[Mudhead]

The reasons to play the best will apply to other schools.   Don’t you think the top WBB teams in the western half of the country will be trying to find spots on Tara’s dance card??

IMO, the biggest problem would be to be stuck in a conference with many weak teams on the other side of the country. More travel, less practice.  Imagine conference tournament games that are 2000 miles away.

I must confess that I have  no real feel for what influences top teams to schedule.  I had always assumed that playing a top team in what  we all felt and argued was the toughest WBB conference in the country was a factor in attracting top teams.  But even if they weren’t attracted, you still played three or four top ten teams twice a year in your own conference. Now these teams will be in other conferences having to play conference games. Their time, interest and need to play Stanford wouldn’t seem to be as great.

I am pretty sure that playing Fresno State, Utah State , Santa Clara and UNLV or whom ever you can get won’t be as big a deal to recruits as playing UCLA, Utah, Arizona , Oregon and Oregon State on a home and home basis. The “Tara Factor” is nice for salutes and awards dinner but no coach is going to disadvantage her program just to say thank you to her. Maybe they should but they won’t.

It’s possible that when Iowa, Indiana and the like come out .west to play in LA or the Northwest they will add a third game but I doubt it.

So no, on balance, you won’t have anywhere near as good a schedule in 2025 as you had this past year or next year. And I doubt it will be as good as you would have in the ACC.

[Mudhead]

The reasons to play the best will apply to other schools.   Don’t you think the top WBB teams in the western half of the country will be trying to find spots on Tara’s dance card??

IMO, the biggest problem would be to be stuck in a conference with many weak teams on the other side of the country. More travel, less practice.  Imagine conference tournament games that are 2000 miles away.

I must confess that I have  no real feel for what influences top teams to schedule.  I had always assumed that playing a top team in what  we all felt and argued was the toughest WBB conference in the country was a factor in attracting top teams.  But even if they weren’t attracted, you still played three or four top ten teams twice a year in your own conference. Now these teams will be in other conferences having to play conference games. Their time, interest and need to play Stanford wouldn’t seem to be as great.

I am pretty sure that playing Fresno State, Utah State , Santa Clara and UNLV or whom ever you can get won’t be as big a deal to recruits as playing UCLA, Utah, Arizona , Oregon and Oregon State on a home and home basis. The “Tara Factor” is nice for salutes and awards dinner but no coach is going to disadvantage her program just to say thank you to her. Maybe they should but they won’t.

It’s possible that when Iowa, Indiana and the like come out .west to play in LA or the Northwest they will add a third game but I doubt it.

So no, on balance, you won’t have anywhere near as good a schedule in 2025 as you had this past year or next year. And I doubt it will be as good as you would have in the ACC.