2022 Schedule Watch
 

I think we have a shot at a pretty good schedule this year, and a chance to beat some Power 5 foes if we drop down to play teams in the 4-6 place finish. But I’ll take any top team any day. It’s just good for the program. So here are some possibilities:

1. Louisville (ACC) - Covid probably adjust this contract, but Louisville should come to town this fall.

2. SEC: our home-home run with KY is up. We’ve built a great working relationship with them as evident by the spring match last month. But I don’t see scheduling them the next 2 years. I do think we might pick up TN. They got a new staff 2 years ago and are putting things together again after a handful of down years. They finished 4th in the SEC last year. Outside possibility could be Mississippi St who finished 2nd LY.

3. Big 10: I’d like to play two out of this conference every year. tOSU finished 3rd. Purdue 4th. Penn St 6th. PSU has a new coaching staff and of course Associate Head Coach Alyssa played there.

4. PAC 12: if we ever schedule a West Coast trip, I’d look at Stanford and Washington. (Of course you have to be invited.) the Stanford coach was at Illinois and we played them a lot during his tenure there. Plus his strength & conditioning coach is a UD Alum. Washington and the Flyers had that great 5 set match 2 years ago in the NCAAs...so they are a possibility.

5. Regional Options: some are always on this list. Others are here this year because of their great performance last year. ILL State, Xavier, Ball State, Wright State, Cincinnati (They were at our tournament last year so we might owe them a match at their place?)

6. Programs Most “Like” UD who we should always try to schedule: WKY, Creighton, Marquette, BYU. We’ve split the last 2 NCAA matches with Marquette.

7. Big 12: I’d love TX, but KS is probably a better option and we’ve had matches with KS St and IA St before. I think these are outliners.

I’ll add, pre-conference is usually 4 weekends with 3 matches each. Then we usually have 2 OOC mid-week matches sometime after conference play starts. Some years we host 2 pre-conference weekends. Other years we host 1 weekend, and this has been the recent trend. So if that trend continues, we can do the “inviting” on 5 OOC matches. And we can accept or decline 3 other invites. We do not “control” 6 matches we play OOC. Those are other teams invited to 3 pre-conference weekends we travel to. The host team sets the other teams invited up.

Wku wku wku wku wku.

I've heard that they tried to get Texas but they wouldn't agree to a Home-and-Home, would only commit to playing Dayton in Austin with no return trip. Don't think the UD coaches liked that too much. ;-)

One of the things that appears to handicap UD in OOC is lack of AC in the gym at Frerricks. I’ve heard through the grapevine NE said never again after doing it once. Penn State’s Rec Hall put in AC several years ago, so they use to be conditioned for the heat but no more. I don’t know if that played into the TX decision or not.

I do like we asked to play them. The Big 12 doesn’t have a conference championship. I always thought we should try to line up an end of season tournament with them. Top 2 Big 12 schools playing the top 2 A10 schools at rotating locations. It’s requires some creative booking and scheduling, but it would be good for all teams to prepare for the NCAAs. Low risk for Big 12 teams. High reward for A10 teams even if we lose both matches. We would be better prepared to make a run and get into the 2nd weekend.

But what would the stall tactic become if not asking to wipe down the floor? Kidding.

Have wondered about the AC question. Honestly, it's only needed for a couple weeks of the year. But for those weeks, it's a rather large impact. A difficult cost analysis. It would seem for a 'big time program', you have to act and feel like a big time program....

The coaching staff might like the heat for conditioning. It might be an easier solution to play a match or two at UD Arena if AC is the only thing in the way of a big time program coming in. Lately we have only hosted one pre-conference weekend and played 3 on the road. We never host more than 2 of the 4. There are other big names that come and play at Frerricks. We always seem to be able to put together a strong schedule when we have good teams. So AC probably isn’t in the cards in the near future. Play a Sept match or 2 at UD Arena if you have to.

Ive heard time and again from the players and staff -- both under Horsmon and Sheff -- that they preferred no A/C. They are used to it by season start because they practice in it all summer and they believe its a home court advantage. You cant really argue with UD's home record -- certainly in the A10 which is probably a 95% winning percentage in the last 10-15 seasons. We need every bit of home cooking in the non-con when we play up.

If Texas -- where its 105F all summer -- is so scared to sweat a little and play in Ohio in September -- then we don't need them. If Frericks was so dangerous from the heat and humidity, UD athletes would be suffering injuries at a far greater rate than other schools. That's not the case.

I dont care about any non-con opponent talk until we get WKU on the schedule every year. Its the one matchup that will pay more dividends than any other. They win 26-30 matches a year, are a 3hr busride away, and always in the Top-20 RPI and usually ranked. Its a match we can realistically win and have won. Playing Nebraska or Texas or Wisconsin looks good on paper but we really have no chance at a W. Youd think WKU would want to play us as well.

I felt the same way about Ohio U when they were rolling 10yrs ago. There was a 10 year span where they were as good or better than we were.

Coaches are funny. Cook at NE doesn’t like playing pre-conference events that have 3 matches in 2 days. He does it, but prefers 3-team events (versus 4 teams) that set up as one match a day for 2 days. According to my friends that are NE fans he is also one who doesn’t like no AC.

Schools like NE and TX are so high in demand for OOC, they get to basically set their own rules. So as much as it would be nice to play TX...I’m ok with walking away from them if they won’t come to Dayton.

