Future Schedules

[JayPak]

That's a false dichotomy. The fans you call hypocrites don't have to say they were wrong for decades. They were right in the past and now. It's true that when Creighton was a mid-major, power schools were afraid to schedule us home-and-home and deserved to be called out on it. It's also true that Creighton now has little to gain by scheduling home-and-homes with mid-majors, in general. (An exception might be a homecoming games like going to North Texas so Chatman can play in front of family, or playing at a decent North Carolina mid-major like Wilmington if we intend to continue recruiting heavily there.)

IMO we don't need to play at Baxter, ever. The only people that game would be good for would be the 3000 UNO fans and scalpers. Nor do we need to pay UNO to play us, ever. Why do that when they don't have any travel expenses to cover? If they want to play us so badly, they'll do it for free, at the Clink. Their 3000 fans should have no trouble buying the 3000 non-season ticket holder seats that will be available. The MTE idea is a good one, but why bring in a power conference school if there's a chance Creighton would have to play UNO instead? My MTE would be a tripleheader with Creighton, Nebraska, and UNO, along with 3 outside power schools. Play 3 consecutive days and rotate outside opponents.

[vivid_dude]

They were right in the past and now.

You can't have two polar opposite views on the subject of power conference schools scheduling mid-major competition and be right in both instances. The only thing that changed was Creighton's circumstances. The argument didn't change.

Your second paragraph is the exact argument made against Creighton for many, many years, which many, many Creighton fans attacked as those schools being "scared." No. Maybe they were just smart, like Creighton should be now.

I can't understand how you don't see that as hypocrisy, or at the very least, blaring inconsistency.

[JayPak]

Fans of strong mid-major conferences are correct that power schools are afraid of playing them at home. Fans of power schools are correct that it's not smart or in the power schools' interest to play those games. I don't think either fan base is wrong or hypocrital. As you said, the only thing that's changed is Creighton changing status. It's not necessary to call anyone hypocritical.

[LynchMob]

I've only been a Creighton fan since about 2006 so others have been here far longer. However, I don't remember a lot of people calling out specific schools for refusing to schedule us, it was more of a general frustration and begrudging acceptance of the plight of a mid-major, especially one without a reputation strong enough to bypass the usual concerns of future scheduling. Nobody can really blame a power school for being, essentially, afraid to schedule a game against a hot mid-major. There isn't much to gain.

I'm obviously on the record saying I would like to see Creighton schedule UNO, but if the coaches don't think that makes sense, I support their right to make that call. We're a private school, one of the nice things about that is we can do whatever the f*&% we want. The calls to schedule UNO are only going to get louder, though, and I agree with wildjays and BluffsBluejayGal that it will help build up the sport in the city, which should always be a secondary goal for CU.

[Trifecta]

They were right in the past and now.

You can't have two polar opposite views on the subject of power conference schools scheduling mid-major competition and be right in both instances. The only thing that changed was Creighton's circumstances. The argument didn't change.

Your second paragraph is the exact argument made against Creighton for many, many years, which many, many Creighton fans attacked as those schools being "scared." No. Maybe they were just smart, like Creighton should be now.

I can't understand how you don't see that as hypocrisy, or at the very least, blaring inconsistency.

It was frustrating to not get quality opponents while in the Valley. Now, part of that was our own fault as Dana, Mac, Ras, et all refused to go on the road to be somebody's buy game. I half-heartedly agreed with it then and I agree with it now. But I don't think it's hypocritical to now realize that the disadvantages we faced as a MVC school now are advantages we hold as a Big East school.

I am 100% in favor of scheduling quality mid-majors. Now if you tell me we can schedule home-and-home series with Wichita, UNI, St. Mary's, BYU, St. Joes, San Diego St., VCU, Dayton, etc. then I'm 100% on board. But we don't owe Drake or Bradley any favors. Those are all schools that are comparable to MVC-era Creighton, and can't (nor should be) bought.

For some reason, this argument keeps coming up through the lens of "let's play UNO!" Why would we possibly want to do that, except maybe as a buy game? Even Nick Bahe has been on record that there is no reason to play that at all right now--I won't go that far, but to suggest we play them at Baxter is laughable. Is UNL going to go to Baxter any time soon? Nope.

