2025-2026 Basketball Schedule

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DyedBlue said:
If ISU were to host an MTE, what format and field would be ideal?
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The Bird Classic - Either 2 or 3 games depending on if you want to do a tournament or not. Most MM tournaments do 2 games so probably best for that.

Since there are a TON of teams with bird-related mascots, I think it would be cool to just completely sell it. Since it is unlikely to get anyone big to come, I'd try to get as high level MMs as possible. Maybe Rice Owls from Conference USA, Eastern Michigan Eagles/Bowling Green Falcons/Miami RedHawks from the MAC, Saint Joseph Hawks from A10, Coastal Carolina from Sun Belt, If you can't get a 3 other middies to come in, there are a ton of birds in low majors.

You work with Terre Haute CVB and other entities to make this feel big time. Have the Bird statue and Bird museum included, etc.
 
I like your idea better than my original thoughts. It has a marketable, ISU connected theme and targets a broad base of potentially "gettable" teams .

My own thought was an 8 team field consisting of four mid majors and four "gettable" power 5 schools. Probably much the harder to sell.

All 8 are from different conferences to build a mid major pool of ISU and three other who play two games in pool to get a 1-4 seeding. Same for the P5's. Then the 1's thru 4's play each other. Majors get two games vs P5's and mids get two quality mid opponents followed by a shot at a P5 on a neutral court.
 
I have thought about hosting a tournament that doesn’t include isu to become a neutral host with the caveat that one team play isu prior to the 4 team tournament and one plays isu following. This would help other mid majors get 2 quality neutral court games and two of the teams can add a road game vs ISU prior to or following the tournament while the cvb covers their hotel stays and reimburses market rate travel for teams and coaches only.

Toledo vs Missouri State and Wright State vs Tennessee State

In this example one team would come two or three days early and another to stay a day or two after and would play ISU in home games. This helps all the teams to schedule quality regional neutral site games while helping ISU get a couple quality home games.
 

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DyedBlue said:
I like your idea better than my original thoughts. It has a marketable, ISU connected theme and targets a broad base of potentially "gettable" teams .

My own thought was an 8 team field consisting of four mid majors and four "gettable" power 5 schools. Probably much the harder to sell.

All 8 are from different conferences to build a mid major pool of ISU and three other who play two games in pool to get a 1-4 seeding. Same for the P5's. Then the 1's thru 4's play each other. Majors get two games vs P5's and mids get two quality mid opponents followed by a shot at a P5 on a neutral court.
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My thought was just learn haaaaaard into Bird and then put extra cheese on top of it. That way you can probably get some press from ESPN, FoxSports, etc. because they tend to like memeable/narrative driven shit these days. Maybe the new AD could even get Larry to come for it since he'd have his own MTE named after him.
 
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