Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Off Schedule

As we hit the baseball all-star break, sports fans are looking for anything to distract them from the only 3 days of the year without a meaningful sport event.  Well, 2 days if you're in the "This Time It Counts" crew.  So let's get through this miserable sport-less period together by looking at next year's Purdue Men's Basketball Nonconference Schedule!

Wait, where is it?  ESPN doesn't have it.  Gold and Black doesn't have it.  Purduesports.com must have it, right?  I mean, last year they announced the schedule on MAY 19TH!!! Nope.  That's right, it's nearly 2 months later than last year's announcement, yet Purdue has still not officially released their schedule.

Instead, we can put together bits and pieces to figure out the bulk of the schedule.

The Boilers will play...
1) 2 of Villanova, Oregon State, and Alabama at Madison Square Garden in the 2K Sports Classic on November 15th and 16th.
2) At Clemson in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge on November 28th.
3) In Indianapolis on December 15th against Notre Dame in the Crossroads Classic.
4) West Virginia at home on January 19th

Xavier also owes Purdue a return trip to Mackey, but that date hasn't been announced yet.  No other games (to my knowledge) have been announced.  Could there be one more big schedule announcement that Purdue is waiting on before announcing the obligatory "filler" games?  Why would they wait this long to release the schedule when they released it in May last year?

Here's my prediction:
1) Purdue nearly did it last year and they will announce this year that they've FINALLY pulled off the trifecta - games against ALL 3 directional Michigan schools!
OR
2) Purdue takes IU's spot and starts an Indianapolis/Louisville neutral site series against Kentucky.

Hey, one can dream, right?  I mean, ALL 3 DIRECTIONAL MICHIGAN SCHOOLS???  That's one way to immediately sellout Mackey...

In looking at the games we do know about, it still seems like a pretty strong schedule for a team that has hopes of being a bubble team.  And this year's Italy trip will be even more important since the 2K Sports Classic will be right out of the gate.

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In other scheduling news, the Big Ten has again decided to screw Big Ten fans by having nearly all their bowls at the exact same time.  That's right, just like last year, 4 bowls will kickoff between noon and 1:00 on New Years Day and all of them will involve a Big Ten team.  My favorite thing about bowl season is watching and rooting for the Big Ten to kick the snot out of the power conferences (SEC/Big 12/MAC), yet this schedule once again lumps most of the games into one time slot.  Oh, and let's not even mention the 2 other Big Ten bowl games that start at 9:00 and 10:15 pm. 

Maybe I want to go back to the Little Caesars Bowl after all.

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