The Science of Scheduling: How NCAA Coaches Approach One of Their Most Unheralded Tasks
Every spring, college basketball fans are inundated with talking heads asserting some version of, “They won a lot of games, but did they play a tough enough schedule?” or “They don’t have a great record, but they played a really tough schedule.” Scheduling — and the logistics and challenges that come with it — is one of the most significant responsibilities of a college coach.
Few sports manifest as wide of a disparity in talent and funding as NCAA basketball, which is why many coaches will tell you that there is no one-size-fits-all way to schedule. We spoke with four coaches whose schools represent a wide range of circumstances geographically, financially, athletically and in many other ways, to get a better idea about what goes on behind the scenes when it comes to filling out a schedule.
WHEN DO COACHES CREATE THE SCHEDULE?
While coaches vastly differ on most aspects of scheduling, there is still one common thread — it’s a year-round process.
“Just at different times of the year … I’ll get on a scheduling binge,” said Oregon head coach Kelly Graves. “I’ll hit it hard for a few days, and then forget about it for a month, and then … I get on it again.”
As November nears and fans are just starting to think about this season, coaches are hoping to have most of next season’s schedule set.
“In a perfect world, I would say that we are done with our scheduling in the fall for the following season,” said first-year Richmond head coach Aaron Roussell, who spent the last seven years at Bucknell. “It doesn’t always work out that way. There’s always gonna be a few stragglers … and people get dropped in the spring. But I’d say we’d like to have it pretty well shaped, at least 85 or 90 percent of the way there, by hopefully the start of the season.”
DO COACHES ENJOY SCHEDULING?
Many parts of a coach’s job are highly visible to fans and media: in-game adjustments, player rotations, press conferences and, ultimately, wins and losses. But the success of securing a willing opponent to fill out a season’s schedule will rarely find the spotlight. Some coaches find the whole process tedious; others have fun with certain aspects of it.
“The fun part is getting to look at which tournaments you can go to, what matchups you can get, things like that,” said Drake head coach Jennie Baranczyk. “But there’s nothing fun about the logistical side of it.”
A lot of coaches get help with the logistics from an athletic director, director of basketball operations or member of the coaching staff. Roussell, who hands off some of the duties to an assistant, finds enjoyment in scheduling, although he admits that he might feel differently if he were more involved in the day-to-day tasks.
“I weirdly enjoy it … It’s always fun to say, ‘Oh yeah, we’re going to play a new team, or we’re going to play [in] a different region [or] a new area,’” Roussell said. “The people who are actually making the phone calls and down in the weeds — I don’t think they enjoy it very much.”
Graves, who handles every part of the process himself, likes to keep it as simple and painless as possible. Back in 2018, Graves still needed a game for the upcoming season and sent a tweet to see if anyone was willing to play. The next day, he received a text from Syracuse head coach Quentin Hillsman, and “in literally 10 minutes,” a home-and-home was on the books.
“That’s the way it should be done,” Graves said of his quick exchange with Hillsman. “But it’s not [always] like that. People like to lobby and leverage and hold out for a better deal or more money … It can just kind of be a pain in the butt, quite frankly.”
WHAT ARE COACHES’ GOALS?
One could probably ask 15 coaches about their scheduling goals and get 20 different answers. Some coaches espouse different philosophies as their careers evolve or when they change schools. Others remain constant over time. There are coaches who want to test their teams as much as possible and coaches who want to build confidence and try out different rotations early on.
California Baptist and head coach Jarrod Olson are entering their second year in Division I and won’t be eligible for the NCAA Tournament until the 2022–23 season. “For us, the nonconference has definitely taken less of a postseason feel to it and is more into preparing us for the conference season,” Olson said.
Olson tries to accomplish that by combining some even matchups with some slightly tougher matchups. “We’re trying to get a little bit of a mix of … teams that are comparable to our level, and … a few that maybe are a little less than 50–50 that are gonna really push us and challenge us,” he said.
