nacluth said:

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Hmm. Now tickets that were $10 are $14. True some $20 are also $14. But it's an interesting sales strategy.

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They got me. I bought 7 tickets Friday.

Hopefully we pull off the same for March 7.

PurpleOut said:

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The Sam Houston game is scheduled on the first day of spring break. And dorms close that morning.

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Also it's senior night right?

I hope Ivey makes a plea to extend the time for dorm move out. We need full student support for Sam.

BigJack85 said:

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I hope Ivey makes a plea to extend the time for dorm move out. We need full student support for Sam.

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I agree, but history says most of them will leave town on Friday.

I still say we draw 6,000.

Q: What's your take on Ken Pomeroy's article about Stephen F. Austin deserving to be in the at-large conversation? Will this catch the eyes of the committee and spark conversation in the committee room? Also, why isn't SFA on your bubble? -- @mgoring10
A: Well, I doubt that the committee takes counsel from Ken, myself or anyone else in the media. In fact, in a meeting with the NCAA a couple of years ago that we each attended, he told them they should not use his rankings because he is not measuring what they are trying to reward. Yet, his ranking still appears on the team sheet.
I understood Ken's point, which is primarily that strength of schedule shouldn't be everything, especially for teams like SFA because so much of its poor schedule is due to the league. And this league does its teams a disservice in the pursuit of an at-large bid by playing 20 conference games. Regardless, your schedule is your schedule, and that has always been important to the committee. It would be an easier argument to make if the Lumberjacks had not lost to Texas A&M-Corpus Christi at home. Also, like I said before, for them to be an at-large team, they have to take another really bad loss in the conference tournament.
Finally, the Lumberjacks also did themselves a disservice by playing three games against non-Division I opponents. If a team is serious about getting at-large consideration, it will never schedule more than one. They could have scheduled themselves a couple more chances at road wins over teams that could help them. Non-Division I games do not count in the rankings, but the committee will know about them. In terms of selections, nothing good ever comes from playing those games.

Interesting answer in CBS Sports today. Don't agree 100% but it is largely on target.

I agree, however, unless you are able to build a resume like Gonzaga, there's no chance a team will schedule you unless you're a cupcake and play at their place. How many years have we asked Duke to play us and they happen to schedule us after a 14-16 season. Power conference teams have everything to lose and nothing to gain.
Scheduling other teams is quite a difficult task. I thought scheduling Drexel was smart move because I expected them to be near the top of the Colonial, but they are now in the bottom rung of the conference. The MAAC is always hard to predict but not a strong conference, so Niagara did nothing for us, in fact, it hurt us.
My point being that, other than scheduling power conference teams, scheduling other mid-majors is a crap shoot. Plus, you have to have the funds if it's a pay game.
The NCAA can easily remedy the problem by forcing power conference teams to have a more balanced home and away non-conference schedules. Other than neutral court tournament games, some power conference teams never leave home in the non conference season, or leave very few times.
The NCAA should institute a rule that a certain percentage of any team's non-conference games should be true road games. That way, more games will be scheduled at mid major arenas and there will be far fewer one way contracts.
A pipe dream, I know, but just putting it out there.

Yeah, the best we can get really is an invite to a decent tournament- like Maui a few years back. We didn't have the team to capitalize then. Otherwise, it's tough. Gonzaga made a name by going anywhere and everywhere they could get in - not just one northeast swing that could be put together with marquee teams.

I think Keller and co have done reasonable with the schedule. I think they have put together a winning season. Honestly if we had a UTA or UAB loss on the sheet too, then no one is talking about us. 22-3 gets attention despite the weak schedule. 19-6 is bubkis.

Next year, I bet there will be more attention to scheduling those all important Q2 games. We just don't have those to balance a weak conference. Southland going to 20 is the biggest drain on all basketball programs. Cut down potential games against decent teams. It's going to ruin the SLC in the long run.

RichieVan said:

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I agree, however, unless you are able to build a resume like Gonzaga, there's no chance a team will schedule you unless you're a cupcake and play at their place. How many years have we asked Duke to play us and they happen to schedule us after a 14-16 season. Power conference teams have everything to lose and nothing to gain.
Scheduling other teams is quite a difficult task. I thought scheduling Drexel was smart move because I expected them to be near the top of the Colonial, but they are now in the bottom rung of the conference. The MAAC is always hard to predict but not a strong conference, so Niagara did nothing for us, in fact, it hurt us.
My point being that, other than scheduling power conference teams, scheduling other mid-majors is a crap shoot. Plus, you have to have the funds if it's a pay game.
The NCAA can easily remedy the problem by forcing power conference teams to have a more balanced home and away non-conference schedules. Other than neutral court tournament games, some power conference teams never leave home in the non conference season, or leave very few times.
The NCAA should institute a rule that a certain percentage of any team's non-conference games should be true road games. That way, more games will be scheduled at mid major arenas and there will be far fewer one way contracts.
A pipe dream, I know, but just putting it out there.

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I'm with your line of thinking This simply reinforces my belief that the latest round of expansion in the SLC is a joke. If you take HBU and UIW out of the conference and our RPI jumps 10-15 positions. More importantly I believe our NET improves. 20 game SLC schedule????

Don't know where my post went but,
It's easy to sit in an office somewhere and deride SFA for scheduling too many D2 games when we seem to not be able to get other schools to sign us up. We all know how difficult it has been for us to get D1 schools on board and that was before Duke. Will likely be more difficult now.
Sure I would like to see only one D2 game as an early warmup then D1 schools but it takes two to play the game.

Perhaps the Southland should approach another conference (ranked 20 or above) and have a conference challenge. I don't think any decent conference would do it, but if we can schedule a conference challenge with a conference five or six places ahead of us, it could only help.

Just so I don't get dumped on, I am not as concerned OR frankly concerned at all about us playing a couple D2 or NAIA squads. Could care less. Think it's a good way to fill the schedule and create "training" opportunities for the guys that are just outside the regular rotation.

What I am sick of is OUR so called conference weighing us down. I know I beat on a couple of private schools the most but in fact UNO fits in to the weak sister category. These are schools that have budgets of $5-$10 million. They focus on one or two sports and play "spoiler". Not fair for the schools that invest in a well rounded athletic program.

Your concern is understood. The conference weighs us down in several ways in MBB for sure.
I also don't object to 1-2 games vs lower divisions but don't like having to schedule 3 or so to fill out a full sched.

Also to be clear my remark about those "sitting in an office somewhere" was in reference to the CBS sports guy.
Can he help us get the D1 opponents?

A little q and a with Ke!

https://instagr.am/p/B81eDAnlbh5

Did I read somewhere about a Keller interview today at 11:00?

This is very random but am I the only person that thinks Coach should really consider changing his twitter account picture? Just thinking out loud.

You da man!

sfa17 said:

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if we can cut down on our turnovers we can be really really good. Keller says he is working hard on this.

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In addition to reducing turnovers, Keller has said committing fewer fouls is a focus area for improvement.

SFAJack_76 said:

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Nice .....

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Quote:

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Even with the Duke win on his team's rsum, Keller has no illusions about his team's narrow way to the NCAA tournament. "We were up 28 [against Central Arkansas] on Wednesday and I got 12 guys into the game," he said. "We ended up winning by 15. I know the NET" the NCAA Evaluation Tool rankings used by the tournament selection committee "takes into account margin of wins but I'm not gonna pass on giving my guys the chance to play to try to bolster our NET. I want a happy locker room. I ask too much of these guys in practice every day to not get them into games when I have the chance."

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