2024-25 Schedule Intel

Nugget said:
I noticed that too and it seems odd. My recollection is that the recent MSG games have been essentially "Duke productions" (i.e., Duke rents the building, does the sponsorship deal, controls most of the tickets, etc.), so if they were doing it that way again you'd sort of have to expect Duke/the ACC would want the game to go to ESPN/ABC. Maybe one of Illinois' negotiating points for the deal was to have it on the BIG's network?
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My understanding is that the ACC owns the TV rights to games on ACC home courts but not neutral site games. That would allow Duke and Illinois to sell the rights to the highest bidder which is what I imagine happened.

I'm sure Duke will get the lion's share of the TV revenues.
 
brevity said:
Nice find. Let’s get graphic:

View attachment 17720

(Source)
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Guess holding out hope that the last two games would be more than cupcake filler was a pipe dream... Army finished 344 in KP last year, and Incarnate Word was just below them at 345.

I'd split our non-con schedule thusly:
Q1 games: (N) Kentucky, (A) Arizona, (N) Kansas, (H) Auburn, (N) Illinois
Solid mid-major opponents with Q2 potential: (H) Seattle, (H) George Mason
Not quite a cupcake: Wofford
Q4 Cupcakes: Maine, Army, Incarnate Word

For comparison's sake, last year we had 4 of the "low" Q4 games of the kind our current cupcakes are, and one more Q4 game that's more on the level of Wofford. One less Q4 game is nice, but I was really hoping we'd fill out the rest of our schedule with Q3 type opponents in the 150-200 range rather than some of the worst teams in the sport.

That said, our games against Seattle and George Mason have real potential to look good come season's end if those end up being solid mid major teams. I think those games are better than our analogous contests last year against Charlotte (Final NET: 114) and Hofstra (Final NET: 112).

The potential differentiator will come at the top... the fact that Arkansas was such a bust last season, dropping our contest with them into low Q2, really dragged down our overall and non-conference SOS. As it stands we should not only have 5 Q1 opportunities in the non-conference, but they all have the potential to be Q1"A" (H 1-15, A 1-30, N 1-25) games that stand out on a resume. We take care of business in those and everything will work out fine :)
 
This is a strong schedule. With 20 ACC games you only get 11 OOC, and 5 of these should be NCAA Tournament competition.

Jon's first two teams played the #102 and #199 toughest OOC schedules per KenPom. This year should be comfortably above those numbers, and may be the toughest schedule since the Zion year (#40). I think that says something about what Jon thinks of his roster.
 
scottdude8 said:
An addendum from the source is confirmation of an exhibition game versus Lincoln (Pa) on October 19th. They apparently went 17-14 in DII last year, so a far cry from the Coach K tradition of scheduling the DII National Champ. It'll be interesting to see if that's all there is on our exhibition slate.
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I assume another exhibition is yet to be revealed, based on Jason Evans's hint in post #132 of this thread...
 
Bay Area Duke Fan said:
Incarnate Word ???
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Yep. The Cardinals of the University of the Incarnate Word are based out of San Antonio and play in the Southland Conference, now expanded to 12 teams. All are located in Louisiana and Texas:

Houston Christian
Incarnate Word
Lamar
McNeese State
New Orleans
Nicholls State
Northwestern State
Southeastern Louisiana
Stephen F. Austin
Texas A&M-Commerce
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi
Texas-Rio Grande Valley

The Incarnate Word 2024-25 roster has a couple of familiar names, even if I don't know the players personally. 5-11 sophomore guard TJ Ford Jr is the son of TJ Ford, who played for Texas from 2001-2003 and in the NBA until 2012. Then there's 6-8 senior forward Lamin Sabally, who has sisters Satou and Nyara in the WNBA and on the German national team.

There are also a pair of Duke connections. 6-7 sophomore wing Mintautas Mockus played for Johnny Dawkins and UCF last season, while 6-9 grad forward Shon Robinson played for Nate James and Austin Peay in 2022-2023.

I can't be sure of this, but the date of Incarnate Word-Duke (December 10) and its last-minute addition to the schedule suggests that the ACC made a late decision not to have Duke play an early conference game.
 
sagegrouse said:
I thought the Big 12 (finally accurate?) showed that playing cupcakes is the secret to muchos bids and high seeds
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I think what really came out of that was that it helped the perception of the conference if the mid and low tier schools fattened up on cupcakes. The thought was that if, say, the 10th best team in your conference played a bunch of cupcakes in the non-conference and held serve (let's say winning around the margin predicted), their efficiency numbers would receive a boost. That, in turn, would influence their NET ranking more positively then, say, a hard-fought loss against a similar caliber team from another power conference that might not have been as "efficient" given the increased competition. That's potentially how you end up with so many teams from the Big 12 high in the NET rankings, making almost every conference road game a Q1 opportunity.

