Louisiana Officially Opens Men's Basketball Practice

[VObserver]

Texas Southern is better than any team on our home schedule. Use a little imagination. Cut a deal with Tech and New Mexico State and UNM for a home and home arrangement where us and Tech go to New Mexico and play 2 and they come to Louisiana and play 2 the next year. Better yet, do both of those every year. All four schools benefit, and travel costs are cut nearly in half. I can think of many more ways to improve the home schedule. It just takes a little out of the box thinking and relationship building.

How about working a similar deal with Creighton and Northern Iowa?

[cajun_lannister]

Texas Southern is better than any team on our home schedule. Use a little imagination. Cut a deal with Tech and New Mexico State and UNM for a home and home arrangement where us and Tech go to New Mexico and play 2 and they come to Louisiana and play 2 the next year. Better yet, do both of those every year. All four schools benefit, and travel costs are cut nearly in half. I can think of many more ways to improve the home schedule. It just takes a little out of the box thinking and relationship building.

How about working a similar deal with Creighton and Northern Iowa?

Who makes the schedual .. Marlin or the AD

[zephyr]

Unfortunately, these days skepticism always tends to lead off expectations for most sports for me. The major questions are whether Marlin can actually coach his way to a conference title. We all talk about how his teams have underperformed at times over the years. I don't doubt that we have some serious talent. As great as it is to have that talent you have to be a good enough coach to manage it as well.

My biggest concerns are in the backcourt. We have either a lot of younger guys or guys who are new. The SBC alone is typically controlled by teams who have the best backcourts. Even with the backcourt we had last year we still had trouble defending the perimeter shot. I'm hoping that has improved. We also had trouble shooting the perimeter shot. I'm hoping that improves. Bartley started off like a beast but really cooled off as the season went on and we need him to be a more consistent player this season.

We also lacked front court depth last year and it would be nice to have someone who can change shots in the middle and be a little bit of a rim protector. We don't need a Mutombo in there but having someone who can be a force inside both offensively and defensively would be huge.

I want to win the SBC. That has to be the goal. Its only done with consistency and we've never been a model of consistency. Hope this year changes that model.

[ManAboutTown]

Who makes the schedual .. Marlin or the AD

Almost positive football is the only schedule that the AD is responsible for.

[Ragin4U]

Almost positive football is the only schedule that the AD is responsible for.

Curious as to why this is. Seems like having the AD involved would provide some continuity and maybe the ability to package some deals with football, baseball and basketball.

Wouldn't one of the deterrents to having a nice OOC home schedule be the lack of direct flights into Lafayette. Unless a team is coming from Houston, Dallas or Atlanta, it's 2 flights at least.
VO- I get what you're saying about LSU's ooc being better than ours but it's not THAT much better considering they are an SEC school with a basically unlimited budget.

[Hatch]

Texas Southern is better than any team on our home schedule. Use a little imagination. Cut a deal with Tech and New Mexico State and UNM for a home and home arrangement where us and Tech go to New Mexico and play 2 and they come to Louisiana and play 2 the next year. Better yet, do both of those every year. All four schools benefit, and travel costs are cut nearly in half. I can think of many more ways to improve the home schedule. It just takes a little out of the box thinking and relationship building.

How about working a similar deal with Creighton and Northern Iowa?

I like the idea but I think having a distant school fly in then have to bus 4 to 5 hours to Ruston is a hard sell. I still like the money game then home and home combo like we did with UCLA and Pepperdine a couple years back but try to get LSU involved. For instance our trip to Clemson this year, call up Furman and see if they want to play a game a few days later. Then next year Furman can fly into BR, collect a paycheck at the PMAC and bus over and return the home game with us 2 days later. Or just have a relationship to where someone in BR can call up and say hey we just scheduled Belmont for a money game, you want to play them too? Then the next season we could travel to Nashville to return the Belmont game and play a money game with Vandy in the same trip.

