I am a big believer that scheduling helps recruiting... recruiting helps get players .... players win games .... winning games helps recruiting .... recruiting gets players .... and around and around it goes ....
For example, my belief is that playing games AT Duke, AT Kansas, AT UCLA, AT Kentucky ... would help the Men's BB program. Yeah, at first we'd get our butts kicked and probably lose by some embarrassing scores. But imagine the selling pitch Chambers can make by telling kids that if they sign with PSU they'll get to play in places like Rupp Arena, Cameron Indoor, Pauly Pavilion, Fogg-Allen Fieldhouse..... then once we start getting better players... (see above).
Same thing I noticed with this schedule. You want to entice hockey players, you should not only schedule the premier programs like Denver and North Dakota State. But how about flipping that Alaska Anchorage game up to Alaska. Imagine the selling point of telling a kid that if they sign with PSU they'll get a free trip to Alaska. If AA can afford to travel to PSU, then why can't PSU afford to travel to AA, and make it a 2game series so the players have an entire weekend in Alaska?