NCAA Basketball: Modern-day scheduling is a puzzling art for coaches

MTES and multi-year contracts are types of games coaches can schedule

In order to achieve their goals, coaches have to be somewhat strategic in the types of games they schedule. In the non-conference part of the season, there are a couple of types of games that are becoming more and more prevalent as a part of a team’s schedule, the multi-year series between two teams and the multi-team events, or MTEs.

As if scheduling isn’t hard enough, the amount of roster movement and late roster movement in today’s game makes it even more difficult on coaches. As new Temple head coach Adam Fisher said, “In today’s world with the transfer portal you don’t know who is on whose team and you don’t know who’s on your team. It’s kind of pushed scheduling back a little bit further.”

What Fisher refers to is a big reason coaches like the multi-year contracts with other teams as they add stability and building blocks for your schedule knowing that those games are set in place. VCU’s Ryan Odom says it’s not just about having those games set he says, “It’s good for both fanbases and it’s a quality game and you have that already situated for the next year.”

MTEs are something fans get really excited about early in the year and what surprised me when talking to coaches was that when picking a tournament to play in, it wasn’t just about finding the best field and the best opportunity to boost your scheduling numbers. Joe Pasternack, the head coach at UC-Santa Barbara says when talking about MTEs.

"“Of course the field of the tournament is important, but we also want our kids to have a good experience and hopefully experience something they haven’t had the chance to before.”"

Scheduling has become more of a jigsaw puzzle than ever before and these types of games give coaches a head start by having some pieces already in place.