Once again, IU is playing one of the toughest schedules in the country.
After traveling to South Bend, Indiana, to play in the Mike Berticelli Tournament in the first weekend of the season, the Hoosiers return to play at home.
What awaits IU are two teams who have been mainstays in the NCAA Tournament for the past few seasons including the defending national champions, Stanford. IU’s first game of the IU Credit Union Classic is against Cal.
“It’s nice to have Cal back,” IU Coach Todd Yeagley said. “They play a fantastic style and I think the fans will be really entertained by this match. Our second game, Sunday night, is against defending national champion, Stanford, who really has emerged on the scene in the past three or four years nationally.”
IU’s opponents don’t get any easier after that, either. Five days after IU plays the defending national champions, it welcomes Maryland to Bill Armstrong Stadium for its first Big Ten match of the season.
Maryland advanced to the quarterfinals of the NCAA Tournament last season before losing to Clemson in penalty kicks.
“Maryland has become a special rivalry,” Yeagley said. “It’s been a national rival for a couple years, we’ve played each other in some big games, and just in the past two seasons it’s a team we expect to see twice in a season in the regular season and the conference tournament.”
The Maryland match is also the first of four Big Ten home matches. Yeagley said these matches are an area where the Hoosiers have struggled in recent years and is the primary area they are looking to improve upon this season.
IU’s four conference home matches are also against teams the Hoosiers have struggled to win against the past few seasons.
IU has not beaten Maryland, Penn State, Northwestern or Maryland in any of the last times it has played these teams in Bloomington.
“The last few years one of the disappointments of our team has been our home record,” Yeagley said. “We have not been as dominant as we expect and that’s something we want to take back.”
Those four matches are also just a part of a Big Ten schedule that is always challenging, only adding on to the already difficult non-conference schedule.
But this is how the Hoosiers always build their schedule.
“Our philosophy is to challenge ourselves before conference play,” Yeagley said. “We’re playing against teams that are proven tournament teams, so come tournament time we’ve seen the best of the best out there.”
Even so, this schedule is more challenging than years past for one reason.
In the past 27 years, IU has only played a reigning national champion once in the regular season.
“It’s a really tough schedule, we do that every year,” Yeagley said. “I’d say this particular schedule might be as challenging as anyone we’ve had in the last five years.”
