The Cleveland State Mystery

[brocks]

On August 6, Cleveland State officially announced it's 08-09 basketball schedule. CSU will play in the CBE against Richmond, UMKC, FGCU. Sound familiar? They were also to play at Washington in the first round.

Along comes Bradley and announces ITS schedule. I started a friendly thread over on the Richmond Rivals board to talk about our match-up and they were VERY confused because they were to play CLEVELAND STATE, FGCU, and UMKC.

I don't doubt that the Gazelle Group was all over Bradley when BU became availabe. And when BU shows up, the whole thing gets shifted around, so much so that a reasonably successful DI athletic dept has egg on its face (either CSU or BU . . . I'm betting CSU).

I'm wondering what could possibly have caused this mess . . . just lil' ole BU? Until I noticed that Kansas and Florida are the only two hosts without opponents yet (Richmond fans have been hearing already that they're going to Syracuse).

Hm. I wonder whether Bill Self was happy with this development. I wonder WHY the whole field had to get shifted around to get Bradley away from Kansas.

Any thoughts?

[brocks]

Of course, I really don't know. But it's odd that if BU is in, it's either going to KU or Florida, and then the field shifts even after athletic departments relied on the field being set already. I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, but I can't imagine Bill Self agreeing to play Bradley again when he's got two starters returning.

It's confusing why they had to move CSU when they seem to have had this foursome in Washington's "region." But who knows what problems trickle down when only KU and UF are open and Bradley becomes a possibility for KU. It's even possible that they moved CSU because they're not in "tier 2" anymore with Bradley in. So they'd move CSU out of the Washington bracket, give that spot to someone else, and stick BU in a "second tier" spot where Self can handle it.

Don't journalists get PAID to figure this stuff out? DR??

[Beninator]

Maybe the Cleveland State switcharoo has something to do with Jim Les.

[brocks]

OK . . . so let's say CSU is set to play Washington, UR set to play Syracuse. BU will either have to go to KU or UF. KU says no way. So BU to UF but Les says I don't like that group of teams. Get me a couple decent teams like UR and FGC. But I don't want CSU . . . that would be weird. To please everyone, especially KU (b/c they're KU) and BU (to get us in), they shift everyone around, getting some AD's po'd.

Yep. That makes sense. Mystery solved.

[squirrel]

As should have been clear by my posts in the non-con thread, the home court games for Syracuse, Florida, Kansas, and Washington don't necessarily have any relation to the three pool games, as the former are pre-arranged and the latter are merely extra games.

So the teams that play Syracuse and Florida don't necessarily have to go to the same secondary site.

Also, as pointed out in the other thread, since they have redacted a couple definite games on their schedule, but still state Ft. Myers and FGCU, I believe that there will be a third "tier 2" team joining BU and CSU playing the same round robin teams. . .Richmond, UMKC, and FGCU. It's possible that Richmond is a "tier 2" team and a "tier 3" team is in the same group as BU/CSU playing those teams.

I don't think Kansas would shy away from playing us on their home floor, seeing as how our unbeaten record against them consists of neutral court games more than 50 years apart. But since they are the returning DI champ, I'm sure they get their pick of the field.