After what seemed like torturous months, the University of Dayton finally released their basketball schedules on September 17. Through the wonderful workings of the Atlantic 10 headquarters, we seemingly know half of the schedule before it is finally released. I realize that television is important in the overall scheme of things, but it never ceases to amaze me just how important it really is. Just about every other school in the country has released their schedule and we are reduced to trying to piece together something game by game while checking out other schools’ web sites.

When that magical day finally arrived, I couldn’t help but feel that the anti-flyer put the schedule together. This is not a slam at anyone at UD, but as a pure basketball fan, I cannot say that I am jumping up and down at the prospect of our home schedule. The top three games would have to be Xavier, Temple and um, um. Hmmm, I’m not sure that I am excited about any other game. This is a home schedule that will once again cost me more per game than last year and bring little excitement with respect to whom we will be playing.

Next year (2002-03) is another story with Villanova and possibly UC and Marquette. When can I hope to see another big name team come into the Arena? Yes, there are those persistent rumors about the University of North Carolina on December 3, 2003, but until I actually have that ticket in hand, I’m not going to be popping that Dom Perignon just yet. When will we see a real Big 10 school (not Northwestern) or an ACC team or an SEC team? I realize that every schedule must have a few buys and a few cupcakes, but I pay just as much for Austin Peay as I do Temple.

The schedule as a whole certainly has a number of games that could be very interesting. Adding Villanova is certainly a coup. Getting to play Purdue on a semi-neutral court should help our standing within the kingdom of RPI. The continuing series with UC, Marquette, Miami, and St. Louis add intrigue. Yet, unless the rest of the A-10 improves from what we have seen in the last few years, we will once again have to bite our fingernails on Selection Sunday if we don’t come in with 22 wins.

Speaking of the RPI, if you take last year’s RPI value for everyone on this year’s schedule, you come up with an average of 104. I know that is unscientific as you can get, but I don’t have a math degree either. That is a slight improvement over last year’s 110 and even better than 1999-2000’s 134. The big drawback is the fact that the highest ranked team from last year is Cincinnati at 31. Again these numbers can change significantly from year to year, but it is unlikely that we can grab any headlines this year as we did with wins over UK and Maryland during the previous seasons.

In some ways, the schedule is better than in year’s past, but the nagging question remains, “Is it enough?” We were one of the last teams in the Tournament in 1999-2000. We won 19 games during the regular season last year and that wasn’t even close to being enough. Unless we plan on winning 22 games every year, we will continue to have the bubble team anxiety. The schedule needs to improve in one way or another. Either we bite the bullet and give up one of the “buy” games and go on the road for an additional neutral site or road game, or we have to stop scheduling the Morehead States and Eastern Kentuckys of the world. You can buy a game against a top 100 team if you choose correctly. In the cruel world of RPI, a loss against Duke is far better than five wins against Eastern Kentucky.

There is a stretch between January 23 and February 10 that could make or break our season. During that period, we find ourselves on the road for five out of six games. La Salle, XU, UMass, Fordham, and Richmond will offer their homes to us with big W’s in their eyes. A winning record during this stretch could only bring happy things to us in March. A losing record might indicate that we are not as good as we think we are. It is way too early to try to figure out just how many games will need to be won to be dancing but every win is just as important as the next and a 4-1 or 3-2 road record during this stretch will get us that much closer to 20 wins.

None of this is as important as the scheduling of the Xavier games. What were they thinking? How can we be done playing XU on January 26? There is nothing like salvaging an underachieving season and beating X on the final game of the regular season. It appears that the A-10 must look at our rivalry as nothing more than window dressing compared to the big showdowns that will occur in the eastern part of the country.

The men aren’t the only ones that play basketball at the Arena. When looking at the schedule that the women will play, Oliver Purnell must scratch his head and wonder how they get it done. This year the women will play the likes of Maryland (ACC), Florida State (ACC), Minnesota (Big-10), Marquette (C-USA), Cincinnati (C-USA), Saint Louis (C-USA) and Arkansas (SEC). This is in addition to playing Xavier twice – a team that reached the Elite Eight a season ago.

Jaci Clark has seen improvement in each or her years at UD. She continues to schedule name teams, teams that will force her women to mature quickly. The women will visit the Virgin Islands to play FSU and St Mary’s (CA). They also will travel to Arkansas, Minnesota, and Marquette. This is a team that plays equally well on the road as it does at home and could put a scare into some of these big conference schools.

The 2003 Woman’s NCAA Regional will once again be held at UD Arena and there is nothing more that Clark would like to see than the possibility of the Flyers playing in that tournament. This year will be tough with two season ending injuries already in place, but the women still have a good bit of firepower and just might be playing in March of 2002. This is a program on the rise and this type of schedule can only accelerate that process. With this in mind, we can only hope that both teams play well into March.