MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin -- When you're assembling a non-conference schedule, you have to take a few things into consideration. Are there rivalry games we play every year? What multi-team event are we participating in? Do we have a home-and-home contract to honor? Do we have an inexperienced team that needs a chance to grow together? Do we have an experienced team that needs to be challenged?All of those questions have to get answered, and the schedule you assemble has to relate to those answers. That, kids, is how you end up scheduling Jackson State and Grambling State.
I don't have a lot of rules when it comes to non-conference games, although most of that has to do with the fact that Deputy Athletic Director Mike Broeker doesn't let me pick the games. But if I was allowed to pick the games, one of my rules would be "Don't schedule teams from the SWAC." Rule #2 would definitely be "Don't schedule two teams from the SWAC." That's what we have here, though. Grambling State hasn't finished in the top 300 of the KenPom rankings since 2005, and that year they were #299 out of 330. Jackson State isn't much better, finishing below 300 on KenPom each of the past four seasons and carrying a peak KenPom era final ranking of 249 back in 2007 when they won the SWAC's auto-bid. They were slotted as a 16 seed in the tournament and got blasted by 43 points by defending champion Florida.
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