Both the Colonels and the Lady Colonels basketball teams unveiled their 2005-2006 schedules last week, and both schedules are highlighted by Division I-A national powers.The Lady Colonels play schools from the Big XII, SEC, Big Ten, Southwestern Atlantic Conference (SWAC) and Sun Belt conferences to go along with their Southland Conference schedule. Games against Ohio State, Missouri, Ole Miss, Arkansas, UNO, UL-Lafayette, Southern, Grambling, Eastern Washington, Western Illinois and Appalachian State highlight the Lady Colonels’ pre-conference schedule.
Lady Colonels’ second year head coach Mark Cook, said playing higher caliber teams helps prepare for conference play.
“What I wanted to do was change the schedule so our RPI (ratings percentage index) would be a little higher,” Cook said. “I wanted to make our schedule tougher so we’d be ready for conference play. I wanted this team to get used to playing that caliber of opponent so when Southland Conference play comes around, it’s not that big of a shock.”
It is also important that both the Lady Colonels and Colonels try to increase their RPIs to have a better shot at the NCAA tournament, Cook said.
“I wanted to get our RPI a little higher,” Cook said. “If you want to get your program into the conference tournament, then teams in the Southland have to win their conferences. We gear our program towards competing for conference since no Southland Conference teams are going to get an at-large bid.”
On the men’s side, the Colonels’ schedule includes games against national powers Indiana and Maryland to go along with their automatic Southland Conference schedule. The Colonels also have road games against LSU, Ole Miss, Penn State and Maryland-Eastern Shore. The Colonels open at home against North Texas of the Sun Belt Conference.
“It is important to play quality opponents in pre-conference that are superior to the teams in conference,” men’s head basketball coach J.P. Piper said. Just like the Lady Colonels, the men are trying to help their RPI as well by scheduling national powers.
“It should help out RPI,” Piper said. “Coming into the pre-season, Maryland is No. 7, Indiana is No. 17 and LSU is No. 37. Ole Miss and Penn State are also in the top 100, so it could definitely help us some.”
The plan for the men is similar to the women’s in that Piper hopes to expose his team’s weaknesses early so they can be corrected in time for conference.
“Once we start playing those games, we’ll know what we need to work on,” Piper said. “The only bad thing is other teams in our conference can watch those games and see our weaknesses and try to expose them, too. But if we can get them corrected early, we’ll be okay come conference.”
Both the Colonels and Lady Colonels have no trouble finding opponents.
“We get inquiries from other schools about playing,” Cook said. “We look around and see what is the best fit. I’m close friends with one of the coaches from Ohio State so we were able to get the game scheduled.”
Piper took the approach of just trying to find a team to play while they were in Maryland for the Maryland-Eastern Shore game.
“We contacted bigger schools, and it just so happened to work out,” Piper said.
