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MBBALL 25-26 Griz Basketball Schedule Tracker

Grizbeer said:
With the expansion of the frontier and 22 of 26 games being conference is the opportunity to schedule frontier teams becoming much more limited?

Side note it will be strange for tech to be in a different “division” from Carroll and western for football. Not sure how that makes sense.
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Actually probably not because per NAIA rules when they play a D1 team in the regular season it counts as an exhibition game for whatever NAIA team it is. Therefore it doesn’t count against whatever Frontier team were to play the Griz because that game doesn’t go against the total scheduled games they’re allotted. Plus these teams wouldn’t wanna miss out on a healthy pay day any way. I suspect we’re still gonna see 1-2 of them on the schedule.

And as far as the divisions go, I have heard that Tech, Western, and Carroll will take turns rotating into the East Division. Tech just gets to go first.
 
Just a quick update for everyone. Things have been pretty quiet as we are one week away from the end of June. This tracks right on par with what we saw last June only knowing of three games. Be on the lookout for the conference schedule in early to mid July. Last year they got it out on July 18 and I expect that it could be a little bit earlier then that this year. With the 4th of July falling on a Friday making for a long holiday weekend, I think come July 7 or 8 will be roughly about when we could see the conference schedule drop.

As for the non-conference schedule, talking to a couple of people that are in the know, they have said that no contracts have been released to them yet claiming that they haven't been signed yet. I find that to be highly unlikely. How do you not have any contracts signed in late June? That just doesn't add up. Once we get into July and past the 4th, I expect things to be fast and furious from there. Last July we got 4 non-conference games uncovered which included one money game and all three of our home MTE opponents. I expect a similar result this year. Typically for MTE's, they have to have teams committed and signed by August 1 as there's a stipulation that if the field is not finalized, those teams can look at other options.

Here's my current guess on some money games and other road opponents. Back in March, I made note that Sean Miller was hired as the new head coach at Texas. The Griz under DeCuire have faced off against Miller several times when he was at Arizona and we even played Xavier in his first season leading them. Now with Miller at another new school, this feels like a potentially safe assumption that we could see the Longhorns. SEC teams play 13 non-conference games and currently Texas has 10 games on the books. That leaves three holes to fill. There's about a ten day window in mid November before the Longhorns head to Maui that lines up perfectly with where DeCuire has placed P5 games on the schedule in the past. One idea that recently popped into my head was if the Griz do schedule Texas, what are the odds that they double dip and schedule another game down in Texas for a two game road trip? I got to thinking that in recent years we've also played Houston which would be an extremely tough two game road trip. I don't think DeCuire would do that. But then I remembered that back during the covid season, we had a road game scheduled against SMU that's never been re-scheduled. Former USC coach Andy Enfield is the head coach at SMU now. We faced him a couple times when he was still at USC. I'll pencil the Mustangs in as a long shot for now but that may be one to watch throughout the Summer.

I still think there's a very likely chance that we play at Oregon again. They've shown quite the willingness to schedule us over the years and they've always slotted in perfectly over that first Friday in November after we get a game under our belt. The Mountain West has routinely appeared on our schedules as well. The two teams that I'm keeping a close eye on are Boise State and Colorado State. CSU still has quite a few holes to fill in the first year of a new coaching staff while Boise State is pretty thin on December games currently only having two scheduled that I think we could slide in somewhere there.

That's where my current line of thinking is. If I hear of anything at all, I'll post it. If anyone hears of anything, particularly you guys in Roundball Club, please feel free to share!
 
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Griz til I die said:
Just a quick update for everyone. Things have been pretty quiet as we are one week away from the end of June. This tracks right on par with what we saw last June only knowing of three games. Be on the lookout for the conference schedule in early to mid July. Last year they got it out on July 18 and I expect that it could be a little bit earlier then that this year. With the 4th of July falling on a Friday making for a long holiday weekend, I think come July 7 or 8 will be roughly about when we could see the conference schedule drop.

As for the non-conference schedule, talking to a couple of people that are in the know, they have said that no contracts have been released to them yet claiming that they haven't been signed yet. I find that to be highly unlikely. How do you not have any contracts signed in late June? That just doesn't add up. Once we get into July and past the 4th, I expect things to be fast and furious from there. Last July we got 4 non-conference games uncovered which included one money game and all three of our home MTE opponents. I expect a similar result this year. Typically for MTE's, they have to have teams committed and signed by August 1 as there's a stipulation that if the field is not finalized, those teams can look at other options.

