Create your Non-Conference Schedule/Matchups for 2024

[trojansc]

Curious about how people want to see their team(s) schedule for the non-conference. Post your dream schedule/matchups here, as little or as much. Do you care about RPI/top 4/16 seed, or are you just trying to schedule to try to make the tournament, or do you want to schedule local teams for rivalries/fan experience, or do you want to go to a player's hometown, etc.

For USC, I'd probably try to schedule something like this:

Week 1: (at) Hawaii (x2)
Week 2: Home Tournament: East-Coast comes out West (St. John's, Fairfield/cupcake, one of the better Ivies like Brown, Princeton, Yale)
Week 3: USC/LMU Tournament: Ohio, Utah State)
Week 4: vs (or at) Long Beach State/Stanford

I'd like to go for RPI-gems, this has plenty of routinely high W/L teams, and not too tough but not all cupcakes, possibly steal a top 16 seed with a schedule like this. But also be a shoe-in for the tournament with even a 'meh' Big Ten performance. Also ease up on travel, USC has been able to bring many teams East in, and, keeping Stanford on the schedule would be nice, even if it had to be on the road.

[texasfight]

JE if you’re listening, hear me out.

Week 1: away Hawaii (x2)
Week 2: home Arizona State and Oregon
Week 3: away Pitt and Penn State
Week 4: home Purdue and Georgia Tech

[ay2013]

Washington

Week 1 Away (Southwest Challenge): UNLV, Weber State, Grand Canyon
Week 2 Away (Mountain Challenge): Colorado, Denver, Wyoming
Week 3 Home (Northwest Challenge): OSU, Portland State/Montana State, Boise State [Maybe WSU]
Week 4 Home or Away:(Best of the West Challenge): Hawaii, Pepperdine or San Diego [USC or UCLA as a pairing]

[ay2013]

Mar 11, 2024 16:30:10 GMT -5 trojansc said:

Curious about how people want to see their team(s) schedule for the non-conference. Post your dream schedule/matchups here, as little or as much. Do you care about RPI/top 4/16 seed, or are you just trying to schedule to try to make the tournament, or do you want to schedule local teams for rivalries/fan experience, or do you want to go to a player's hometown, etc.

For USC, I'd probably try to schedule something like this:

Week 1: Home Tournament: East-Coast comes out West (St. John's, Fairfield/cupcake, one of the better Ivies like Brown, Princeton, Yale)
Week 2: (at) Hawaii (x2)
Week 3: USC/LMU Tournament: Ohio, Utah State)
Week 4: vs (or at) Long Beach State/Stanford

I'd like to go for RPI-gems, this has plenty of routinely high W/L teams, and not too tough but not all cupcakes, possibly steal a top 16 seed with a schedule like this. But also be a shoe-in for the tournament with even a 'meh' Big Ten performance. Also ease up on travel, USC has been able to bring many teams East in, and, keeping Stanford on the schedule would be nice, even if it had to be on the road.

don't the Ivy's take the first week off?

[trojansc]

Mar 11, 2024 17:08:36 GMT -5 ay2013 said:

don't the Ivy's take the first week off?

True that. I forgot. I actually originally had Hawaii(x2) first, but, I feel like Hawaii usually opens up with a tournament of multiple teams so I flopped that with the planned week 2 USC tournament. Maybe that Home Tournament could be in a different week like 2 or 4, but, I like the idea. USC's brought both Yale and Brown out to LA, maybe Princeton's turn

[trojansc]

Mar 11, 2024 17:06:54 GMT -5 ay2013 said:

Washington

Week 1 Away (Southwest Challenge): UNLV, Weber State, Grand Canyon
Week 2 Away (Mountain Challenge): Colorado, Denver, Wyoming
Week 3 Home (Northwest Challenge): OSU, Portland State/Montana State, Boise State [Maybe WSU]
Week 4 Home or Away:(Best of the West Challenge): Hawaii, Pepperdine or San Diego [USC or UCLA as a pairing]

Interesting, you'd be OK with going on the road 3 times in the non-conference? Not far trips though. You don't even play a team from the Eastern or Central time zones! Pretty impressive. I like this for Washington next year too.

