Iowa State men's basketball nonconference schedule is good -- except for almost all the games in Ames

  Fri, Nov 09

 Southern

Ames, Iowa

  TBA

  Mon, Nov 12

 Alabama A&M

Ames, Iowa

  TBA

  Sun, Nov 18

 Campbell (Global Sports Classic)

Ames, Iowa

  TBA

  Tue, Nov 20

 North Carolina A&T (Global Sports Classic)

Ames, Iowa

  TBA

  Fri, Nov 23

 vs. Cincinnati (Global Sports Classic)

Las Vegas, Nev.

  TBA

  Sat, Nov 24

 vs. UNLV/Oregon (Global Sports Classic)

Las Vegas, Nev.

  TBA

  Sat, Dec 01

 BYU

Ames, Iowa

  TBA

  Tue, Dec 04

 Florida Gulf Coast

Ames, Iowa

  TBA

  Fri, Dec 07

 Iowa (Iowa Corn Cy-Hawk Series)

Iowa City, Iowa

  TBA

  Sun, Dec 09

 Nebraska-Omaha

Ames, Iowa

  TBA

  Sat, Dec 15

 vs. Drake (Big Four Classic)

Des Moines, Iowa

  TBA

  Wed, Dec 19

 UMKC

Kansas City, Mo.

  TBA

  Tue, Jan 01

 Yale

Ames, Iowa

  TBA

The above is the nonconference men's basketball schedule for Iowa State in the coming season.

Yesterday, I picked apart Iowa's nonconference slate. It's not good. Of the nine home games, the only one to look forward to with any real reason is Iowa State.

Iowa State will have two particularly challenging games when it goes to Las Vegas in November, facing Cincinnati and either UNLV or Oregon. Then there's the game at Iowa. And a game against Drake in Des Moines. And a game against BYU (24-9 last season) at home. So those are five good ballgames.

The other seven non-Big 12 home games ... flotsam and jetsam. Here are their won-lost records from last season and their final Sagarin rating (out of 345 Division I teams):

Southern 14-14, 315th

Alabama A&M 5-21, 341st

Campbell 16-15, 226th

N.C. A&T 9-20, 296th

Florida Gulf Coast 14-17, 175th

Nebraska-Omaha 11-18 last season, playing its first full season of Division I competition this year

Yale, 17-10, 161st

The game at Missouri-Kansas City would appear to be for visibility purposes in Kansas City only, not to help the Cyclones' RPI. The UMKC Kangaroos were 10-20 last season.

So it's not a very good home schedule, but ISU does have five good games out of the 13. Iowa has the same number, with Iowa State, Northern Iowa, Western Kentucky (an NCAA tourney team last season though it had a losing record), at Virginia Tech, and either Wichita State or DePaul.

And now, back to football.