Finally, we’ve had no problem booking top programs. I do think it’s great for the program because recruits like it. But we’ve been doing it for several years now and we have had recent upsets in this range. You can argue playing 1-2s has helped us the last two years mentally in the NCAAs in that we had no fear going up against WA and Purdue in the 2nd rounds and taking them to 5 sets. So how do we get over the hump and knock someone off to get to the 2nd weekend? Maybe instead of scheduling teams that finish 1-2 in their P5 conference, we need to look at 3-6 teams (depending on the conference) to win more of these matches. Last year in the Big10, that was 3. tOSU, 4. Purdue 5. MN 6. PSU 7. ILL 8. MI. I don’t know what happened to MI last year. Maybe an injury? The MI and Wright State matches last year were the two biggest disappointments. But we have beaten tOSU and MI in recent years and Purdue and ILL in the past 10-12 years. Purdue, ILL and PSU are all possible matches for this year.

In the ACC we are going to get #1 Louisville at Frerricks probably this year. Pitt was #2. Probably not this year, but we will get them again. 3-4-5 were Miami, GA Tech and FL St.

Big 12 LY = TX, Baylor, WV, Iowa St, KS. We’ve played Baylor and ISU before.

SEC = KY, Miss St, FL, TN, Ole Miss. I think TN and Miss St are possible. FL outside chance. We took them to 5 sets a couple years ago.

Here it is!
https://daytonflyers.com/sports/wome.../schedule/2022

I like this schedule for this seasons team. We will have some youth on the floor. Two surprises. No Louisville, but I know Covid has messed that contract up and we are only hosting one weekend tourney. They should be on next year. Second, no SEC. With only one tourney to host, we invited a Big10 team - ILL who finished at 22-12 last year.

I like the 2 ACC teams. GA Tech who finished 4th and FL St who finished 5th in the ACC.

PAC 12 team AZ St I think are the only team on the OOC portion that had a losing record last year. 14-17.

Two AAC teams - 3rd Cincy and 5th Wichita St.

ILL St is always a good schedule. They finish 1 or 2 in their conference almost all the time. 2nd to Loyola last year.

Wright st was 3rd in Horizon and FIU was 3rd in CUSA.

Villanova and MO St finished 6th in their conferences. MO St might be the back end of a home-home contact.

Ball St won the MAC last year.

Five teams were NCAA teams last year. That’s about as good as we get, since we don’t control teams at three weekend tournaments.

No Elite 8 or better team this year. I had no inside info, but I was leaning towards taking one step down and trying to get some teams we can play with versus trying to take a set off a highly ranked team. Will it work to build confidence and experience to take your game to the next level during the toughest matches to get a win? And more importantly to get us over the first weekend hump in the NCAAs? Who knows until it plays out the next two or theee years. But, I like we are trying to put the puzzle together differently.

Given the personnel losses and question marks, I don't have a problem with this schedule. There's a difference between challenging and reckless. These are matches we have a fighting chance in.

A couple more comments...there are no “bad” teams on this schedule. When we don’t control who gets invited to 3 of the 4 weekends, we always end up playing a couple very weak teams. Not with this schedule. That is strong. Everyone in the top third of the RPI. Here are their ending Figgiestat RPIs:

4 GA Tech - they did make the Elite 8 last year
20 FL St
24 ILL
29 Ball St
37 UD
53 Cincy
63 ILL St
69 Wright St
72 Wichita St
85 AZ St
117 Villanova
119 Mo St
127 FIU

Point of reference...highest 2 A10 opponents last year were 109 VCU and 188 SLU. This is a good schedule.

I also noticed the change in the conference travel. Some conference did this last year...maybe the Big10. Except Duquesne, we will play everyone in back-to-back double headers over 2 days. This will save money for the teams. I think parents will like it. They can travel to one location to see their daughter play two matches. I’m thinking this will increase our fans at away matches. Down side...no VCU or SLU match at Frerricks this year. Local fans will only see 5 A10 teams live. We get newcomer Loyola at home and will host UD Alum turned URI head coach Angle Agu. I think cost savings in scheduling is a thing that schools simply have to implement. This is a much better solution than cutting OOC matches.

I popped out to the schedule this am and it looks like a couple changes. First we’ve got Kentucky as our Exhibit match at Fredrick’s on Aug 20. We’ve had a great run of exhibit matches in recent years to help us get ready for the season and this continues this fall. It’s also at home so fans will get to see some of our new/young players early. We open with Cincy on the road the next weekend. Cincy will be better this year, and they took us to 5 sets last year, so we need a strong exhibition match with so many young players that will be called on to contribute this year.

Week 4 is the Wright State Invitational. I believe the original release had us playing Wright St and Wichita State across town. Now we play Wright St on both Thursday and Saturday night across town. But we play Wichita State at The Frericks Center on Friday night. I believe the 2nd Wright St match was added, and it gets us to a full 30 match season without much added cost…although the diesel for the bus trip across town might break the bank…and we get another home match on Friday night which is always a great Red Scare night.

I don’t know how strong Wright St will be this year with a new coaching staff. The previous staff did a great job moving the program forward. They beat us at Frericks last year. Hopefully their program can stay strong. It’s good for both programs to be able to schedule and have competitive matches.