ericd7633
Well-Known Member
The B4A might be pretty interesting. Purdue, W. Kentucky, SMU, N. Iowa, Tennessee, NC State and some others are all playing, so we'll see.
Looks like AZ's non-con for next year in addition to the B4A will be NAU, UMBC, CSU Bakersfield, LBSU, @UNLV, TAMU (Neutral site in PHX after last year's neutral site in Houston), Bama, @UNM, NDSU, and UCONN. If AZ can play Nova and some other quality teams in the B4A it should shape up as a decent OOC. Not very many ranked teams but hopefully a bunch of top 50s in there.
As far as the Pac is concerned, I'm hoping for more than a 4-bid conference, but we'll see. I think AZ only plays the Socal schools once this season, and in McKale.
I think our H&H with the Zags starts up again in 2018.
That is a really strong field for the B4A. Purdue, WKU and SMU should all be tournament teams next season along with obviously Zona and Nova. And Tennessee/N.Iowa should be much improved. N Iowa is probably the favorites to win the MVC.
I really like the rest of the schedule for Zona. Sets up well to have a really good Non Conf. SOS. When looking at an OOC schedule I always look for the "gimme games" such as an NAU, UMBC, CSU Bakersfield, LBSU, NDSU. The good thing for Zona is teams like UMBC, CSU Bakersfield and NDSU all have a great shot to win their respective conferences, so that's likely a team to end up in the 100-150 RPI range, if not better, for example CSU Bakersfield had an RPI of 77 last year, and it's a game Zona has no real threat to lose. NDSU finished 2nd in the Summit with an RPI of 109. UMBC returns 6 of their top 7 from a 21 win team. Northern Arizona appears to be the only RPI "albatross" on the schedule, which is a great thing. There's a realistic shot that every opponent Zona faces next year finishes with a top 150 RPI except NAU. And obviously teams like Bama, UNLV, TAMU, B4A opponents will finish much higher.
I don't see anyway that type of schedule doesn't produce a top 10 OOC SOS next year.