Olson also takes advantage of the NCAA rule that allows for up to four games against non-Division I opponents during the four-year transition to Division I. “We’re scheduling those just to make sure that we have a little bit of confidence from game to game,” he said. “The main part is so that we can get some wins to make sure if we lose too many of those 50–50 games that we’re still alright.”
For some high-major schools, the confidence builders come at a cost. Oregon, like most other schools in the Power 5, buys some of its nonconference games against weaker teams. The Ducks (barring a historic upset) get a win; their opponents get a paycheck. Graves has his approach down to a formula.
“When I was at Gonzaga, I had a template,” Graves said. “I always wanted to get one big-time game at home … a top 10, top 15 opponent … one on the road, play in a neutral tournament … and then buy the next seven games.” Graves has been willing to adjust the way he schedules to match the strength of his team. As Oregon improved in his first few seasons in Eugene, he updated his template to call for two big-time home games, two big-time road games and five buy games.
Not all coaches feel the need to schedule games against lower-caliber teams. Baranczyk, whose Bulldogs have become a fixture in March, wants her team to face postseason-level competition throughout the nonconference. “We don’t schedule any ‘automatic’ wins, if you know what I mean,” she said. “We want every game to be competitive.”
Scheduling “automatic” wins is sometimes an attempt to earn a certain record, a goal some coaches give more credence to than others.
“Maybe a coach is on the last year of their contract and they haven’t done so well,” Graves said. “They need to win games to save their job, so they might schedule lightly and make their record look better. I’m okay with that.”
Roussell understands that line of thinking, but doesn’t subscribe to it himself. “I get why sometimes people schedule to what they want their record to be,” he said, “but I’m a big proponent of ‘just go play some really tough games.’ … I don’t get excited about ‘cupcake games.’”
WHAT CHALLENGES DO COACHES FACE?
Nearly every scheduling challenge faced by coaches can be boiled down to finding an opponent who is willing to play. As Roussell puts it, “It takes two to tango.”
“It’s a little bit like speed dating,” Olson added. “You’re trying to make some sort of connection with somebody else who has a similar need. Sometimes it works pretty easy, and other times it’s pretty difficult.”
Unlike speed-daters, coaches aren’t afforded the freedom to remain single, so with every rejection comes a new search. The reasons behind those rejections are where the challenges diverge. Teams ranked low in the RPI may face rejection from teams that don’t want to damage their strength of schedule. Schools that are waiting for public opinion to match their high-level on-court performance might face rejection from teams looking to avoid a realistic yet image-sabotaging loss. It isn’t easy convincing a high-major to travel and play a quality opponent whose strength isn’t widely recognized.
When Roussell took over at Bucknell in 2012, the Bison had an RPI of 330. “We had a lot of people that told us that they couldn’t or wouldn’t play us because our RPI was too low,” he said. As he built the program into a perennial contender in the Patriot League, fear of losing replaced fear of RPI sabotage for prospective opponents. “By the end … some of those same people didn’t want to play [us] because of where we got,” he said.
While many high-major coaches avoid teams like Roussell’s Bucknell squads, Graves took his then-7th-ranked Ducks to South Dakota State to face the Jackrabbits on Dec. 12 of last season. Oregon escaped with a hard-fought 87–79 victory against a team that many didn’t know about. South Dakota State finished in the top 10 in HHS rating last year, but never cracked the AP Top 25.
Graves isn’t planning a return trip anytime soon. “Those teams that are sneaky good, you don’t wanna go on the road to play them because they’re tough on the road,” he said. “The people who know, know. But the casual fan may not know.” After the near-defeat in Brookings, Graves added, “People were wondering, ‘Wow, what the hell happened?’ You know what happened? They’re freaking good!”
Sometimes the complications stem from the academic calendar. An otherwise willing opponent may not be open to traveling during finals week, or two schools simply may not have the same two dates available.
Other times, it comes down to the number of nonconference games each school needs to fill. With Cal State Bakersfield set to move to the Big West prior to next season, Olson and his WAC colleagues will have two fewer conference games, which will open up two nonconference slots. Likewise, Big West teams will have two fewer openings, which Olson says is starting to present difficulties as he looks to schedule Big West opponents for the fall of 2020.
