What are we, wimps? We should be afraid of scheduling local teams, historical rivals, because we might lose to them? Because they might get more fired up to play us than we are to play them? We weren't afraid of losing to St. Mary's before we scheduled them last season, knowing they would probably be favored to beat us, were we?PtownBear1 said:Yogi Bear said:Bah. Win your games and stop complaining about lack of upside. I'd rather play programs that are local and known.PtownBear1 said:
Contrarian point of view - I don't think it's a good strategy to be scheduling local mid-majors. If you're going to play a team like Santa Clara or USF where there's no upside and major downside, at least make them travel across the country so they're out of their comfort zone when you play them.
Winning is not easy and should never be taken for granted. I could see a scenario where next season's team gets it going later in the year but has no chance of a post season because of early losses to our local mid majors. Mid majors are always going to be more hyped to play a major conference school than the other way around. We should take any advantage possible.
We are talking the Golden Bears here. You know, the school that has an NCAA Championship in their trophy case. And before they ever did that, Pete Newell was not afraid of scheduling USF when they had Bill Russell, and would go on to become National Champions, was he? Newell scheduled #1 Kansas and Wilt Chamberlain home and home, and scheduled #3 Kansas State with Bob Boozer. He would turn over in his grave if he found out we might be afraid to schedule teams we might lose to. He scheduled them all, St. Mary's USF, Santa Clara, and San Jose State, in different seasons, and would do it again today, if he thought it would make his team better to play them. And you don't learn much of anything by playing a little-known team over which you are favored, and which has traveled 3000 miles to play you at Haas, is likely tired, and with none of their fans in the stands, like a Wofford. Did Cal learn anything or were they better for playing Wofford? Judging by what happened right after that in Maui, I'd say no.
To win a championship, a team has to learn how to handle pressure. Not only the pressure of playing top teams and learning to compete with them, but the pressure of playing teams who are not as good as good as your team is, and who will be more up for the game than you are. You have to learn how to win games when you are not as up as you are for Arizona or UCLA. And most teams who are not favored to beat you, are likely to be more up for beating you, especially if it is a local rival. Playing local rival games with rival fans in your house or their house gets you a little better prepared for going into the hostile arenas of Pullman, Eugene, or Tucson, where nearly all the fans will be in your face all night.