DON MEYER: "Scheduling can give your early success but you can't over do it. Remember, you can't build anything picking up sticks but you can get killed when the big trees fall."There is an art to scheduling that some coaches take too long in discovering. It is important to understand what type of team you have and what you need to find ultimate success. Filling your schedule with a lot of easy games will pad your record until you get to conference play but I've seen many coaches do this and then have a very disappointing conference season. You can also make your schedule to difficult which doesn't allow for growth and confidence necessary to progress your team properly.
We like to look at our conference and try to find teams that play similarly for our non-conference games. For instance, we have a couple of teams in the SEC that play a strong match-up team so we are going to schedule some non-conference games against teams that play match-up. You'll see Xavier on our schedule this year -- the first time that we've played them. Many will wonder what was the reasoning for playing Xavier besides the fact that they have a good team. Well the one of the best players in the SEC this year will be Auburn's DeWanna Bonner, 6-4 perimeter player...that's right a 6-4 perimeter player! She's very skilled and a difficult match-up for anyone. Xavier has a 6-5 perimeter player in Amber Harris and she is also an outstanding player. Therefore it would give us the opportunity to face a tall perimeter player in the non-conference season to gauge how we might play against Auburn. Unfortunately, Amber had a cartilage injury this week and will need surgery and miss our game. As a coach, you never like to see players injured. Amber is a talented player and I am sorry our fans won't get to see her play when Xavier comes to Baton Rouge this year.
Several years ago we schedule a non-conference game with Connecticut which had us traveling to Hartford to play in that hostile environment the same year we were playing Tennessee at Knoxville. We heard some criticism early for scheduling such a difficult road game the same year we at Tennessee. We lost to UConn in a great game by two and later went to Tennessee and won in Knoxville for the first time in school history. I honestly believe playing at UConn prepared our team for playing at Tennessee.
Another element of scheduling for us is trying to take our players home. Xavier will serve a dual purpose for us in that next year we will return to Cincinnati and take Ayanna Dunning home. We try to take every player out of state somewhere close to home if at all possible.
We also play games within our state because we believe it helps their program (as well as ours) and it grows that game of women's basketball within our state. We have natural rivalries with Louisiana Tech, Tulane and New Orleans within our state so fans from both teams can travel to the games.
Five years ago, when our team had never been to a Final Four, we schedule a game in the New Orleans Arena (where the Hornets play). We did it purposely because the New Orleans Arena was also hosting the Final Four that year. We made sure that fact was not lost on our team and after the regular season game was over, we walked our team around the arena and asked them to envision coming back in April -- and we did, making our first of five straight Final Four appearances.
