'd rank them something like this ...
1. United Center
2. Allstate Arena
3. Sears Centre
4. Gentile Center (Loyola) - some charm, though small
5. UIC Pavilion

(Never been to Welsh-Ryan arena, but who would ever want to go see Northwestern play?)

[thefish7]

Also, UWM, there are plenty of quality teams to play of a similar quality to our Horizon league opponents. I don't think any of us have a problem with scheduling games with Horizon league teams, it's just that at the end of this we'll have played five (!) HL teams. It would have been nice to have a couple of games against A10 teams or something to that effect, is all people are saying.

[BUBraves06]

Again, who would you rather Bradley scheduled? Home-and-homes with Duke, UNC, and Kansas? There are only so many quality teams out there from non-BCS conferences, and I'm willing to bet the upper-division HL teams make up a large percentage of them, at least the ones that are close in proximity. (Travel = lots 'o $$)

To me, it's not the quality, but the quantity. 5 teams from the HL is just too many teams to play from a non-BCS conference in one season.

[dogsrus]

To me, it's not the quality, but the quantity. 5 teams from the HL is just too many teams to play from a non-BCS conference in one season.

Exactly.....