Everyone stresses over the schedule. Last year we had 2 quad 1 games, lost them both, along with some bad losses in quad 3 or 4. Our Net will be just fine as long as we beat the teams in non-con by double digits. We do that and have a good A-10 like last year and the Net and the KenPom will take of itself.

Well, the schedule is out, and it's pretty rough.

We start out with maybe the three toughest games of the season in our first five: we begin with VCU at home, on Jan. 4, when the students aren't on campus. Our third game is at St. Joe's, and our fifth game is at Dayton. At LaSalle and home vs. Rhody are sandwiched in there. We'll be pretty lucky if we can somehow start the season 3-2, but it's more likely we'll be under .500 five games in.

Games 6-11 are a bit easier-- home against Fordham, St. Joe's and the Bonnies; road games at Mason, Duquesne and Richmond. We'll have to go on a streak during these games in the middle to get back into contention.

Games 12 through 18 are make-or-break, starting with a home game vs. St. Louis on ESPN for Valentines Day. The next Friday (Feb. 21) we're back on ESPN again hosting Dayton. On March 1, we have a tough game at St. Lou. We close out the regular season with the last ever A-10 game at UMass.