A few thoughts on the schedule:
1. Exhibition games - Obviously the staff and administration are concerned about the AA being ready in time for the season as they have not scheduled any exhibition games. I assume the team will participate in at least one scrimmage against another D1 team (similar to what they did with Utah recently), but I would have liked to have seen one actual exhibition game.
2. Composition - In the end, it's pretty much what we expected. We knew 8 games and expected that the last 5 would consist of (2) non-D1 games and 3 home games against low major opponents. In the past few years those home games have been courtesy of some type of exempt tournament (BCA, etc.), but that doesn't appear to be the case this year. Not that it matters either way.
3. Schedule Strength - Mixed feelings on this one ( more on that in a minute). If you look at the winning percentages last year then the 14-15 schedule comes out significantly stronger than the 13-14 (cumulative winning percentage of 53% vs. 49% from last year's). However...
4. What it means - Here is my gripe, this is a NIT schedule. It's not awful, but it is not a typical at-large NCAA schedule. That would normally not be of great concern to me (we haven't played an OOC schedule of that caliber in nearly a decade), but this is the one season that I believe the NCAA tournament is a realistic expectation. Why aren't we scheduling like it? We simply are not listening to what the selection committee is saying. Nobody received an at-large bid last year with a SOS below 100 (it was a primary reason SMU missed out, as they finished with a SOS of 114, primarily due to a very weak OOC SOS). Last year our SOS was 132. This year's schedule is better on paper, as I noted above, but still projects to a SOS in the 90's or so (lot of variables obviously and this is just using last year's performance for the opposing teams, so don't take my projection as gospel). That isn't awful, but it is certainly not taking the bull by the horns and getting noticed in the one season we should be doing so.
I think we can still make the NCAA with this schedule, but we have to hope the MWC performs closer to 12-13 than 13-14 and we have to take care of business in the OOC. Pokes need a quality win (either CU or SMU) and need to avoid bad losses (pretty much every OOC game except at Cal. NMSU is a quality opponent, but can't afford a home loss).
One item that will help us from a SOS perspective is that we skip one game against AFA. Last year we skipped a game against both SDSU and UNLV, so our conference schedule was slightly weaker than the true conference SOS.
Of course, the Pokes could just win the MWCT and make it a moot point.