Agreed, Marquette would be a nice matchup, although not sure it helps in recruiting. We play in Wisconsin every year already (albeit Madison) and get exposure there, plus I'm not sure we want Marquette invading MSP every other year to help their recruiting here. The best part of this matchup would be for potential fans wanting to make a road trip. Easy visit to Milwaukee. Otherwise, to me, schedule a different Big East team.
No reason to play DePaul. We are in Chicago every year already playing against Northwestern in a half-empty building. No reason to make a second trip to Chicago to play in another half-empty building that is even worse than Northwestern's half-empty building. Plus, DePaul is terrible and would give us nearly no benefit even when winning that game.
This would be fine, although we are already in Ohio once a year (usually) against Ohio State. This was a nice series back in the Clem Haskins-Bob Huggins era.
I love this idea, especially getting to play at MSG. Also, with Coach Young's ties to NYC/NJ area and our obvious intent to recruit that region this would be important. Eventually, we will hit Rutgers in Big Ten play there, but likely not every year so a consistent presence is good. Also, if we have real success recruiting there, two trips a year to the area is a nice deal for guys playing on our roster from there and a nice incentive for potential recruits from there. So, Rutgers PLUS St. John's would be great. Seton Hall (with Coach McHale's ties there) would also be a good non-conference game in the area that makes sense.
Mizzou would be a good one if you want to get some exposure to KC and STL, both pretty good midwestern hotbeds for high school hoops. I'd like this one. I'm with you on Iowa State, forget it. We are already in Iowa once a year and we don't recruit there and ISU hits MN heavy in recruiting. No need to help them. Only good thing on ISU would be road trip for fans, but that isn't worth the negatives to me.
Personally, I think if we're going to schedule out of conference games with Big East/AAC, SEC, PAC12 type teams, then go somewhere we aren't already getting exposure. I think future games with teams like Georgia Tech (Atlanta/SE U.S.), Memphis or Ole Miss (to get a game close to Andre Hollins hometown), a California school (UCLA/USC/Cal/Stan), Villanova (Philly), Providence or Boston College (for the Prov/Boston markets), SMU/TCU/Houston/Texas (Houston and Dallas), etc.
I do predict we'll see a semi-regular meeting with Louisville and possibly Florida on occasion.
