"Our scheduling philosophy will also be to play opponents who we know will have strong RPIs and be high-level competition," said Gottfried. "Obviously, some pieces of the schedule were in place when we got here, but we feel good about the upgrades we were able to make. We are playing teams like Princeton and Morehead State which both had 25 wins and went to the tournament last year, along with more traditional powers like Syracuse, Texas, Vanderbilt and Indiana. We also go on the road for tough games with Stanford in the Pac-10 and St. Bonaventure in the A-10 so I think it will be tremendously challenging."
Complete OOC schedule with 2011 Pomeroy Rating:
UNC-Asheville [150]
Morehead State [93]
Princeton [84]
Vanderbilt [35]
Oregon St. [160] OR Texas [5]
Elon [235]
Indiana [75]
Stanford [104]
NC Central [311]
Syracuse [11]
St. Bonaventure [152]
Northeastern [186]
Campbell [256]
Western Carolina [182]
Delaware State [309]
As it stands based on performance last season, Mark Gottfried was true to his word and upgraded the non-conference slate substantially. NC State played eight teams outside the top 200 last season, and this year they're set to play just four. We'll have to see how that holds as the year progresses, but it looks like a solid step up at the back end. If State gets Texas rather than Oregon State, they'll have started the year with five games against teams that made the 2011 NCAA tournament. Indiana is getting better and Syracuse is Syracuse. Playing St. Bonaventure in a semi-road game helps too.