What people forget when throwing out UNO or mid- to low-tier MVC schools as possible opponents is that none of these schools on are the the level Creighton was when we were all bitching about lack of quality opponents. If UNO starts winning the Summit regular season/tournament title regularly, becomes a mainstay in March, and can manage to have sub 100 RPI rankings each year then lets call them up. UNL could play us because they were looking up at us in terms of RPI and just being a generally better basketball program. A loss to Creighton was rarely an albatross to Power conference teams in March. Until that time....

I don't think it's hypocrisy to realize our turn of fortune. Now I admit some posters are coming off a bit hypocritical. But I think a lot people realize that facts are facts--that doesn't make you a hypocrite for realizing it. It used to piss me off to no end that we couldn't get Big 12 or Big Ten teams to play us while in the MVC, but I understood why we didn't. We refused to go play one-and done games so we lamented our situation that KU or Michigan St. didn't play us.

We have moved up in the world. We can get home and homes with ASU, OU, Cal. But guess what? We still aren't going to be getting home and home series started with UNC, Duke, Arizona, Kentucky, or KU. Still the same situation...they don't need to play us because they can all play each other in MTEs. Should we all starting whining that they should throw us a bone when it makes no sense to do so? If CU starts winning the Big East and can make noise in March, then maybe we'll get that call.

[TBC Alum]

Viv
I think it's an understanding now of what can be gained and lost with the non-con games. In the past, we had zero room for clunker performances because the quality win opportunities were so few and far between.

Contrast that to now where we have many opportunities for quality wins. And what was the chorus from both inside and outside the fan base as we crept closer to the NCAA bubble? Look at that non-con schedule - what a drag!

I suspect Ras received some input about which scheduling factors are important in NCAA selection and seeding.

[LJay]

Creighton was a D1 program since horse and buggy days. UN-Omaha has been a full D1 member for one year.

We're having this argument? Really?

Must be a bunch of socialists going to school over there, gimme, gimme, gimme.

Earn it.

[gtmoBlue]

Creighton has a history of playing a "city championship" game with Omaha U/UNO. Played them annually in the 60's - early 80's at the Civic. CU the mid major vs UNO the Div II school. One game a year will not hurt our precious RPI...6 MEAC/SWAC games are the killer. Play the Mavs.

[vivid_dude]

Just to tie a nice little bow on this conversation and my position.

I agree with a lot of what people are saying about how Creighton should schedule in 2016. I absolutely don't think we should schedule mid-majors if there are better options available for almost all the reasons stated in this thread. My contention is that in the MVC days, a lot of Creighton fans shouldn't have been so critical of the power conference teams. They weren't scared. They were smart. Just like we will not be scared now if we don't want to schedule Drake or UNO. We will be smart as well.

I'm not bashing people for their opinion now. I'm bashing them for their opinions from 1995-2014. It was clear to me, and many others, that the power conference position (which we now have) was perfectly reasonable, and not a product of fear, but rather intelligent scheduling.

Let me ask this question: if Wichita State or UNO fan bases went after Creighton for being SCARED to play them, would we say "yep, we're scared." Of course not. Therein lies the hypocrisy, or inconsistency, in my opinion. Because it's the same thing many Jay fans stated for a long time, and believed with all their heart. Were they wrong then or wrong now, when WSU implores the same attack?

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter. The best response to this pointless criticism of mine is "Who gives a shit? We were mid-major then, so we wanted to scheduled up. We're now in a power conference, so screw those little guys. Hell yes, I'm a hypocrite, and I don't care." In my opinion, that's more credible and honest than some of these other explanations and justifications.

I don't care much, to be honest. I just find it curious more than anything, especially since a lot of people seem to deny there's anything inconsistent with the two positions. Oh well. Onward and upward...

[HandDownManDown]

Lol@ vivid

We had this exact convo a year ago.

I said exactly what you state one should say (in your second to last paragraph) and you about had a stroke over the hypocrisy anyway!