Admin on Detroit board posted he’s heard the Titans may be visiting here.

Am I horrible person for hoping that's not true? From what I remember they had a horrible season last year...I know we go back 100 years with those guys...but games like that just kill the SOS and at-large bid chances. And besides the 50 old timers that would like to see that game for nostalgic purposes...I don't think anyone else could care less about seeing that game in person? Am I wrong?

Brot disagrees with rob---We skould welcome the Titans !! IT is all about LOYALTY for one thing. One of the many reasons I despise MARQ is that they dropped us for Exactly the same reason he states--Also DETROIT are a fellow JESUIT school. We would be better for it IF we played them.

Would rather have Detroit than Norfolk State, UMKC, etc. But we are already locked in with those teams and do not have room for another RPI drag in our non-conf schedule. This would not be a good move.

I completely agree with GoRambler. I realize that we're going to have to play some low RPI teams... and I would rather play Detroit or UWM than some of these other lower tier teams.

Brot I understand where you are coming from with your stance... But at some point you have to do what's best for the program. It's like me getting mad at my neighbor (who's lived there for the past 20 years) for selling his house and moving to a different city with better schools, lower crime and better jobs. Am I sad to see him leave, yes... do I wish he'd stay forever, yes... But is that move the best thing for his family? YES. And once he moves... should he move back? NO!!!

I guess i just don't hold anything against schools that we use to play a lot... because for the past 30 years we've been horrible! Playing us provided very very little upside. Spending a day or two in Chicago was probably the ONLY reason to schedule us.

Disagree. I am happy to give the Titans a game. Jesuit school, old conference ties, close proximity to us.... and personally, I always liked their fans. If Detroit had the success we have had, we would want to play them... we were bad for so long, now that we are on the rise, I don’t want us to look “uppidy,” like we are too good to play certain teams who we, at one time, used to play consistently. I don’t like the idea of us being upset that Marquette and Northwestern won’t give us a game, while simultaneously saying we are too good to play Detroit.

we should schedule any D1 Jesuit school that wants a game. And then call on the X's BC's, Zag's Hoya's to do the same with us. Be the change you want to see.

I get that argument of not wanting to treat teams like Detroit the way we were treated by Marquette and others, but at the end of the day it's a finite schedule of games we can play and a decision has to be made. I would love to open up something with Detroit once our contracts with schools like UWM, UMKC, etc.. are up, but until then we can't have it both ways. You have to choose to be the school that doesn't try and forget it's roots and play these teams, or you choose to try and improve your RPI enough to get at large bids. I think that's the bottom line

Of course we should play Detroit, and not just for "loyalty" to the Midwestern Collegiate Conference, or because they're Jesuit (although that certainly is a plus). It's not like they're crowding out all the home games we would have had with Marquette, St. Louis, Butler, Xavier, and Dayton. If we play Detroit instead of a second game against a non-D1 team, it's already a big plus in my opinion. Detroit is not likely to be as bad next year as they were last season. And I'm sure we won't be scheduling Detroit in a way that cancels out potential matchups with other teams that might be more beneficial to schedule strength.

I understand that we want the best possible schedule, and that right now Detroit doesn't look like a great add on, but I'm going to give a couple reasons why this might be a good addition even when you take out the Jesuit connection.

Their coach made a comment recently about wanting to play a really tough road schedule. He did this at Texas Southern and even though he played in the SWAC their RPI in the last 5 years were 245, 125, 190, 105, 227. That's an average of 178.4. So while that's not the best in the world he's put together stronger RPIs that average is better than 7 of OOC opponents last year. If he can turn Detroit around then we might be playing a team that is mid or low 100s for an RPI, which would be a decent game.

Also, with a new coach it's not a bad idea to schedule them early. If their coach makes Detroit the best team in the Horizon in the next 5 years, and they get good enough that a lot more teams want to play them, we'll have the relationship with them and hopefully they'd stay loyal to us after we scheduled them in the 1st year of the new coach even with more and better options.

For the record, I'm high on their coach, and think he could be a great hire that makes Detroit a lot better than they have been the past few years. If I didn't like him, I might not be as eager about this potential match-up. But in a few years this could turn into a pretty good series.