[ay2013]

Mar 11, 2024 17:11:52 GMT -5 trojansc said:

Mar 11, 2024 17:08:36 GMT -5 ay2013 said:

don't the Ivy's take the first week off?

True that. I forgot. I actually originally had Hawaii(x2) first, but, I feel like Hawaii usually opens up with a tournament of multiple teams so I flopped that with the planned week 2 USC tournament. Maybe that Home Tournament could be in a different week like 2 or 4, but, I like the idea. USC's brought both Yale and Brown out to LA, maybe Princeton's turn

IMO, Princeton has A LOT of upside next year - they return all of their important parts and I wouldn't be surprised to see them win the league.

[c4ndlelight]

I really doubt most PAC, B1G, Big XII or ACC teams are going to be flying to Hawaii with the new travel schedules, even USC/UCLA. LAX to Honolulu is longer than a LAX-Florida or LAX-DC. Plus the way Hawaii sets up their tourneys makes it a LONG trip - it's 3-4 days of play, which makes time on the road even longer.

An underrated vb impact is that realignment is going to be pretty bad for Hawaii over the long term, IMO. The one mitigating factor for their distance was that they barely left the islands - but that's probably going to have to change going forward if they want to play the RPI game.

For Oregon, I'm expecting 2 weeks with match-ups against old conference foes, and then 2 tourneys at home with as good for RPI scheduling as we can get - a lot of teams owe us a return trip.

[ay2013]

Mar 11, 2024 17:17:25 GMT -5 trojansc said:

Mar 11, 2024 17:06:54 GMT -5 ay2013 said:

Washington

Week 1 Away (Southwest Challenge): UNLV, Weber State, Grand Canyon
Week 2 Away (Mountain Challenge): Colorado, Denver, Wyoming
Week 3 Home (Northwest Challenge): OSU, Portland State/Montana State, Boise State [Maybe WSU]
Week 4 Home or Away:(Best of the West Challenge): Hawaii, Pepperdine or San Diego [USC or UCLA as a pairing]

Interesting, you'd be OK with going on the road 3 times in the non-conference? Not far trips though. You don't even play a team from the Eastern or Central time zones! Pretty impressive. I like this for Washington next year too.

Firstly, I think these are ALL beatable teams, which is most important. I'm not as concerned on loading up with the teams out west given that there will be fewer teams in conference that will have played those teams, so the incestuousness of the limited western teams available won't be as much of a drag on the conference RPI. I think it's a healthy mix of teams that will be at or near the top of the various mid-major conferences in the western half of the country. It will be important for Washington to establish themselves as one of the top 3 teams out west, both in RPI non-conference AND the subjective regional committee rankings. I see no reason to go further than the mountain time zone.

[ay2013]

Mar 11, 2024 17:21:03 GMT -5 c4ndlelight said:

I really doubt most PAC, B1G, Big XII or ACC teams are going to be flying to Hawaii with the new travel schedules, even USC/UCLA. LAX to Honolulu is longer than a LAX-Florida or LAX-DC. Plus the way Hawaii sets up their tourneys makes it a LONG trip - it's 3-4 days of play, which makes time on the road even longer.

An underrated vb impact is that realignment is going to be pretty bad for Hawaii over the long term, IMO. The one mitigating factor for their distance was that they barely left the islands - but that's probably going to have to change going forward if they want to play the RPI game.

For Oregon, I'm expecting 2 weeks with match-ups against old conference foes, and then 2 tourneys at home with as good for RPI scheduling as we can get - a lot of teams owe us a return trip.

