Yep for anyone who is not aware, that’s why 2 game tournaments usually have 2 “main-land games” that effectively just buy games that are technically associated with the tournament.
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3 game tournaments can also have “mainland games” like Maui where that phrase comes from. I’m not sure if they are actually exempt or just contracted for teams to make things easier.
Indiana’s schedules of late have left A LOT to be desired, dating back to Archie and I don’t think they played anybody of note last year either.
I will buy stock on top 10 (5???) Indiana to crash and burn after fattening up on non-con creampuffs.
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They have Arizona and Kansas this year. If they add a solid top 50 RPI team and the ACC challenge it may end being a decent non conference schedule
Two Rutgers-adjacent notes.
One, Caleb McConnell as the 14th best player in college basketball is the sort of statement I would expect from someone who is begging his bosses to let him stop writing these pieces and focus on TV. Just completely disconnected from reality.
Two, if you think Indiana’s schedule is bad you might not want to look at Rutgers. Us and Indiana are the only B10 teams not playing a neutral site tournament and at least the Hoosiers are playing Arizona and Kansas, plus they’ll get a premier ACC team and may also be selected for the Gavitt Games.
Rutgers, on the other hand, currently has games scheduled against Sacred Heart, Columbia, Bucknell, Rider, UMass Lowell, and Coppin State. We’ll play Seton Hall and probably like Georgia Tech or Boston College in the ACC challenge, and we won’t be in the Gavitt Games. Just pure trash. It’s like Pikiell’s contract has a bigger bonus for hitting 20 wins than for making the NCAA tournament.
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And if history is a guide, Rutgers will lose to at least one of those bottom feeders that make up said bottom 1% non-conference slate.
I appreciate your candidness in wanting Rutgers to schedule better in the non-conference. If they had done so last season, they likely aren’t sweating it out in the first four.
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Yes, but then they’d have to actually win those games.
Incidentally, same reason their baseball team got snubbed from the tournament. Maybe they will evolve.
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When I heard someone rattle off the total ineptitude of the Rutgers baseball program when complimenting them on their season prior to getting snubbed…it reminded me again of how illogical it was to bring them into the conference. They literally add no value to the B10 athletically. Mediocre basketball is all we’ve gotten out of their AD in all this time.
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Maryland meanwhile has the most B1G championships since joining. I am staunchly pro-Maryland
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I’m going to have to disagree with you here- Rutgers football has brought us such hilarious moments as 78-0 and “that time they actually beat us cuz lol Hoke”- great entertainment value!
Rutgers men’s lacrosse team made the final four! 
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Rutgers basketball has been awesome, you take that back.
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Take your NY area cable money and be happy.
I’ll spare everyone the long version of my rant but the short version is: Of course Rutgers was horribly inept operating on an AAC budget against Big Ten teams.
In the past four seasons Rutgers has had two individual wrestling national champions, a lacrosse final four, three* NCAA tournament appearances, two women’s appearances, a women’s soccer final four, and, technically, a bowl game. The field hockey team was top 5 and won the conference tournament. Baseball is getting itself up off the mat. The women’s crew team is apparently decent? We’re sending three T&F members to nationals. The dude who won all the national golfer of the year awards this year from Oklahoma played his first four seasons at Rutgers. I’m stretching here but “the entire Rutgers athletic department is a joke” is an outdated argument at this point.
I mean, we have the 14th best player in college basketball for crying out loud.
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To be fair, Rutgers just earned a regular season championship in women’s soccer and made the final four (their second since 2015); earned the B1G tournament title and overall number one seed in the NCAA tournament in field hockey; had a pretty good men’s soccer season in the coach’s first normal season (hired fall 2019); had a top 20 wrestling team; had a top 20 rowing team; had a final four men’s lacrosse team; women’s lacrosse (top 20 nationally), men’s lacrosse and baseball team all made the B1G tournament final. Plus the bball tournament appearance and top four finish. Ultimately, yeah that’s a lot of Olympic sports but saying Rutgers is mediocre athletically isn’t entirely true.
Now the non-con bball schedule….I’ll be the first to admit it’s not great. The one year we were set to have a decent non con was 2020 and we all know how that went. I’d love to add one or two power 5s to the beginning of the schedule but Pike seems stuck in his ways. Or the AD just wants the pocket change for the tickets to the games. Either way, it’s not doing the team any favors come Selection Sunday.
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Uh oh, there’s two of us now. Yesterday it was just me. If my projections are are accurate, this site will be ruhoops.com by the time the season tips off.
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I’ve actually been lurking for two or three years now mostly because I liked listening to the Moving Screen podcast. I’ll probably be retreating back to the shadows now lol. I come in peace 
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it’s that dreaded moving screen
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Butros dying for a moving screen
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