Acrisure from St Louis and Minnesota to Nevada and Illinois State. Would love to know if that was Acrisure doing us dirty or Sendek’s preference.
Calling it a St. Mary’s schedule isn’t necessarily an insult. It also might be giving the SCU schedule too much credit.
Last year SMC played 2 Q1 non-cons, both power conf, both Ls. 4-1 vs. mostly road and neutral Q2 and then ran table vs. Q3 and Q4.
Their other Q1 games were 0-2 to SCU and 1-1 to Gonzaga. The Gonzaga win didn’t get them into the field, it got them a 7 seed. But without it, they would have been a 10 or 11 with little margin for error.
What we know of the SCU schedule for 2026-27, with last year’s quadrant
Q1 - Grand Canyon A (71, close to Q2)
Q2 - UNM H, VCU H, Nevada N, Ill St N (95, close to Q3), McNeese N (56, close to Q1)
Q3 - UNT N, Fresno H (153, close to Q4)), Murray N (105, could be Q2)
Q4 - Milwaukee H, Sac St H, Utah Tech H (176, close to Q3), Loyola? N
That looks like a weaker non-con than either SMC or SCU LY, and no Gonzaga in league to provide Q1 games.
Taking 2 of 3 from SMC plus going 6-1 vs. Q2 got SCU in the field. In essence, beating SMC twice excused the Loyola loss. Had other chances, like the mop kid in palm springs taking away a likely win over STL. But last year’s schedule had 8 Q1 games. This year looks like 1 maybe 2, plus whatever SMC yields. Very little margin for error in Q2-Q4 with that.
SCU basically needs to no worse than split with SMC, split GCU and McNeese Q1/Q2 borderline games, and could only lose 1 other Q2-Q4 game to be in for a chance at an at-large (which would mean losing another to SMC or a Q2-Q4 team, which would probably put SCU out of the NCAAs or the very end of the extended bubble).
SMC went 25-1 vs. Q2-Q4, and that’s pretty much what SCU would have to do. Maybe 2 losses. Probably not 3. Which is why I’d like to know whether it was Sendek’s choice or not.