Here's my current guess on some money games and other road opponents. Back in March, I made note that Sean Miller was hired as the new head coach at Texas. The Griz under DeCuire have faced off against Miller several times when he was at Arizona and we even played Xavier in his first season leading them. Now with Miller at another new school, this feels like a potentially safe assumption that we could see the Longhorns. SEC teams play 13 non-conference games and currently Texas has 10 games on the books. That leaves three holes to fill. There's about a ten day window in mid November before the Longhorns head to Maui that lines up perfectly with where DeCuire has placed P5 games on the schedule in the past. One idea that recently popped into my head was if the Griz do schedule Texas, what are the odds that they double dip and schedule another game down in Texas for a two game road trip? I got to thinking that in recent years we've also played Houston which would be an extremely tough two game road trip. I don't think DeCuire would do that. But then I remembered that back during the covid season, we had a road game scheduled against SMU that's never been re-scheduled. Former USC coach Andy Enfield is the head coach at SMU now. We faced him a couple times when he was still at USC. I'll pencil the Mustangs in as a long shot for now but that may be one to watch throughout the Summer.

I still think there's a very likely chance that we play at Oregon again. They've shown quite the willingness to schedule us over the years and they've always slotted in perfectly over that first Friday in November after we get a game under our belt. The Mountain West has routinely appeared on our schedules as well. The two teams that 'm keeping a close eye on are Boise State and Colorado State. CSU still has quite a few holes to fill in the first year of a new coaching staff while Boise State is pretty thin on December games currently only having two scheduled that I think we could slide in somewhere there.

That's where my current line of thinking is. If I hear of anything at all, I'll post it. If anyone hears of anything, particularly you guys in Roundball Club, please feel free to share!
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You have a very good feel for the game, good awareness and many accurate guesses.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
 
Weber's schedule is nearly complete, with just a couple of loose ends to clean up.

Weber State men’s basketball: WSU finalizing home tourney as part of boosted schedule

OGDEN — Weber State men’s basketball has struggled to line up nonconference home games for the better part of two decades, so the Wildcats are trying something new: a multi-team event in the Dee Events Center. That, and a same-season home-and-home series, have the 2025-26 Wildcats on track to...
www.standard.net www.standard.net
 
oldrunner said:
Weber's schedule is nearly complete, with just a couple of loose ends to clean up.

Weber State men’s basketball: WSU finalizing home tourney as part of boosted schedule

OGDEN — Weber State men’s basketball has struggled to line up nonconference home games for the better part of two decades, so the Wildcats are trying something new: a multi-team event in the Dee Events Center. That, and a same-season home-and-home series, have the 2025-26 Wildcats on track to...
www.standard.net www.standard.net
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Home MTE huh? Where'd you get that idea from? ;)
 
https://twitter.com/x/status/1938032223946416264
Griz will travel to Palo Alto to take on the Cardinal. TBD on date! Second year under Kyle Smith and I believe this is our first matchup against Stanford since pre pandemic. Stanford struggled in their final few years in the PAC but really turned the corner in the ACC despite missing the tournament. Tough test but if everything lines out perfectly we could pull the upset in this one! Wish we knew the date for this one.

Updated as of June 25:
November 14 vs. Northern Iowa
December 3 vs. North Dakota State
December 6 @ North Dakota
TBD @ Stanford
 
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Griz til I die said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1938032223946416264
Griz will travel to Palo Alto to take on the Cardinal. TBD on date! Second year under Kyle Smith and I believe this is our first matchup against Stanford since pre pandemic. Stanford struggled in their final few years in the PAC but really turned the corner in the ACC despite missing the tournament. Tough test but if everything lines out perfectly we could pull the upset in this one! Wish we knew the date for this one.

Updated as of June 25:
November 14 vs. Northern Iowa
December 3 vs. North Dakota State
December 6 @ North Dakota
TBD @ Stanford
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I just went back and looked and our last matchup against Stanford was November of 2019. So it’s been 6 years. Excited for this game!
 
Update 6/30

With the month of June about to come to a close, we still have lots of work to do to uncover the schedule with 9 games remaining. That said though, June was a decent month for us as we uncovered three games with the announcement of our two Summit League opponents (NDSU, UND), and last weeks news of our first money game against Stanford which I think is the first winnable money game we've scheduled since beating Washington in 2020.

