Seat Selection Process -

[Herman Cain]

I love the idea. I think having a rotation of say four regular opponents that you expect to be decent (say winning 15-20 games yearly) in which you get three at home each year and one on the road would be great. But Marquette's not interested in doing that. I've talked to Broeker about it. If they can't get a high-major home game in return they will not give up a road game. Just the philosophy they're going with.

You could pick say Milwaukee, Green Bay, Loyola-Chicago, and Western Michigan (okay...may bring back bad memories...). Green Bay has won 14+ in each of the past 12 seaons with 13 of those seasons at .500 or better. Milwaukee has won 14+ in 9 of the last 11 seasons and been over .500 7/11 seasons. Loyola has won 12+ in 10 of the last 12 seasons. Western Michigan has won 13+ in 12 of the last 13 seasons and .500 or better records in 9 of them.

All of those teams minimize travel expenses, could reliably be expected to at least not be bad, would satisfy the people that want to see local teams, but for the most part guarantee you at worst a 3-1 record most years with 4-0 very possible and the benefit of a road win. I'm not sold on UWM or UWGB, I think you could just as easily look at other fairly local programs like Detroit, Illinois State, or even Bradley. But once the program is turned back around (and I think it's getting close) you would definitely benefit from having a few 3-for-1s set up like that. It could also create a bit more fan interest over time as those fans would know they could travel to the BC to see their team (other than the pittance of people in the traveling party, do we ever see more than a handful of buy game fans at any of those games?) while you would also get at least some kind of rivalry built up.

Alternately, you could look at setting these up across the country to benefit further away Marquette fans, say look at schools in California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, or Georgia where you typically see graduates retire to, or out east just to widen the footprint.

Personally, if I were designing the schedule, that would become a quick staple of my scheduling. Get 4 games from your tournament (love the ones where you get two quality neutral games and two moderately decent low to mid major home games). Wisconsin and another alternating home-and-home (Ideally ND, but not sure they're interested). 4 rotating 3-for-1 deals that guarantee another true road game for RPI purposes and three home games against decent opponents. Then three games to play with depending on team strength. Possibly a Gavitt Game, another high-major home-and-home, a neutral site game like Vandy, or if the team isn't as strong, some lesser buy games.

But as I'm not designing the schedule, it's all just pie in the sky. And I have it from the horse's mouth that they don't want to give up home games without getting high major return games.

So your finally agreeing with my position. I knew you would come around to it

[GooooMarquette]

I think we need to rotate our nonconference scheduling.  Play through the SWAC one season, the MEAC the next.  Repeat.

Oh wait, we already do that....

[brewcity77]

So your finally agreeing with my position. I knew you would come around to it

I'm not coming around to any position. I've felt like this for years. However, Marquette does not agree, so we won't likely see anything like this in the near future.

[Daniel]

July.

Ty

[GooooMarquette]

Rochester is a great city, though it's been about 22 years since I lived there... I used to tell people that I lived just a few blocks from where Jimmy Bakker and Lyndon LaRouche were strangely bedfellowing, but that morsel of interest lost its luster about two decades ago.

Just heard Dennis Hastert will soon be living in Jimmy and Lyndon's old digs.

[We R Final Four]

This past year was insanely busy for me, but I'm definitely interested in trying to get on that fan steering committee. No idea what they are looking for in terms of applicants, but when they next take applications (two year term) I'm going to at least take a stab at the process.

Are there any scoopers on the committee? You would get my vote Brew.