2014-15 Schedule released

[tpenter]

The website released the schedule for the year and although they have strengthened the non-conference portion of the schedule quite a bit, they certainly didn't do much to generate any kind of on-campus atmosphere this season.

The first home game isn't until December 14th when students are in the middle of exams and then the next five home games take place while the students are on holiday break! If they were even planning on being there at all, the band and cheerleaders and dance squad would be entertaining a lot more empty seats than even they are used to.

The November schedule has them in Chattanooga, out to California and back to Florida before an early December bus trip to Providence. A very uninviting trip to St. Joes, then the string of six straight at home before the full Big East schedule kicks in.

The three-day Florida tournament has us with a slight chance to play UConn on day three, but I am sure Geno will have his way to avoid that happening.

A solid core returning with some promising help arriving, but some big shoes to fill in replacing Devon's points, assists and defense.

Full schedule of dates and times on the Nova website.

 

[It's Just Me]

Tpenter???

Hmmmmm... that name sounds familiar...
There was a guy with that name here a couple years ago...
Any relation???

He was quite a good poster and has been sorely missed...
Cool if he is back for good

 

[ccoyer]

RPI is plenty good on this schedule, especially if the team ends up playing UConn in the Florida final.

I think 20 wins and a top 3 in BE play will definitely get a NCAA bid this year.

I'm looking forward to the season, as I really need a WBB fix.

 

[tpenter]

Hey IJM -

Not liking the move to the Friday night, Sunday afternoon Big East scheduling - not sure I can get the wife out at all this year. The away schedule doesn't work out too well either for getting to many of those.

The Big East portion of the schedule might be easier than the non-conference schedule this year. When was the last time that happened to Nova? A lot of well-coached and talented teams on our schedule will put a lot of stress on us this year.

See ya there!

TP

 

[tpenter]

cc - Not sure I agree that 20 wins in the regular seasons would be enough. Assuming we go 14-4 in the Big East to get third place, we would still need to go 6-6 in the tough non-conference schedule just to finish 20-10 and have to win one game in the B-E tournament to finish at 21-11. There will be an awful lot of good teams in power conferences with as few or fewer losses than 11 with higher RPI's that will probably get a lot more consideration for one of the 32 at-large spots. I think the Big East will need a much better overall season to place more than 2 in the NCAA tournament.

To only have four losses in the Big East would require that we either go 3-3 against DePaul, St. Johns and Creighton and only take one loss elsewhere, or go 2-4 with the top three and sweep everyone else. That would leave us with needing 6 wins in the non-conference just to get to 20, with the pool of teams to get the six wins including U-T Chattagnoga, South Florida, Cal-State Fullerton (in CA), Arizona State, GA Tech/Wisc. Green Bay, St. Joes (away), Penn (away), Temple (home), Lasalle (home), Sacret Heart and North Carolina State (both home). The 12th non-conference opponent would come from a pool of UConn, Vanderbilt, College of Charleston and Minnesota in the final of the three-day tournament in Florida. A pretty tall order.

Despite a good RPI, I think with only 20 wins we would need to win a least three games against top-50 RPI teams and take no losses against poor RPI teams. Maybe we can gel early in the season, get the jump on some of these teams that haven't played us in a long time and will need some time to figure out what we are doing and hold on to win. Our lack of depth and heighth at the forward positions will hurt us against the big boys, so we would need to play some almost perfect games to pull off any big upsets.

Two months between NBA finals and season start is a long wait to get our WBB fix. Missing the big name teams and players from our schedule in the old Big East. Seeing all of the WNBA players in the finals that played against Nova from year to year was a reminder of what once was and is no more. Still think that Taurasi is the best I have ever seen when crunch time comes (except against Nova!) and she continues to amaze me even at 32 years old.

Hope the ladies prove me wrong and have a wonderful season, ending up with a trip to the big dance. Certainly a much more challenging schedule for them this year and a chance to punch their own ticket that wasn't available to them last year due to the weak schedule. Win the Big East tournament and all of the above nay-saying is moot and we would be in regardless of the regular season record..

 

[ccoyer]

Hey TP - This team might have a bit shorter bench than past seasons, but there is plenty of prime time experience amongst the team. They will need to stay healthy.

I think they will be OK. I see at least 7-8 non conference wins there without being unrealistic. And, unless we get UConn at Thanksgiving, there is no one on the schedule that we can't realistically beat. If we get UConn, that means we will have already beaten Arizona St and probably Ga Tech.

I would take that....

 

[novabball2]

how does losing to Uconn 85-34 help the RPI?

 

[tpenter]

Part of the RPI formula is strength of schedule. You could go 28-0 against the Little Sisters of the Poor and still have a 250+ RPI. Kind of like Brigham Young going 11-0 in football and wondering why they don't get to play for the national championship. Just having UConn on our schedule would probably drop our RPI by at least 5 spots, more if we were competitive with them.

When we played the old Big East schedule with UConn, Notre Dame, West Virginia, Rutgers, St. Johns, DePaul, Louisville, etc. we always had a low 75- RPI even without beating a single one of those teams. To get into the top 25 RPI you actually have to beat some low RPI teams. With a high RPI last year off of the diluted Big East and a medicore non-conference schedule, we had virtually no chance of getting an NCAA bid without getting to the Big East title game and putting on a good showing. Also figured into the RPI are "good wins = beating a top 50 RPI" and "bad losses = losing to a 100 or higher RPI". All subjective, but wins alone are not good enough to get into the big dance. You have to plan more than a nominal amount of named teams and actually win a few against those same teams.

Like it or not, the RPI is an integral part of the NCAA tournament committee basis for team selection, no different than the men's tournament. Pretty tough to get in with an RPI outside of the top 50, since a number of conference champions will take some of the 64 spots but have a much poorer RPI than an at large team would need.

 

[novabball2]

im a big fan of Harry and Joe but its hard to enjoy womens hoops when you know the outcome before the season starts. Uconn will win it easily again. they have a killer schedule and, like last year, will win every game by 30. makes for a great season!

 

[tpenter]

No argument there, UConn is loaded top to bottom. I love to see UConn go down, so each one of them is memorable. Nothing finer than to be on hand at the 2011 and 2012 semis to see Notre Dame take them down, and just as disappointing the past two years to see them fail. Would have loved to have seen Awchunwa be able to play in the finals this year, but I am not sure they would have been able to pull it off even with her. Of course the two Nova wins over UConn in their 2003 and 2004 national championship years were the all-time memory bank winners.

Nevertheless, I enjoy watching UConn most of the time. Storrs and to a lesser extent, Hartford Civic Center, are great places to enjoy the atmosphere of what we all wish we had. They have great fans who support their team and have a lot of respect and admiration for what those girls do on and off the court even long after they have graduated. Not their fault that not many teams have been able to build a program that can compete with them on a regular basis.

 

[ccoyer]

I see that the BE has published a schedule of games being broadcast on their own digital network (BEDN).

Here's a link to the schedule of games covered:

http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/bige/sports/w-baskbl/auto_pdf/2014-15/misc_non_event/WBBbroadcastSched.pdf

Cheers

 

[It's Just Me]

Here is a highlighted copy if anyone wants to print it...

http://www.imagebam.com/image/f99629352405042

Later...

GO NOVA!

This post was edited on 9/20 11:54 PM by It's Just Me