The Houston Cougars men's basketball team released its first schedule under new head coach James Dickey on Friday. Suffice it to say, the Coogs won't be wowing anybody with their strength of schedule this year.
Let me put it this way. I can actually name all 347 Division 1 basketball schools. (No, seriously.) And I found myself looking at the schedule, wondering, "Who are these guys?"
Now, maybe the process of breaking in a new coach put the Coogs behind the eight-ball in scheduling. Putting together a schedule when many schools have already filled up their non-conference slates can be tough. But there are three hundred and forty-seven Division 1 teams. Was there really not an alternative to having two lower-division schools on the schedule?
The rest of Houston's non-conference games aren't a whole lot better.
If you follow football moreso than hoops, you might think to yourself, "LSU and TCU are good opponents." And yes, that's about as close as Houston gets to playing a marquee game. Too bad those schools went a combined 24-39 last year.
Okay, Louisiana Tech and Nevada are okay. And Houston will have a young, inexperienced squad this year, so maybe there's some value in getting them some confidence with early-season cupcakes. But this is a difficult schedule to get excited about.