Fascinating site that I came across from reading one of the Pitt message boards. Basketball Travelers is apparently a legitimate site where Division 1 Men's Basketball Programs can identify/publicize scheduling needs for upcoming seasons. (Obviously only selected authorized personnel from a member institution can post to that site.) For example, from this site you can see that Louisville is still looking for a high-major to open their new arena in 2010-2011.
Several of the low/mid majors appear to be pretty desperate for gaurentee games. (These are where the high-major will pay the low/mid major to come to their arena including it seems travel and hotel expenses.) Some of the posts from these smaller schools border on the comical - like they are trying to convince the big dogs that they will be so bad next year that there couldn't possibly be any risk in signing them to a gaurentee game. Look at the posts from Wright State and Idaho. Paraphrasing, these sound like the following:
"Low major loses 4 of 5 starters from a team that already sucked. Please pay us $50K plus travel/hotel and we will be glad to show up at your gym so you can kick our ass."
This reminds one of some sort of bizarro online dating site where the objective is to convince your potential mate about how unworthy/useless you are. Talk about some serious self-esteem issues.
Oh and I am sorry, but I can't pass up the chance to point out this joker from Penn State (Jon Perry) who is typing in ALL CAPS! I guess spell-checkers haven't made their way to Happy Valley either. You can't make this stuff up.