I'm of the belief that if your goal is a No. 1 seed, like Duke's is every year, then beating a cupcake by 40 isn't going to do anything to help you achieve that goal. Beating a solid mid-major team by 40, though, might be a factor, especially if your competition didn't play such a game but instead played Incarnate Word. That said, if Duke could also choose the schedules of the entire ACC, I think they'd like for the Stanford's and Boston College's to play a whole bunch of 300+ teams and beat them convincingly, rather than lose to mid-tier Big 10 teams.
 
scottdude8 said:
I think what really came out of that was that it helped the perception of the conference if the mid and low tier schools fattened up on cupcakes. The thought was that if, say, the 10th best team in your conference played a bunch of cupcakes in the non-conference and held serve (let's say winning around the margin predicted), their efficiency numbers would receive a boost. That, in turn, would influence their NET ranking more positively then, say, a hard-fought loss against a similar caliber team from another power conference that might not have been as "efficient" given the increased competition. That's potentially how you end up with so many teams from the Big 12 high in the NET rankings, making almost every conference road game a Q1 opportunity.

I'm of the belief that if your goal is a No. 1 seed, like Duke's is every year, then beating a cupcake by 40 isn't going to do anything to help you achieve that goal. Beating a solid mid-major team by 40, though, might be a factor, especially if your competition didn't play such a game but instead played Incarnate Word. That said, if Duke could also choose the schedules of the entire ACC, I think they'd like for the Stanford's and Boston College's to play a whole bunch of 300+ teams and beat them convincingly, rather than lose to mid-tier Big 10 teams.
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There is clearly sense to what you are saying, to which I would say that I suspect "schedule-scheming" is intentionally there.

But I still blame the TSC for cowardice and stupidity for awarding the ACC half the bids plus rotten seeds compared to truly equivalent conferences like the B12, BTen and SEC. I mean, look at NCAAT results and conference challenges.

I am afraid the whole situation has given me permanent dyspepsia.
 
sagegrouse said:
There is clearly sense to what you are saying, to which I would say that I suspect "schedule-scheming" is intentionally there.

But I still blame the TSC for cowardice and stupidity for awarding the ACC half the bids plus rotten seeds compared to truly equivalent conferences like the B12, BTen and SEC. I mean, look at NCAAT results and conference challenges.

I am afraid the whole situation has given me permanent dyspepsia.
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Oh you and I are in full agreement there... the challenge becomes whether the "solution" here is to pressure the selection committee to change their policies and procedures or to cave to them and schedule accordingly to game the system. At some point if the trend of undervaluing the ACC continues, the conference is going to have to swallow some of its pride and adjust accordingly :(
 
brevity said:
I can't be sure of this, but the date of Incarnate Word-Duke (December 10) and its last-minute addition to the schedule suggests that the ACC made a late decision not to have Duke play an early conference game.
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It's during exams or reading week (not on the old Michigan Saturday), a really odd time for a game unless Duke couldn't schedule it any other way.

There's two open December Saturdays that are normally full, and Duke really likes 1 home game without students. I'm going with the opposite--Duke opens up at Syracuse the first week of the December despite the bad TV spot and then finishes its phase I schedule with a lesser ACC opponent at home (BC, I'm looking at you.) It's complete speculation on my part until we find out in 4-6 weeks. :rolleyes:
 
duke2x said:
It's during exams or reading week (not on the old Michigan Saturday), a really odd time for a game unless Duke couldn't schedule it any other way.
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In this case, it is the day before finals begin. I'd guess it's about the only time they have. They can't do it actually in finals week.
 
It's actually 3 December Saturdays without a scheduled game (Dec. 7, 21 and 28), and two of those have to be ACC games (apparently @ Syracuse and then you're likely right something like BC). I'm guessing the league would prefer not to schedule against the Football conference title game on Dec. 7 so it would be the 21st and 28th?

I suppose Syracuse could be on Dec. 7 but then you'd have the oddity of either (i) having scheduled non-con games the night before Finals start and the day after Finals end (on Dec. 10 and Dec. 17), while leaving open the following Saturday the 21st, or (ii) having two full weeks with no games at all between Sat. Dec. 21 and Sat. Jan. 4, which seems like an absurdly long Christmas break.
 
GoDuke.com lists the arena for every game except the Arizona game on November 22. Arizona's usual arena is the McKale Memorial Center, which is their all-purpose, on-campus venue in Tucson. It seats about 14,500. Arizona has not yet posted their own men's basketball schedule, so the game doesn't appear on the McKale Center schedule. At least not yet.

Just curious if the omission is just an artifact or if there's more going on there.
 
Phredd3 said:
GoDuke.com lists the arena for every game except the Arizona game on November 22. Arizona's usual arena is the McKale Memorial Center, which is their all-purpose, on-campus venue in Tucson. It seats about 14,500. Arizona has not yet posted their own men's basketball schedule, so the game doesn't appear on the McKale Center schedule. At least not yet.

Just curious if the omission is just an artifact or if there's more going on there.
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Hard to imagine the game being anywhere other than McKale. Not like Tucson has an NBA venue.
 
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