25-26 Schedule

[Keenan Henderson]

It may be too early but with some matchups such as: Indiana at Kentucky and Arizona at UConn being announced in the college basketball world, it gets me thinking about ORU's new schedule with the new coach.  Will he mix things up and try something different next year?  The Eagles have the regular games: Tulsa and Missouri State but after that, there is some flexibility.  Could Coach avoid the non D1 home games and maybe play in a mid-major tournament?

[oruvoice]

I just hope we drop Rogers State from the schedule! 

[theeagleman5]

Sorry pal....TheEagleman wants a piece of Rogers State....Bring it on!!! 

[Keenan Henderson]

Almost forgot, the Eagles also do have a return home game with Belmont.  I would like to see another rematch of the Big Sky vs Summit or some other mid major league vs the Summit.  It is always interesting to see new teams that ORU has not played very much on the schedule.

 

[jmg1984]

2 minutes ago, Keenan Henderson said:

Almost forgot, the Eagles also do have a return home game with Belmont.  I would like to see another rematch of the Big Sky vs Summit or some other mid major league vs the Summit.  It is always interesting to see new teams that ORU has not played very much on the schedule.

 

Wonder if they will come to N Arizona?

[Old Titan]

A review of the process for assembling the '24-'25 slate is indicative of the frustrations of building a schedule these days:

https://forum.orusports.com/index.php?/topic/24120-schedule-24-25/#comments

Using last year's scheduling odyssey as a template, here's a likely timetable:

1. Mid-April is too early to have started this thread:  college coaches are busy building rosters, not schedules.  Only big-time network and MTE (multi-team event) announcements are being made now, to pre-sell advertising/tickets/charters/etc. for the P4 schools participating.
2. From mid-May through June, college basketball blogger-types will periodically announce non-conference games involving ORU.  Most (all?) will be road games, except Tulsa, who owes ORU a visit to the Mabee Center.  Which they may back out of (a tradition like no other for lame-duck Hurlicane coaches; most egregious example was Frank Haith claiming his whole team had just come down with COVID right before the game at the Mabee Center, only to play their next scheduled game at the Reynolds Center just 4 days later).
3. In July, we will start to hear grumblings of how hard it is for ORU to schedule home games.
4. The Summit League will announce the conference slate in late July or early August.  The Dakota schools and St. Thomas will have favorable home game dates to accomodate MIDCO programming.  ORU will open and/or close with Kansas City.  Don't ask me why; they just always do.
5. Also in mid-July, ORU's opening home game opponent will be leaked/announced as part of Homecoming 2025 activities.  It will be played in the first week of November vs. a non-D1 opponent.  It will not be Rogers State.
6. Some time in late July or August, we will learn whether or not the Summit/Big Sky Challenge will return for another 2-year run.  We will probably learn this news from a Big Sky school's message board.
7. By mid-August, we'll hear new grumblings of how hard it is for ORU to schedule ANY games.  Meanwhile, hundreds of other schools of all sizes will have announced their schedules.
8. In mid-to-late August (or even the first week of September, as happened last year) the final ORU schedule will be officially announced.  Due to our collective fact-gathering prowess, we will already know almost every game, including 3-to-4 non-D1 opponents (none of whom will be Rogers State), plus only 2 other D1 home games:  Tulsa (if they haven't chickened out) and Belmont (return game of the home-and-home deal signed last year).  Missouri State will be one of the D1 road games, as the first meeting in a new multi-game contract.
9. Only then will we confirm (once again) that ORU is one of less-than-a-dozen low-majors not participating in any sort of holiday MTE.   Consequently, ORU will only have 28 or 29 games on their schedule, unlike the 31 or so games that most D1 schools play.  We will be told (once again) that the reasoning is to protect ORU's NET ranking.  We will (once again) roll our eyes en masse that ORU's NET ranking will matter this season.

Stay tuned...

[ORUIUUI]

Last year ORU played four non-D1 teams at home.  I looked at some other universities and they only played two non-D1 teams.  We have the home and away games scheduled with Belmont, which is Missouri Valley.  It would be great to see some other MVC teams like Bradley, Southern Illinois, Illinois State, Evansville, and Murray State.  I have season tickets and am not thrilled to go to the Mabee Center to see Ozark Christian, Haskell, Rogers State, and Texas A&M-Texarkana.