IMO, Oregon needs to be very careful not to go too crazy in the non-conference. I think the upside is definitely there to be a seed contender this year, but they will have a lot of new faces, and if that new setter can't get the OH rhythm in sync from the get go, I could see some surprise losses for Oregon, depending on the opponent.

[trojansc]

Mar 11, 2024 17:21:03 GMT -5 c4ndlelight said:

I really doubt most PAC, B1G, Big XII or ACC teams are going to be flying to Hawaii with the new travel schedules, even USC/UCLA. LAX to Honolulu is longer than a LAX-Florida or LAX-DC. Plus the way Hawaii sets up their tourneys makes it a LONG trip - it's 3-4 days of play, which makes time on the road even longer.

I do like what USC has been doing - back-to-back matches against Hawaii only. You're right though, I wouldn't like the way they space it out over 3-4 days. Especially if it can now become a returned favor - USC is the one that has been going to Hawaii for 3 years straight now, every other year wouldn't be so bad if it's the only major road trip and not the spread out version.

[n00b]

I’d love to see volleyball embrace the basketball-style mid season tournaments, regardless of who the teams are.

LONE STAR BATTLE
Texas
Texas A&M Corpus Christi

Texas State
Texas Southern

Rice
Stephen F Austin

Baylor
Sam Houston

On day 2, winners play each other and losers play each other. Then on Day 3 you have a match for 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th.

[c4ndlelight]

Mar 11, 2024 17:33:16 GMT -5 ay2013 said:

Mar 11, 2024 17:21:03 GMT -5 c4ndlelight said:

I really doubt most PAC, B1G, Big XII or ACC teams are going to be flying to Hawaii with the new travel schedules, even USC/UCLA. LAX to Honolulu is longer than a LAX-Florida or LAX-DC. Plus the way Hawaii sets up their tourneys makes it a LONG trip - it's 3-4 days of play, which makes time on the road even longer.

An underrated vb impact is that realignment is going to be pretty bad for Hawaii over the long term, IMO. The one mitigating factor for their distance was that they barely left the islands - but that's probably going to have to change going forward if they want to play the RPI game.

For Oregon, I'm expecting 2 weeks with match-ups against old conference foes, and then 2 tourneys at home with as good for RPI scheduling as we can get - a lot of teams owe us a return trip.

IMO, Oregon needs to be very careful not to go too crazy in the non-conference. I think the upside is definitely there to be a seed contender this year, but they will have a lot of new faces, and if that new setter can't get the OH rhythm in sync from the get go, I could see some surprise losses for Oregon, depending on the opponent.

Well, unlike the last two times we were breaking in a lot of new faces, we aren't going on a road-trip-of-death, so hopefully that'll help.

Like, in 2015, Oregon played 9 matches in 12 days to start the season, all on the road, going from Philly to NYC to DC to Austin to San Antonio. What a great way to break in the freshman, lol. (And we didn't learn - we did something similar later).

[ay2013]

Mar 11, 2024 17:40:59 GMT -5 n00b said:

I’d love to see volleyball embrace the basketball-style mid season tournaments, regardless of who the teams are.

LONE STAR BATTLE
Texas
Texas A&M Corpus Christi

Texas State
Texas Southern

Rice
Stephen F Austin

Baylor
Sam Houston

On day 2, winners play each other and losers play each other. Then on Day 3 you have a match for 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th.

I agree. The current metrics for selection place A LOT of emphasis on non-conference matchups and results. Given that, having as many matchups as possible closer to the quality of the team at NCAA tournament selection will yield a more fair and robust comparison.

[BigDigEnergy]

Mar 11, 2024 16:59:57 GMT -5 texasfight said:

JE if you’re listening, hear me out.

Week 1: away Hawaii (x2)
Week 2: home Arizona State and Oregon
Week 3: away Pitt and Penn State
Week 4: home Purdue and Georgia Tech

The funny thing is we already know who Texas is gonna play against the first week of pre-conference- Minnesota and Wisconsin.