WHAT ELSE INFLUENCES SCHEDULING?
For schools with smaller budgets, financial considerations can influence the schedule. What schools like Oregon call buy games, schools like Bucknell call guarantee games — games that guarantee them a cash payout. While at Bucknell, Roussell used these games to fund a 2018 foreign tour.
The human element is another part of the equation for coaches when making schedules. Basketball is a community, and anyone who spends any significant time in the coaching ranks develops relationships with other coaches. Friendships may make it easier to communicate dates and logistics, but most coaches want nothing to do with trying to defeat their friends.
“You want to win every game you play, but it really isn’t fun to play against your friends,” Baranczyk said.
“I don’t think anybody ever enjoys playing good friends,” Roussell agreed. “In this business, you do become friends with so many people. And if you do it right, you have such high respect and mutual respect for so many people out there.”
Empathy is often what prevents coaches from scheduling games against close friends. “We all know as coaches what it feels like,” Roussell said, “and as much as you wanna win a game, you know what they’re going through.”
Scheduling former teams can put empathy to the test as well. This year, Drake will play Iowa for the 25th consecutive season. Baranczyk, who wore a Hawkeye uniform for four of them, now must change her rooting interests once every year. “You want to win every game you play,” she said. “However, I definitely cheer for [Iowa] in every other game.”
Another human factor in scheduling can come into play when a coach has upperclassmen from a different state. Many coaches like to play a road (or neutral-site) game in or near a junior or senior’s hometown. Not only does it give players a chance to play in front of family and friends, it also doubles as a recruiting tool when coaches promise such games to recruits.
Last November, Oregon opened the season with a true road game at Division II Alaska Fairbanks. Graves scheduled the game as a homecoming for Ducks forward and Fairbanks native Ruthy Hebard. “It was incredible,” Graves said. “It was the most-attended game in the building’s history, and it was a cool deal that she came back to Fairbanks.”
Graves also took his team to the St. Mary’s Thanksgiving Classic in California, a mere three miles from the high school that guard Sabrina Ionescu attended. “In case she had decided to go pro, we thought it would be a nice touch,” Graves said.
WHAT WOULD COACHES CHANGE ABOUT SCHEDULING?
Coaches know they aren’t going to be handed the keys to the proverbial NCAA car any time soon, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have any ideas for change. Roussell and Olson believe it starts with the way tournament teams are selected.
Roussell would like to see “some sort of enticement or encouragement to get people out there and play some road games.” As a mid-major coach, he often struggles to find quality home games. “We all know how hard it is to win on the road, so I understand why people don’t necessarily do that,” he said. “Making a road win more valuable, maybe that … gets some people to be a little more willing to … play road games.”
Olson took it a step further. “I think the thing that would make scheduling go a little bit better would be having a more consistent way of choosing the at-large teams for the NCAA Tournament,” he said. “There’s not really a specific mathematical formula [or] criteria for that. I think if there was that, it would create a little bit more uniformity in how people scheduled because they would have to schedule a certain way in order to make the tournament.”
Baranczyk hopes that coaches will start to put more emphasis on increasing exposure. “I think ideally when we schedule, we could get less caught up in the wins and losses and focus more on what’s good for the game, what’s good for women’s basketball,” she said.
Her desire to see her sport thrive is one reason she continues to schedule Iowa every year, despite having to coach against her alma mater. “It’s big for the fan bases,” she said. “The state of Iowa really loves women’s basketball and these are really good games, so they are not only good to play from a competitive standpoint, they really help grow our sport.”
One of the beauties of basketball is the seemingly endless array of ways to play the game. Rebounding or speed, preventing backdoor cuts or forcing turnovers, fouling up three or locking down on defense — a slew of strategies allow each coach to put a unique signature on his or her team.
Scheduling is no different. Both a blessing and a curse, limitless scheduling options are as much a part of college basketball as student sections and pep bands. Come March, when broadcasters, analysts and Twitter pundits dive into résumé banter, there will be one item on the team sheets that’s two years in the making. The wins and losses start in November, but the full body of work? That starts with the schedule.
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