By Alex Faust, News Staff

If your favorite team only played one home game in the first two months of the season, would you be disappointed? What if I told you that this team had a say in the scheduling process and still only scheduled one game in front of their home fans?

This scenario is playing out behind the scenes of Northeastern men’s basketball. Pooling from a combination of rumors, confirmed dates and insider sources, The News has learned that the Huskies will have only one or two home games during the fall semester, the fewest since joining the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) in 2005. The second date is dependent on whether the CAA’s December game will be at Matthews Arena or not.

Northeastern has scheduled at least two non-conference home games every fall since 1997, which includes its days piddling along in the America East Conference. In seasons with fewer home games, dates were sacrificed for neutral-court events (such as last year’s games at the TD Garden and in Cancun) which afford the chance to play quality opponents in a non-hostile environment. But in 2011, this will not be the case. Every non-conference game (outside of February’s Bracketbuster) will be in a different venue, against a different opponent.

Huskies basketball has come a long way since the fall of 1997. But when you add this fact into the mix, it gives you even greater perspective:   Two years prior, in December 1995, Northeastern hosted Duke at Matthews Arena. Let me repeat: Northeastern played a home game against Duke. Thus the message should be clear: when it comes to scheduling, NU can do better.

I’ve heard the excuses for our scheduling woes, believe me; nobody wants to play NU because they’re too good, the CAA has become a tougher conference, teams would rather come to Boston to play an opponent from a weaker league (Boston University) or one that helps their ratings percentage index (RPI), or strength of schedule more (Boston College), etc. Some of those concerns are legitimate, but how can it be that of more than 300 men’s Division I teams, NU could only convince one to play them at the Arena this year? Heck, I’d settle for a middle-of-the-road Ivy League, NEC, or America East squad if it meant getting an extra home game. One more game can’t possibly be that difficult, can it?

Before going any further, let me make this statement very clear:  The dates already known (including games at Bradley, La Salle, Louisiana Tech, BU and Vermont), and others that have yet to be finalized, will make up a schedule of quality opponents. If NU can pick up a fair number of wins, it will be a tremendous boost to their RPI. But at the same time, I find it hard to believe that only Southern Illinois (a return game from last year’s ESPN 24-hour marathon, mind you) wanted to travel to Boston this year.

I’ll admit that the college basketball landscape has changed considerably since the mid 1990s, but for all the praises Northeastern’s coaching staff has rightfully heaped on the N-Zone student supporters, those very fans may not have their cherished home court advantage more than twice before the new calendar year. And that’s a shame.