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.
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