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I noticed that the Sugar Bears wiped the floor with South Alabama, La Tech, & Southern Miss. this past weekend. I looked at our preconference schedule and see that we have very soft opponents....I looked at other schedules in the conference and their playing Michigan, USC, Mississippi State, Arkansas, Alabama, Virgina Tech, Michigan State, Mizzou, Pittsburg, Kansas...just to name a few, of course one school is not playing all these teams. As I look at our schedule our toughest team is....Jacksonville St. & Florida Atlantic....I'm a little concerned if we are testing ourselves enough....should I be concerned?

I've thought about that too. I know last year, or the year before, we played a pretty rough non-conference schedule. We didn't do so well in the W/L department either. I think there are pros and cons to a tough OOC schedule. I think the main reason we don't play the toughest OOC schedule has to do with RPI and at-large bids to the NCAA Tournament. Being in the SLC, pretty much means you have to win the conference tournament to get into the NCAA Tournament. Unless we were to play an extremely tough OOC and do extremely well, come conference play, our RPI drops off A LOT (just like in basketball). I imagine from a coaching perspective it is a balancing act. Would you rather have more Ws going into conference play and have to win the tournament to get in, or have fewer Ws and still have to win the tournament to get in?

True that either way you have to win the SLC tournament.
The question a coach must decide and I believe what SugarbearVballfan is asking is whether a team is being prepared for such a vital tournament by playing vastly inferior competition instead of being challenged.

That's tough to answer.

The Sugar Bears have Missouri State (ranked 45th in last year's final RPI) and Texas Tech (115). Southern Miss was 151.