Since MT had a recent series w/ Ole Miss, I'm hesitant to call this an unprecedented or breakthrough move. The more balanced locations of the series is fairly satisfying. This combined with the other games on the schedule makes me wonder if the last 4 or 5 seasons of success is finally starting to earn MT basketball some credibility within the overall college basketball landscape.
It is good to see these sort of games with the benefits on the RPI and generally improved exposure. In Kermit's defense, it seems he's done a pretty good job given the circumstances in scheduling regarding SOS RPI. In recent seasons, it seems MT has been battling the "victim of success" thing with enough success that major programs are hesitant to schedule MT. In a poor RPI season for C-USA last season, Kermit's scheduling helped keep MT at the top of the conference in RPI for most of the season. Last season, Kermit scheduled non-P5 programs that had good RPIs going into the season in Ga State, S Dakota St, and obviously VCU. In local non-P5 games, Kermit seems to play Murray St and Belmont every season. If you're going to play teams from the OVC, typically those two are going to be the toughest with the best RPI from their conf. That's pretty smart scheduling given the circumstances in my opinion.
TSU seems to be an annual game. If their RPI is not horrendously low, I'm ok with a local match up vs TSU to fill out the schedule. It seems that TSU typically falls into the niche of a schedule filler when a D1 game is needed at a time or opening in the schedule when many people are not paying attention to college basketball. For example, I seem to recall MT playing TSU more than once early in the season on Sunday afternoons when most sports fans in the south are watching the NFL.
While I typically have a problem with MT scheduling non D1 teams, I don't have too much of a problem with a game like last season's Trevecca game. When the non-D1 game is vs a local team in the middle of the holidays to serve as a holiday break recovery game, I don't complain too much regarding scheduling such a game. It seems attendance would be low anyways since it is right in the middle of the holidays. Returning to a sort of glorified scrimmage makes sense for the team after having a few days off. Additionally, it's bowl season. It seems that generally speaking, the sports world puts college basketball on the back burner during bowl season.
It's heartening to see that MT seems to be putting together a really good schedule for the upcoming season. Perhaps the big NCAA win is starting to pay dividends. Hopefully, the talent will be there at a good depth on the roster to make these winnable games if MT plays well. Clearly, players returning such as Upshaw and Potts give MT tremendously talented players to put on the court. Hopefully the new guards are able to produce a quality starting PG and reasonable support in the backcourt in general. Hopefully, this will include Simpson bouncing back from that horrible injury to go on to have a great season next year!
