Yet Again, A Terrible Non-Conference Schedule
I’ve been a fan since the Brian Gregory era. I’ve seen a lot of different things, but one thing I don’t think I’ve ever seen is a legitimately strong non-conference schedule. It’s continued through three coaches and four Athletic Directors. And now another year of uninspired scheduling that will hurt Georgia Tech’s chances at the tournament if they’re good enough to be on the bubble and suppress ticket sales.
The season begins with welcoming West Georgia for their first game as a D1 team. I love this. It should be an easy game to start the season, but it’s a nice thing for West Georgia to play close by and in a bigger stadium for their first game. Hopefully they bring some fans.
After that the “easy” games continue with home games against North Florida and Texas Southern. Neither of these games seem that interesting at first blush and a loss in either would hurt really bad.
Then the meat of the non-conference schedule begins. First they welcome Georgia to McCamish Pavilion. This is the first big test for the Jackets and this should be an evenly matched game. Damon Stoudamire lost to the Bulldogs in his first chance at it so he’ll be itching to get them this year. Following that is another home game against Cincinnati. This is a return game from when the Jackets got smoked by the Bearcats last year. Cincinnati looks even better this year so this will be a very tough one to pull out.
By this point in the season the Jackets should be 4-1 if they want to seriously compete for an NCAA Tournament bid. 3-2 wouldn’t be impossible to come back from, but it wouldn’t portend well.
Then the Jackets get a bit of a reprieve with the next two home games against Charleston Southern and Central Arkansas.
Then comes the next difficult stretch of the schedule with a road game against Oklahoma and a game against Northwestern in Milwaukee (these are sandwiched between a road game against UNC which will be previewed in the conference portion). The Oklahoma game is interesting as both teams feature prominent players that transferred from each other. GT’s big transfer this offseason is Javian McCollum from Oklahoma and one of Oklahoma’s best players is Jalon Moore who transferred last season from GT. This is the first road game of the season for the Jackets and it’s not an easy one although Oklahoma is a bit of an odd team. I think Porter Moser is a really good coach, but they struggled last year, there were rumors that he was unhappy, and a bunch of players transferred out. But then they got a solid transfer class so who knows. I’ll actually be at the Northwestern game in Milwaukee, but I’m mostly confused why it’s happening. I get that nearby neutral site games are the rage right now, but this is still odd and I can’t imagine this being that well attended. The Wildcats really seem to have turned a corner under Chris Collins and this should be a very competitive game.
The non-conference schedule ends with two more weak opponents in UMBC and Alabama A&M. Those games are sandwiched around a home game against Duke.
I do not love the non-conference schedule. We do have four games against solid major conference schools which is reasonable, but after that the single highest rated team is Charleston Southern at 238. Unless GT does really well to start the season this will be a major drag on their computer numbers. The only home games that will interest fans at all are Georgia and Cincinnati and there’s no early season tournament to get some more good games and excitement for the team. The ACC isn’t the powerhouse it once was so it doesn’t make sense to schedule easy to wait for the difficult conference schedule. One thing that does make sense in the schedule is that GT’s toughest two conference games (@UNC and home vs. Duke) are both in the middle of the non-conference schedule. So it does even things out a bit.
What games are you thinking of going to? How do you think the Jackets will fare against this slate?