[Ragin4U]

I like the idea but I think having a distant school fly in then have to bus 4 to 5 hours to Ruston is a hard sell. I still like the money game then home and home combo like we did with UCLA and Pepperdine a couple years back but try to get LSU involved. For instance our trip to Clemson this year, call up Furman and see if they want to play a game a few days later. Then next year Furman can fly into BR, collect a paycheck at the PMAC and bus over and return the home game with us 2 days later. Or just have a relationship to where someone in BR can call up and say hey we just scheduled Belmont for a money game, you want to play them too? Then the next season we could travel to Nashville to return the Belmont game and play a money game with Vandy in the same trip.

This makes so much sense, no wonder we haven't done it yet.

[Turbine]

I like the idea but I think having a distant school fly in then have to bus 4 to 5 hours to Ruston is a hard sell. I still like the money game then home and home combo like we did with UCLA and Pepperdine a couple years back but try to get LSU involved. For instance our trip to Clemson this year, call up Furman and see if they want to play a game a few days later. Then next year Furman can fly into BR, collect a paycheck at the PMAC and bus over and return the home game with us 2 days later. Or just have a relationship to where someone in BR can call up and say hey we just scheduled Belmont for a money game, you want to play them too? Then the next season we could travel to Nashville to return the Belmont game and play a money game with Vandy in the same trip.

I like creative thinking like yours.

In 1902 UL got LSU to play on campus as part of a longer road trip they were making to play Texas.

[CajunRebel]

I like the idea but I think having a distant school fly in then have to bus 4 to 5 hours to Ruston is a hard sell. I still like the money game then home and home combo like we did with UCLA and Pepperdine a couple years back but try to get LSU involved. For instance our trip to Clemson this year, call up Furman and see if they want to play a game a few days later. Then next year Furman can fly into BR, collect a paycheck at the PMAC and bus over and return the home game with us 2 days later. Or just have a relationship to where someone in BR can call up and say hey we just scheduled Belmont for a money game, you want to play them too? Then the next season we could travel to Nashville to return the Belmont game and play a money game with Vandy in the same trip.

The Pepperdine game was nice, and I’m pretty sure it’s something we try to work out every year. But realistically the odds of getting 4 schools (2 of them P5) to coordinate with us is very low. Those two P5 schools don’t care. There’s nothing in it for them. They just pay schools to come in and play.

And again, look at LSU’s OOC schedule this year and tell me which school you’d actually be excited about playing. Which school would be worth the extra day away from class and the added expense of air travel and hotel rooms? UNCW is doing really well, but a school like that won’t generate fan interest and you can never be sure how good they’ll be year to year. Mid major schools tend to peak for a year or two and fall back to the mean. Stephen F Austin had an absolutely killer few years. But last year they were 203 in the RPI.

[GeauxLouisiana]

Let's look at a couple other close non-P5 schools OOC schedules and the opponent's 2016 final RPI ranking.

LA Tech (since VO and his son love everything that Tech has done lately, except make the NCAA tournament)
vs. UT-Tyler (non D1), SEMO (275), Montana State (255), Miles College (non D1), Stephen F. Austin (206), Jackson State (322), UL (114)
at Alabama (82), Texas (156)
Tournaments- George Mason (123), Evansville(192)/Fresno State (77) (Cancun); Alabama State (342), Liberty (167)/Ft. Wayne (171) (NOLA)

Houston:
vs. McNeese (314), UNLV (239), UNO (161), Arkansas (28), Fairfield (183), Prairie View A&M (306)
at St. Louis (247), LSU (195)
Tournaments- Drexel (309), Mercer (196)/Liberty (167) (Lynchburg, VA); Providence (61) (Uncassville, CT)
They also play an exhibition against Lynn College in Boca Raton on 11/13.

Rice:
vs. Wayland Baptist (non D1), St. Thomas (non D1), UTRGV (315), St. Edwards (non D1), Texas State (172)
at Northwestern State (303), UT-Arlington (40), Stephen F. Austin (206), Texas Tech (122), New Mexico (87)
Tournaments- UNLV (239), Mississippi (68)/Utah (96) (Las Vegas); Eastern Kentucky (252), Georgia State (106) (first round games of Las Vegas tournament to be played at Rice)

This got tiring seeing the crappy schedules that schools similar to us have for OOC games. But that's none of my business now.