[theeagleman5]

TheEagleman also finds it humorous that we are chatting about 2025-26 schedules when we don't even have any players.....however since you brought it up....If ORU plays more than 2 non D-1 schools this year I might have to take my support elsewhere......Go Grand Canyon!!  Go Liberty!!! 

[ORUTerry]

Maybe we should consider taking the 'Chicago State' route of scheduling this year... just play mostly road games against P4 schools and collect big paychecks. Then use some of those funds to buy games into the Mabee Center.

[Bogus Smith]

2 hours ago, ORUTerry said:

Maybe we should consider taking the 'Chicago State' route of scheduling this year... just play mostly road games against P4 schools and collect big paychecks. Then use some of those funds to buy games into the Mabee Center.

At least P4 schools will be willing to play us this year.  Now that there is no connection to any coaches, Wichita State may be willing to play us - either home-and-home or guarantee game.  OU, OSU, and Arkansas could be potentials too with little to worry about in terms of a "bad loss".  Then, maybe we can surprise some folks.

[Old Titan]

4 hours ago, ORUTerry said:

Maybe we should consider taking the 'Chicago State' route of scheduling this year... just play mostly road games against P4 schools and collect big paychecks. Then use some of those funds to buy games into the Mabee Center players.

Fixed^^^. 

1 hour ago, Bogus Smith said:

At least P4 schools will be willing to play us this year.  Now that there is no connection to any coaches, Wichita State may be willing to play us - either home-and-home or guarantee game.  OU, OSU, and Arkansas could be potentials too with little to worry about in terms of a "bad loss".  Then, maybe we can surprise some folks.

There's no way Paul Mills would/will ever agree to play ORU. 

It would mean him being either magnanimous (which he'll never be) or desperate (which he'll never admit).

[Bogus Smith]

47 minutes ago, Old Titan said:

There's no way Paul Mills would/will ever agree to play ORU. 

Mama always told me, "never say never".  

[Dr. Cornelius]

59 minutes ago, Old Titan said:

Fixed^^^. 

There's no way Paul Mills would/will ever agree to play ORU. 

It would mean him being either magnanimous (which he'll never be) or desperate (which he'll never admit).

Mills also needs wins. So, I could see the latter overruling the former.

[Old Titan]

If he was to lose to ORU, he might as well reserve a U-Haul truck from his mobile phone before leaving the arena.

 

[titansforever]

WSU has signed 2 centers who are 6-9 and 7-2.

[titansforever]

On 4/16/2025 at 5:52 PM, Old Titan said:

A review of the process for assembling the '24-'25 slate is indicative of the frustrations of building a schedule these days:

 

• Also in mid-July, ORU's opening home game opponent will be leaked/announced as part of Homecoming 2025 activities.  It will be played in the first week of November vs. a non-D1 opponent.  It will not be Rogers State.

Stay tuned...

Just an FYI: Homecoming is a little later this fall:  November 13-15. But we could still be playing a non-D1 opponent. Who knows? I hope not, though.

[Keenan Henderson]

Some teams, such as Purdue, are already releasing their non-conference opponents.  Here are some teams I would like to see the Eagles schedule: Texas, Colorado, Vandy and Nebraska (mostly teams ORU has not faced in a while).  Some mid majors would be Arkansas State, St. Louis, North Texas and Abliene Christian.  I chose these because they are fairly close to Tulsa.  Just for fun: what are some teams you would like to see ORU face next year?  It is a long off season and sometimes we just need some topics to throw around. 

[Otis 83]

On 4/16/2025 at 5:52 PM, Old Titan said:

• Mid-April is too early to have started this thread:  college coaches are busy building rosters, not schedules.  Only big-time network and MTE (multi-team event) announcements are being made now, to pre-sell advertising/tickets/charters/etc. for the P4 schools participating.

@Keenan Henderson's just bored because he doesn't follow baseball.  There really are better things to do with your time Keenan   Join us over the Baseball forum for some witty banter and repartee.