Tara says that instead of playing early non-conference games in places across the country as at present, Stanford will now try to schedule its early out-of-conference games here in the West. This will partially offset the increased ACC travel requirements later in the season. This makes sense,

Here's a gift link from Chronicle about that, Charming quoted too: https://www.sfchronicle.com/sports/college/article/acc-women-s-basketball-schedule-look-stanford-18337368.php?utm_source=marketing&utm_medium=copy-url-link&utm_campaign=article-share&hash=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc2ZjaHJvbmljbGUuY29tL3Nwb3J0cy9jb2xsZWdlL2FydGljbGUvYWNjLXdvbWVuLXMtYmFza2V0YmFsbC1zY2hlZHVsZS1sb29rLXN0YW5mb3JkLTE4MzM3MzY4LnBocA==&time=MTY5MzYzMDIwNTI0MA==&rid=MDAyMjUwYmQtNGY5Ni00OWJkLThkODgtYTNiMDBlNTNkMWI2&sharecount=NQ==

Schedule UOP, UC Davis, Sac State, Santa Clara, USF, etc and focus on your travel later in the season. It makes perfect sense to me.

Cal was 9-2 in OOC games last season. The only home loss was a thrashing (70-56) at the hands of fellow new ACC entree, Southern Methodist University (SMU). As I remember, they had a trio of really fast and athletic guards that were "the difference."

CalFanatic said:

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Schedule UOP, UC Davis, Sac State, Santa Clara, USF, etc and focus on your travel later in the season. It makes perfect sense to me.

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This could be boost for those schools across various sports right? The biggest question in my mind is how many SoCal schools do you need to schedule to keep recruiting up in those areas?

mbBear said:

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CalFanatic said:

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Schedule UOP, UC Davis, Sac State, Santa Clara, USF, etc and focus on your travel later in the season. It makes perfect sense to me.

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This could be boost for those schools across various sports right? The biggest question in my mind is how many SoCal schools do you need to schedule to keep recruiting up in those areas?

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Maybe 2 per season.

Plenty of choices. LMU, Pepperdine, UC Irvine, UC Riverside, USD, UCSD, Long Beach State.

Basketball is different than football, in that high school basketball players don't go to or watch as many games as football players do. They often play at the same time, and the schedule is crammed and erratic.

So I don't know how much difference it makes to play a game in SoCal, though obviously it will get a few players to see Cal. But I'm not sure the elite players are going to an LMU-Cal game, or watching USC-Ohio State on TV.

Basketball recruiting is about postseason success and personal relationships, again for the top kids (who are the ones that really matter).

ClayK said:

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Basketball is different than football, in that high school basketball players don't go to or watch as many games as football players do. They often play at the same time, and the schedule is crammed and erratic.

So I don't know how much difference it makes to play a game in SoCal, though obviously it will get a few players to see Cal. But I'm not sure the elite players are going to an LMU-Cal game, or watching USC-Ohio State on TV.

Basketball recruiting is about postseason success and personal relationships, again for the top kids (who are the ones that really matter).

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My question was focused on being able to promise recruits they would be playing games in the area. It was a big reason that Cal played SC and UCLA every year in football after the expansion to 12. I'm not diminishing winning and the post season, but this has always been a factor, and we are entering a new reality...

Good point. You do want to play a couple games in your recruits' home towns.

But then again, Cal is way down the line when it comes to recruiting in SoCal. Resources might be better spent elsewhere.

ClayK said:

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Good point. You do want to play a couple games in your recruits' home towns.

But then again, Cal is way down the line when it comes to recruiting in SoCal. Resources might be better spent elsewhere.

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Again, new reality. Cal women can, in theory (obviously don't know the scheduling parameters yet), promise games against Va. Tech, Duke, Louisville, and Notre Dame as well as Furd. Obviously, what was the Pac-12 was pretty powerful with Oregon and FUCLA, et. al. but it's a different narrative to tell. Not like Cal isn't known by HS kids in SoCal, and represents an "away from home" opportunity but still a weekend trip distance. We will see if E. Pierre is able to eventually make in-roads in her old stomping grounds.
I know the obvious counter is to look at the present roster, and the reality is we see more international players than we do players from SoCal....but, I think everything is on the table when it comes to the future of Cal sports.