Now as we get ready to turn our attention to July, here's some things I'm expecting. This initial week I'd be very surprised if we heard anything at all with the 4th of July holiday looming on Friday. This means a short week and a long extended holiday weekend. This is about one of the only times in the year where athletic department staff's and coaches have any down time at all. However, once we get into next week, then I expect things to really start picking up. I won't be surprised if the Big Sky releases the conference schedule as early as next Monday or Tuesday. This tracks right about where the announcement has been in the past and it appears the Big Sky has done a better job with announcements so far.

For non-conference, there's still a lot of work to do. I'll freely admit that I did not have Stanford on my radar at all. While I'm pleasantly surprised by the announcement of the Stanford game, not knowing the exact date of that game has made it hard for me to project who else is in line for potential P4 games. I will say this, I've gone back through the previous few years schedules and the recent trend has been two P4 games and at least one Mountain West game. In 24 this was the case (Oregon, Tennessee, Utah State) as well as 23 (Oregon, Houston, Nevada) and even beyond that. If this is the model once again then there should be just one more P4 game out there. I've discussed both Oregon and Texas as possibilities for some time now. I now think with the addition of Stanford that Oregon is unlikely. It'd be three years in a row now we've played them, we already have a west coast P4 game on the books, and perhaps Dana Altman and the Ducks pass on us this year after our tournament run and multiple P4 drop down transfers. I'll still keep an eye on them, but I'm now moving the odds down to less than 50%. As far as Texas, I suppose that is still a possibility but I'm just not totally sure. Beyond that, I'm not even sure who else I could think of that might be a possibility. Decuire did mention on Selection Sunday that they like matching us up against the BIG 10, so maybe in an effort to prepare us for the tournament (if we make it), we schedule one of the traditional BIG 10 teams just so we know what we're getting ourselves into come tourney time.

As for the Mountain West, I mentioned last week that I'm gonna keep an eye on Boise State and Colorado State, but I'm gonna add one more to the watch list: New Mexico. The Lobos new head coach is Eric Olen who comes over from UC San Diego. The Tritons were in Missoula a few seasons ago for the Zootown Classic. So there is some familiarity between the coaching staffs that this could be a possibility and the Lobos currently only have four games on the schedule, so they still have a lot of work to do.

As for home games, we already got two good ones on the docket with Northern Iowa and North Dakota State. I expect the remaining D1 opponents that are coming to town to all be apart of our MTE. That would give us five D1 home games and then I expect us to add two no-D1 opponents for a total of seven home games. For the MTE, some of the conferences I'm gonna keep a close eye on are the Big West, Summit League, and the WAC as all those conferences have lots of teams still uncommitted to MTE's. For non D1's, we can cross Western off the list as they scheduled Idaho State. I hope we pass on Tech this year just cause I don't want the same team three years in a row. Northern could pop up again and I think Providence or Carroll could show up this year.

That's all for now! Have a happy 4th everyone!

As of June 30, here's what we know:
November 14 vs. Northern Iowa
December 3 vs. North Dakota State
December 6 @ North Dakota
TBD @ Stanford
 
If Boise State's coach holds grudges for a long time, I do not think we will see Boise State ever coming to Missoula again after the last game in Missoula. Remember him griping about the refs after that game and never wanting to come back to Missoula again.
 
TrueGriz said:
If Boise State's coach holds grudges for a long time, I do not think we will see Boise State ever coming to Missoula again after the last game in Missoula. Remember him griping about the refs after that game and never wanting to come back to Missoula again.
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There’d be no reason why we couldn’t play them in Boise though.
 
Couple of updates for everyone. IDK about all of you but July I feel is just flying by. I can't believe we're almost halfway through the month already. That said, I've been told that the conference schedule will be announced next week. They didn't wanna do it this week as they thought it would get overshadowed by the announcement of kickoff times for Football.

