No one knows yet if the 2020-21 college basketball season will start on time, be delayed or cancelled all together due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Until then, here are some out-of-conference games that have been scheduled:
11/14 at Dixie State
12/2 vs Dixie State
12/5 vs Portland
12/12 at Oregon State
12/20 at New Mexico
That's a nice little tournament similar to last year's trip to Arkansas State. It's not a particularly strong field look at last year's records: Aggies 14-18, IUPUI 7-25, Northeastern 17-16 and Tulane 12-18. It should be a fun trip to New Orleans for the team though...that is if we actually play ball this fall...
they Arkansas trio was a disappointment. I thought it was a possible 3 win event, and we settled for an OT win. Got us started in a hole. Hope we get off and running out of the gate
I'm a little surprised that we are traveling so far for 3 games against meh opponents. I remember about 5 years ago starting off with 3 games at Santa Clara (maybe the cable car classic), against SCU, Norther AZ, and Tenn st (I think). A few Bay Area Aggie fans showed up and the travel cost was light. I'm sure the coach has his reasons, but it seems like staying closer to home is more important this year than most.
I wonder if this is one of those early season trips that Les like to take his teams on. He feels strongly about doing trips like this in order for the players to face adversity together and bond with each other. When I spoke with him last year before the season he said that he wants to play SC, SF, St Mary's and Pacific often but they are less willing to schedule us.
Certainly makes sense in normal years to get out on a trip and start building those relationships. I just thought that this year we might be playing a little closer to home.
That New Orleans trip definitely sounds like it fits the bill of being a prime opportunity to give the guys a chance to spend several days together with no other distractions and grow as a team and family. All three of those games are certainly winnable on paper, but we all know how that goes. Living in Dallas, I'm looking forward to making the relatively short trip down to NOLA to take in those games. I'm just crossing my fingers that we don't see a resurgence of the virus and the season is able to proceed as normally as possible.
At the very least it's a placeholder. Wouldn't be surprised if there were more tournaments in the schedule in order to play the most games while minimizing trips.
I'm sure they'll play. More of a question whether or not spectators will be admitted. For the first half of the season my guess would be no..
I was reading that the money for the arena was provided by the late founder of Farmers' Insurance. Santa Clara is such a small school but with some crazy rich alumni.
I've only seen baseball there, but it's a top notch facility. You feel rich when you visit because of the swag. They seriously give away concert tickets at some games. The school information desk people are not very helpful though. Asked where the bookstore was- didn't know. It was closed anyway.
One thing I learned though- stay on the left side of campus and walk straight ahead until you pass the Bronco statue and leave the school entirely to find places to eat. I made the mistake of looking left and saw a building that looked like a bookstore from its entrance doors, so I started walking toward it...no, that was a girls dorm. Got a weird look but was able to reverse course before getting too close.
Here's the entire schedule. Home conference games on back. to back nights. I like getting Beach, UCSB and UH at home. At UCI will be tough on the road. Some very winnable OOC games.
I hope Nichols and Idaho State make the trip for Wednesday. If Hawaii decides to reinstate their quarantine rules for travelers, that will alter the BWC schedule.
My son said that you-dub really stinks this year. Don't know if that's based on any actual knowledge...he goes to Wazzu so he always says UW stinks. Regardless, it's a good win for UCR and the big west.