This morning the Big 12 and the Big East officially announced an annual challenge that will give each school one game per year against a team in the opposing conference. Since 2018 is a year that begins in “201” instead of “200” it will not surprise you to learn that this development is not good for UConn. Why does a challenge between two conferences the Huskies are not in affect the Huskies? Because UConn’s out-of-conference scheduling is about to get more difficult. Not impossible, but definitely harder.
College Basketball Schedules are Changing Nationally
This season the Big Ten has adopted a 20-game conference schedule, up from 18 last year. Next year the ACC will do the same. And reports indicate that both the SEC and the Pac-12 are considering doing the same. The Big 12 and the Big East have 10 members each, so they max out with 18-game round-robin schedules, but in addition to the pact announced today, eight Big East teams already plays a Big Ten team each year as part of the Gavitt Games, and each Big 12 team faces an SEC foe in the Big 12/SEC challenge, so those two leagues functionally have 20 high-level games built in for their members.
Up to this point, out-of-conference scheduling for teams in the six best conferences (the football P5 and the Big East) generally has followed a clean formula: Teams play seven or so home games against non-power conference teams, play two or three power conference teams in an early-season tournament, and schedule two or three games directly against power conference schools.
Here, for instance, is Texas’s schedule this year:
- Eastern Illinois
- Arkansas (neutral)
- Louisiana Monroe
- The Citadel
- Continental Tire Las Vegas Invitational (Tournament)
- Radford
- VCU
- Grand Canyon
- Providence
- UT Arlington
- Georgia (SEC Challenge)
The two bolded games are the directly scheduled out-of-conference games, but with the new agreement starting in 2019, that Providence game is going to be replaced by a mandated game against a Big East team. Teams in the other power conferences will face similar issues. With two fewer out-of-conference games to go around, are coaches and schools going to want to pass up easy wins and guaranteed home-game revenue by replacing a buy game against Louisiana Monroe with a home-and-home against a school like UConn? Maybe, but I am skeptical. After all, the new conference games or challenge games are already bringing in a power opponent, and adding an extra road game to the slate. In fact, in announcing the deal with the Big East, Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said that it was motivated by the difficulty in scheduling competitive non-conference games now that the big conferences have shifted to 20-game schedules.
How This Affects UConn
So, UConn. As you may be aware, UConn plays in the American, which despite having a handful of decent-to-good teams, also has a lot of bad teams, and as a member of the conference, UConn is required to play those bad teams, hurting its strength of schedule and theoretical NCAA tournament resume. To combat this, UConn has spent the last several years using a combination of early-season tournaments and aggressive out-of-conference scheduling to play teams in power conferences (and Gonzaga). For the past four years UConn’s schedules have followed a predictable pattern: two or three games against power conference schools in a tournament, and three or four games against power schools that were directly scheduled. But there has been a distinct shift. See if you can spot it:
- 2016 — Seven Games
- Tournament vs. Michigan, Syracuse, and Gonzaga
- One-off neutral site game vs. Maryland
- Ohio State (first game of home-and-home)
- Georgetown (first game of home-and-home)
- Texas (second game of home-and-home)
- 2017 — Six Games
- Tournament vs. Oklahoma State and Oregon (this was the Maui Invitational and UConn would have had a third power game but played Chaminade instead)
- One-off neutral site game vs. Syracuse
- Ohio State (second game of home-and-home)
- Auburn (first game of home-and-home)
- Georgetown (second game of home-and-home)
- 2018 — Seven Games
- Tournament vs. Oregon, Michigan State, and Arkansas
- One-off neutral site game vs. Syracuse
- Arizona (first game of home-and-home)
- Auburn (second game of home-and-home)
- Villanova (first game of three-game series including home-and-home)
- 2019 — Five Games
- Tournament vs. Syracuse and one of Oregon/Iowa
- One-off neutral site game vs. Florida State
- Arizona (second game of home-and-home)
- Villanova (second game of three-game series including home-and-home)
See it? The home-and-home games are drying up. To put a finer point on it, in the post-Big East seasons of 2014-2018 UConn scheduled three home-and-home series, plus a one-off neutral site game every year. This year that drops to two home-and-homes. Outside of the final game of the Villanova series next year, nothing is on the docket for the Huskies, though it is perfectly reasonable to expect more will be announced. A one-year drop does not make a trend, and going from three home-and-homes a year to two home-and-homes is not a fatal change, but at the same time, the drop is is exactly what you would expect to see based on the national scheduling landscape. If UConn puts together a loaded schedule for next year and this is just a one year blip, I will be elated, but it is going to harder than it was in prior years.
Am I Incredibly Negative and Overreacting?
Well, I am certainly negative. Am I overreacting? Maybe! I hope so. But the numbers are not great. All Big Ten teams play in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, and eight of them are in the Gavitt Games each year, meaning they have 22 power games locked in before early-season tournaments. Starting next year ACC teams will have 21, thanks to their schedule expansion and the same ACC/Big Ten Challenge. If the SEC expands its schedule to 20 conference games, most schools there will have 21 as well. Big 12 and most Big East teams are now looking at 20 games. There are simply fewer games to go around, and, as of now, UConn does not have much locked up for the future. Nor does it have good options. The AAC does not have a conference challenge — maybe it could work something out with the PAC-12, or try to set up games against the best A-10 teams — but we have not heard anything to that effect. And expanding the AAC schedule would hurt, not help, because UConn is already playing the best teams in the league twice, and a second matchup against the ECUs or USFs of the world would only dilute UConn’s resume.
So what then? Well, the Huskies are on their own. Message board rumors would have you believe they are trying to work something out with Providence. That would be great. So would be continuing UConn’s seemingly annual matchups with Syracuse at MSG. Calling Gonzaga — a school whose scheduling will get similarly squeezed — probably makes sense, too. Winning will also help, as schools will be more likely to sign up for UConn if UConn looks to be a marquee opponent. UConn is not doomed, and maybe they will be fine. But once again life has gotten harder for UConn, and the margin for error has gotten thinner. Like so many things UConn athletics in 2018, it is not great.