For non-conference, I'm still keeping a watchful eye but there's a couple teams we can cross off the list now. Colorado State announced their non-conference schedule today after releasing a dump of 5 home games and the Griz are not one of them. The only Big Sky team they scheduled was Portland State. That was a bummer, I was hopeful for that. Boise State still has 2 hole to fill, an opening night game, and a late December game. I think it's unlikely but I'll still watch. So with CSU and BSU likely out of the mix, I'm now turning my attention to New Mexico, San Jose State, and Wyoming. Wyo is one of just two MWC teams that doesn't even have an MTE booked yet. Could they still find one? Maybe, but they're getting up against it now and the Griz might be able to convince them to come to Missoula, but they also need more home games as well. SJSU on the other hand has a jam packed home slate and needs road games. They've come to Missoula twice during the Decuire era, most recently two seasons ago. Would they be willing to do it again? We'll find out.

For non-D1, Tech announced their schedule and we are not on it. I suppose we could add them later on but that may be if all else fails. Western scheduled Idaho State so I think it's safe to cross both of these guys off the list. Dickinson State who we saw a couple times posted their schedule and we're not on it either so that should leave Carroll, Providence, Northern, and Rocky. Northern almost feels like a shoe in to me so I'll watch for them. Right now I'm thinking it's gonna be one MT NAIA team and one D2 team. I'm waiting for MSU Billings to post their schedule so we can see who they're hosting in non-conf as that's how we got Hawaii Hilo as they were headed to Billings for a tournament. Once they post theirs, I'll have a better idea of who else might be a candidate.

That's all for now. Expect some more updates next week!

As of July 11, here's what we know:
November 14 vs. Northern Iowa
December 3 vs. North Dakota State
December 6 @ North Dakota
TBD @ Stanford
 
Quick update for everyone here. Kinda surprised the conference schedule has not been released yet. The schedule was released on July 18 last year, so we got two days left before it starts tracking behind last year. However, the update I wanted to give everyone was while I was doing a little research, I noticed on the bottom page of the D1 Docket that the cats are hosting Northwest Indian College on Monday December 20. NWIC has perennially shown up on our schedule as well over the last couple years and usually they play both Montana teams 1 day apart to make their travel easy. Right now I can't exactly say for sure that we're hosting NWIC but I think it is probably a safe assumption that if they're playing the cats that they are also playing us. If that's the case then I think we can pencil that game in for Sunday December 19. It could also be on Tuesday the 21st but then you start running up against Christmas a little bit and Decuire likes to send his players home for the Christmas break usually. I'll keep an eye out for any official confirmation of NWIC on the schedule.
 
Update 7/24
Kent Haslam went on the Griz Fan Pod yesterday mainly to talk about the house settlement, but he did answer some fan questions at the end. I left a question on Twitter asking if he could drop some hints on the non-conference for Basketball. He did in fact mention a couple things.

To nobodies surprise he confirmed that we are once again hosting an MTE over Thanksgiving week. He confirmed that one of the participating teams is Cal Poly. The Mustangs were a much improved team under year one of head coach Mike DeGeorge. They were 16-19 overall and 8-12 in Big West play, but were able to go on a little bit of a run at the Big West Tournament winning their first 2 games before bowing out in the semis to UC Irvine. I think they have a chance to be a decent team this year, but this should still be a win for the Griz at home. Haslam did not mention any other teams and he made a comment (though he didn't seem certain) that it may only be a 3 team MTE this year. I sincerely hope that's not the case and it is indeed 4 teams, because that could potentially lead to us having to once again play 3 non-D1 teams so I hope that's not true. I'll work to track down who the other team(s) are and try to get confirmation if it's 3 or 4 teams for the MTE, and see if we can nail down the exact dates.

The other opponent he mentioned was a road game at Louisville. The Cardinals went 27-8 last year including an 18-2 record in ACC play under first year head coach Pat Kelsey in what was the biggest turnaround in College Basketball last season. The Cards advanced to the NCAA Tournament but lost in the first round to Creighton. This will likely be our toughest game of non-conference short of an SEC or BIG 10 team popping up as well. They have a chance to be pretty good this year. Looking at Louisville's schedule (which features 7 P4 teams, wow) and where this game could fit in, it looks to me like it's gonna be the first or second week of the season as they're pretty booked up after that. They're probably pretty close to announcing their schedule as it looks like they only have 2 more holes left to fill. I'll be on the lookout for that and the exact date.

And for you Lady Griz fans, Haslam mentioned that they will be playing road games at Utah and BYU. He said Harris is very aggressive and wants to play a tough non-conference schedule, and that's evident so far with the South Dakota State neutral site game as well. So be on the lookout for some more potentially tough games for the Lady Griz.

