2024-2025 Schedule

[GoBearcats31]

The entire UC Non-Con is now out.

https://gobearcats.com/news/2024/8/2...announced.aspx

The last non-con game added was Alabama State the day before Thanksgiving -- naturally, a team outside the top 300 in Ken Pom last year

[leeraymond]

The last non-con game added was Alabama State the day before Thanksgiving -- naturally, a team outside the top 300 in Ken Pom last year

Outside of the Ken Pom 300 last year, huh? Look, this is NOT meant to show any disrespect to Alabama State (310) and Arkansas Pine Bluff (331) basketball. However, why does Miller schedule these types of teams when he has the caliber of players that he has? How in the world can UC basketball prepare itself to play in the BIG 12 by playing 33% of its non-conference games against cupcakes? Does Miller not believe in his players? Does he not believe in his coaching? Miller has put together a non-conference schedule where 72.7 percent of the teams are outside of the top 115 (Ken Pom) from last season.

Clearly Miller is putting all of his basketball eggs in the BIG 12 basket. In other words, UC will either win enough games in the BIG 12 to make the NCAAs or it won't. This is understandable given the strength of the BIG 12. My question is, with the relative weakness of the non-conference schedule, will UC be battle tested enough to win enough games in the BIG 12 to get to the NCAA Tournament? That is my primary concern with the non-conference schedule. We will see if Miller's strategy plays out.

[Lobot]

This is pretty much the same type of non conference schedule that got Cronin to the NCAA several years in a row and that is definitely the goal this year.

TL;DR version, Scheduling is harder than you think it is.

Would I like to see bigger names in 5/3? Sure, but I think it's harder to schedule teams in basketball when you don't know what your roster is going to look like year in and year out in the portal. You also have take games/teams that are actually available on date X. A lot of these non-conference games get put together at the last minute between seasons like the Alabama St. game. It's not at all like football where things get scheduled 5 and 10 years ahead of time.

The Big XII is a gauntlet. SOS will come from the conference for sure.

Just for arguments sake here's Houston's non-conference schedule. It's better than ours because of a neutral site against Auburn and an MTE they're playing in. Outside of that, it's full of directional schools and MAC teams.

https://uhcougars.com/sports/mens-basketball/schedule

I went to look up Baylor and they aren't even done with it yet. They have a MTE and a game at UConn in the Big 12-Big East Battle. Nothing else is finalized.

Here's BYU just for fun. MTE and Big 12-Big East game and not much else going on there.

https://byucougars.com/sports/mens-basketball/schedule

[GoBearcats31]

Jeff Goodman points out on Twitter/X that the following games will all be played on December 14, the day of the Crosstown Shootout:
- UConn vs. Gonzaga (MSG)
- Creighton at Alabama
- Louisville at Kentucky
- Xavier at Cincinnati
- Tennessee at Illinois
- UCLA vs. Arizona (Phoenix)
- Texas A&M vs. Purdue (Indy)
- OSU vs. Auburn (Atlanta)
- Oklahoma / Oklahoma State

I miss when UC/XU was a more nationally featured game (even though everyone ranks it among the top rivalries). Hopefully will still command a prominent TV slot with it presumably being on an ESPN network + some of those games surely will be on FOX, CBS, etc.

[bearcatbret]

I miss the days of the "Bearcat Bounce" on the local Fox channel.

[sirthought]

I miss when UC/XU was a more nationally featured game (even though everyone ranks it among the top rivalries). Hopefully will still command a prominent TV slot with it presumably being on an ESPN network + some of those games surely will be on FOX, CBS, etc.

That was also when UC was highly ranked top 25. I'm sure if we're regularly in that category again, we'll get the media placement. TV will always pick bigger media market matchups and highly ranked teams. Cincinnati is a medium sized media market, so getting a ranked team only improves our chances of must-see viewing among casual fans.

[Lobot]

I'm no expert on TV ratings but one of the things I've observed over the years doing this is that Cincinnati does very well in ratings metrics in most sports. Whether it be pro sports or college, ratings inside Cincinnati media market are usually higher than average for a market it's size. That can be FCC and US soccer , Bearcats , Bengals, Reds , Olympic sports etc. If there's a stat on viewers ratio to market size, I'd like to see it because based on the metrics that I have seen from national sources, Cincy is above average on sports viewership regardless of market size.

Paging bearcattom ?