The offseason is officially upon us, so with that, welcome to the 2024-25 Griz Basketball Schedule Tracker! I will keep us updated throughout the entire offseason as we begin to see tweets and updates about the Griz nonconference schedule through Spring and Summer and all the way up to the eventual announcement in August (hopefully). God willing we don’t go what we went through last Summer having to wait all the way into late September to get the official announcement as the Griz had an absolutely brutal time building a nonconference schedule last year. It wasn’t exactly the most attractive schedule we’ve ever seen that had 3 in season home and homes. I would prefer not to see that again. Here are some of my expectations for what for what next seasons schedule will look like:
- 18 Conference game schedule that will begin Thursday, January 2 and conclude Monday, March 3. I expect the conference schedule to be very similar to this season’s schedule where 16 of the 18 games will be played on Thursdays and Saturdays and 2 Monday games including the final night of the regular season on March 3. Typically, the only difference year to year is they tend to invert your schedule. For example, we played Eastern and MSU at home in the 2nd half of conference play, so I would expect next year we will play them at home in the first half of conference play. The conference tournament in Boise will run from March 8-12, 2025.
- 13 non-conference games that will feature a mix of money games, non-D1’s, mid majors, and an MTE (likely the Zootown Classic in some form or fashion). The athletic department has done a really good job over the last couple of seasons of getting at least half of our nonconference games at home. I expect they will make a similar effort for next season as well. Some things to look for and keep in mind:
- The Big Sky-Summit League Challenge will return for a second consecutive season. I can confirm that the Challenge series will once again be the 2-game format (1 home, 1 road) and will be played during the first week of December this year, so there is no disrupting the conference schedule like there was this year. Games will be played on Wednesday December 4 and Saturday December 7. The Griz finished 3rd in the regular season standings this year which means we will likely play the 3rd and 4th place finishers in the Summit League, and this year those two teams were UMKC and St. Thomas, which will be fun cause I’m tired of playing the Dakota schools every year and I’d like to see some of these other Summit League teams for a change. If these are our 2 scheduled opponents, then this could open the door for the Griz to also schedule a team like NDSU or UND or SDSU for additional home games if we need to. Last year, the Big Sky-Summit League Challenge opponents were announced in early May, so expect a similar timeframe this go around as well.
- Conference realignment. While it still breaks my heart to see the PAC12 crumble under it’s own weight, the demise of the PAC12 is going to have a major effect on the ability to get money games on the west coast. Currently, 4 PAC12 member are joining the BIG 10 (USC, UCLA, Washington, Oregon) 4 are joining the Big 12 (Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Arizona State) 2 are joining the ACC (Stanford, CAL) and the remaining 2 are joining the WCC (Washington State, Oregon State). How this will affect our ability to get money games from power conference teams on the west coast, I have no idea. It could be a positive or a negative effect, but it’s too early to say. All I know is it was becoming increasingly tough to get PAC12 teams to schedule us as the years went by. Whether we schedule former PAC12 teams or somebody else, my guess is we will schedule at least 2 power 5 teams in our nonconference schedule. Last year these 2 teams were Oregon and Houston. I don’t think we will see either of those 2 teams on our schedule again for a while, but I do think it will be a strong possibility that we see teams similar to that on our schedule.
- With the PAC12 now gone, the Mountain West now becomes the dominant conference on the west coast. This season we played 3 games against the Mountain West (2 against SJSU, and @ Nevada), and have also scheduled teams like Air Force and New Mexico in recent years. I think for the foreseeable future, we will schedule at least 1 Mountain West team every year. Who will it be this year? I think San Jose State could pop up again, I think Colorado State is a possibility, maybe even Wyoming? It will be interesting to see, but I think it would be good for the Griz to get in the habit of regularly playing Mountain West teams, and we’ve had our success against the Mountain West in recent years. So we’ll see what happens.
- Expect at least 2-3 non D1 opponents again next year. Northern has made it onto our schedule the last 2 seasons, Tech made it on this year as a late addition (it was the last game added) as well as Northwest Indian College to open the season. Some teams we haven’t seen in a while are Carroll, Western and Rocky. Could we see one of those three this year? I think it’s likely.
- What can we expect to see for mid-majors? I think we’ll see some Big West opponents, maybe a WCC opponent, Summit League could range somewhere between 2-4 games on our schedule, but I would set the over/under at 3 for them. Could we get another home game against a Mountain West team? That would be great but I wouldn’t hold my breath, especially as the Mountain west becomes more and more popular. There’s always the possibility of an east coast team or 2 making their way onto our schedule as well.
- The D1 Docket which is one of the best sources out there for tracking non-conference schedules, will likely start announcing known non-conference games for teams in the coming weeks. I would be surprised if he had any known games for the Griz, but we could find out as soon as next Thursday after the Big Sky tournament ends. Expect the D1 Docket to be released shortly after the conclusion of the NCAA tournament.
- Expect the earliest announcements on the schedule to come in around late April or early May, and the majority of the announcements to start rolling in around late May and all through June and July. Rocco Miller and Jon Rothstein typically will start announcing games shortly after the NCAA tournament ends.
- Expect the conference schedule to be released sometime in June. The Big Sky got it out pretty early last year, I was impressed. Expect a similar timeline this year.
- Expect the complete Griz Basketball schedule in August. I know we didn’t get this years schedule until late September, but I think that was an anomaly. They had a difficult time and I do not see them struggling that badly again this year. I think we will get back to a more traditional timeline this year.
