June 23, 2007

Andy Kehe column: 'Nays' have it as CSUB's schedule takes shape

By ANDY KEHE, Californian staff columnist

"No."

It's not an answer coaches at Cal State Bakersfield were accustomed to hearing, until they started recruiting Division I-eligible talent and called around to book games and meets for their first all-Division I season in 2007-08.

"'No . . .thanks' that was another one you get," cracked Tim La Kose, the women's basketball coach who has had it slightly easier than some at CSUB because of the six Division I opponents he scheduled last season.

There may not be a more difficult task facing a coach of a program at a transitioning Division I program than trying to get established Division I programs to say "yes" to a game. Doubly hard to get them to say 'yes' to going on the road, to Bakersfield if that's the case, to play.

In the early going, Roadrunner teams have little bargaining power outside the few -- men's and women's basketball -- who can at least offer a money guarantee to schools as inducement for coming here.

"Our guarantee is that each player can have half a burrito after the game," said men's soccer coach Simon Tobin.

Moreover, there's a risk to playing CSUB that didn't exist last year. The Roadrunners, in all sports, are a "counter" for anybody playing them, meaning that unlike last season, a win against CSUB counts on their record. So does a loss, and there-in lies the problem. With CSUB not having an established Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) ranking, it does little for an opponent's RPI should they beat CSUB and it hurts their RPI plenty if they should lose to CSUB, at least at the outset.

RPI rankings are derived from a formula that places values on won-loss record, strength of schedule and opponents' strength of schedule. RPI is what the NCAA looks at when it ranks teams for postseason play and for filling out postseason tournament fields with at-large berths. Getting into postseason play can mean hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra revenue for a school and its conference.

Hit the road, Jack

There's another obstacle confronting CSUB schedulers -- most prospective opponents are in conferences and already have as many as 20 or so built-in games, more in softball. It helps CSUB for scheduling purposes that the Big West and West Coast Conference each has nine members and not 10. But many schools like to schedule tough in the non-conference portion of their schedule to boost RPI, and even if that's not a concern it's often difficult finding a date that works for both schools.

Consequently, you go with road-heavy schedules like coach John Price's volleyball schedule -- 15 matches on the road versus eight at home -- and Tobins' in men's soccer. The Runners will play 15 road matches, including matches at Ohio State, at Oregon State and against Portland and the University of Washington, both in Portland to open the season; and five at home, only two of which (Long Island University and Alabama A&M) are against Division I programs. The men scheduled three Sunday games, the women a whopping eight.

Soccer doesn't have bad schedules, just exhausting ones. The men's match on Oct. 3 against the Buckeyes, coached by former Fresno State coach John Bluem, is followed by a match the next day at Radford University in Virginia and one at Longwood University in Farmville, Va. That trip comes on the heels of four road games in seven days.

"There are so many things stacked against you and unfortunately in the end it's going to hurt you," Tobin said. "But you have to take games whenever you can. When we go to Ohio State, that's a great game for us, but we'll be playing three games in five days and in the soccer world that's not ideal.

"Apart from the travel, I'm happy with the quality of our opponents. Certainly we'll get a taste right away of how we stand."

It's who you know

All but the fall sport schedules can still grow some, and as road-heavy most schedules are to this point, across the board they are remarkably solid and diverse. To get them that way coaches and assistants at CSUB had to collect more markers than a kindergarten teacher. It sometimes comes down to who you know, how well you know them and how you treated them in the past.

"Basically, what you do is you go to your friends and people you know and plead with them: 'If you have a spare game can we do something,'" Tobin said.

To get a game at Long Beach State, La Kose called in a marker he laid down while he was the coach at Cal Lutheran and scheduling games against Chapman, coached then by current 49ers coach Mary Hegarty, when no other small schools would.

Women's soccer coach Nicole Van Dyke had an easier time scheduling than Tobin did because women's programs in the west far out-number men's programs, but still had to use connections she fostered as coach at Cal State Stanislaus to successfully book games against Cal out of the Pac-10 Conference, St. Mary's and University of the Pacific.

"I'm not dumb, though," she said. "I know these schools are looking at us as a win, but I don't see that as a problem."

Tobin made a friend while on a recruiting trip to Holland. It happened to be Long Island University coach TJ Kostecky and now LIU Blackbirds will be coming here to play Sept. 6. The Runners will go to LIU in 2008-09.

Men's basketball coach Keith Brown, who is Mr. Connection, has rescheduled all eight Division I schools his team played last season -- five for home games -- and has added Cal Poly SLO, Weber State, San Jose State, Oregon State, UC Davis, Cal State Fullerton, Sacramento State and UC Riverside to the schedule, with about nine or 10 more to be announced.

With volleyball, soccer and basketball schedules all but complete, CSUB is etching relationships with the Big 12 (Texas and Kansas), the Pac-10 (Oregon State in two sports, Washington, Oregon and Arizona), the Big 10 (Ohio State) all eight Western Athletic Conference and all nine Big West Conference members, the Western Athletic Conference, the Big Sky Conference, Conference USA (Houston in two sports) and a half-dozen or so other smaller conferences, plus other independents. Conference USA has, oddly enough, invited CSUB to swim in its conference championships.

Volleyball, it seems, has built the toughest schedule with Kansas, Oregon, Houston, Pepperdine, Arizona and Fresno State (twice) laying in wait.

"What's happening is that lower Division I teams don't want to lose to a first year D-I program," Price said. "Non- conference, they try to schedule as light as possible. They know we're better than a lot of teams they can schedule. The middle tier teams are probably on the bubble for the postseason tournament -- the UCSBs and Irvines. It's a two-headed coin -- on one side they're saying they don't want to play us because we'll hurt their RPI. On the other side, they say they don't want to play us because they're afraid we're too competitive."

Say what?

The "No thank yous" have come mostly from schools to the east which have no relationship with CSUB or its coaches, and surprisingly, some rejections have come from traditional rivals. UC Irvine, a ready-made rival for men's basketball due to former Roadruner coach Pat Douglass being the Anteaters coach, won't play the Roadrunners in 2007-08, but not because Douglass didn't want the game. In a phone conversation on Friday he said that if he and not the out-going athletic director had pieced together his schedule, the Roadrunners would have been on it.

"I called Keith and told him that if the new AD lets me do my own schedule, I'd like to play you," Douglass said.

UC Davis said "no" to La Kose, as did Bakersfield native Mark French at UC Santa Barbara, which generally tries to schedule as many high-rated teams as possible because there aren't many in the Big West. But French has since changed his mind about CSUB. When reached on Friday, French said his assistant that morning had talked to CSUB about the Roadrunners coming to Santa Barbara, probably in January.

"Why change our mind? It's getting last minute and we needed to schedule some games," French said. "It's not out of desperation, but we are getting down to the end and frankly, we know it'll be a good game. For me, it was not as difficult decision as it would be for someone not born and raised in Bakersfield."

The Roadrunners beat the Gauchos at Santa Barbara in a 2005-06 exhibition game.

As for UC Davis? "I'm not sure I wouldn't do the same thing if I were in their position," La Kose said. "We've had a lot of success against them.

"It's a mixed blessing. We've had a lot of success against Division I teams, and therefore the phone is not ringing a whole lot."