That's all I got for now. Thanks to Kent Haslam for peeling the curtain back a bit and giving some updates. it's greatly appreciated!

Here's what we know:
11/14 vs. Northern Iowa
12/3 vs. North Dakota State
12/6 @ North Dakota
TBD vs. Cal Poly
TBD @ Stanford
TBD @ Louisville
 
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Griz til I die said:
Update 7/24
Kent Haslam went on the Griz Fan Pod yesterday mainly to talk about the house settlement, but he did answer some fan questions at the end. I left a question on Twitter asking if he could drop some hints on the non-conference for Basketball. He did in fact mention a couple things.

To nobodies surprise he confirmed that we are once again hosting an MTE over Thanksgiving week. He confirmed that one of the participating teams is Cal Poly. The Mustangs were a much improved team under year one of head coach Mike DeGeorge. They were 16-19 overall and 8-12 in Big West play, but were able to go on a little bit of a run at the Big West Tournament winning their first 2 games before bowing out in the semis to UC Irvine. I think they have a chance to be a decent team this year, but this should still be a win for the Griz at home. Haslam did not mention any other teams and he made a comment (though he didn't seem certain) that it may only be a 3 team MTE this year. I sincerely hope that's not the case and it is indeed 4 teams, because that could potentially lead to us having to once again play 3 non-D1 teams so I hope that's not true. I'll work to track down who the other team(s) are and try to get confirmation if it's 3 or 4 teams for the MTE, and see if we can nail down the exact dates.

The other opponent he mentioned was a road game at Louisville. The Cardinals went 27-8 last year including an 18-2 record in ACC play under first year head coach Pat Kelsey in what was the biggest turnaround in College Basketball last season. The Cards advanced to the NCAA Tournament but lost in the first round to Creighton. This will likely be our toughest game of non-conference short of an SEC or BIG 10 team popping up as well. They have a chance to be pretty good this year. Looking at Louisville's schedule (which features 7 P4 teams, wow) and where this game could fit in, it looks to me like it's gonna be the first or second week of the season as they're pretty booked up after that. They're probably pretty close to announcing their schedule as it looks like they only have 2 more holes left to fill. I'll be on the lookout for that and the exact date.

And for you Lady Griz fans, Haslam mentioned that they will be playing road games at Utah and BYU. He said Harris is very aggressive and wants to play a tough non-conference schedule, and that's evident so far with the South Dakota State neutral site game as well. So be on the lookout for some more potentially tough games for the Lady Griz.

That's all I got for now. Thanks to Kent Haslam for peeling the curtain back a bit and giving some updates. it's greatly appreciated!

Here's what we know:
11/14 vs. Northern Iowa
12/3 vs. North Dakota State
12/6 @ North Dakota
TBD vs. Cal Poly
TBD @ Stanford
TBD @ Louisville
Click to expand...
Thanks for updates !
 
Griz til I die said:
Update 7/24
Kent Haslam went on the Griz Fan Pod yesterday mainly to talk about the house settlement, but he did answer some fan questions at the end. I left a question on Twitter asking if he could drop some hints on the non-conference for Basketball. He did in fact mention a couple things.

To nobodies surprise he confirmed that we are once again hosting an MTE over Thanksgiving week. He confirmed that one of the participating teams is Cal Poly. The Mustangs were a much improved team under year one of head coach Mike DeGeorge. They were 16-19 overall and 8-12 in Big West play, but were able to go on a little bit of a run at the Big West Tournament winning their first 2 games before bowing out in the semis to UC Irvine. I think they have a chance to be a decent team this year, but this should still be a win for the Griz at home. Haslam did not mention any other teams and he made a comment (though he didn't seem certain) that it may only be a 3 team MTE this year. I sincerely hope that's not the case and it is indeed 4 teams, because that could potentially lead to us having to once again play 3 non-D1 teams so I hope that's not true. I'll work to track down who the other team(s) are and try to get confirmation if it's 3 or 4 teams for the MTE, and see if we can nail down the exact dates.

The other opponent he mentioned was a road game at Louisville. The Cardinals went 27-8 last year including an 18-2 record in ACC play under first year head coach Pat Kelsey in what was the biggest turnaround in College Basketball last season. The Cards advanced to the NCAA Tournament but lost in the first round to Creighton. This will likely be our toughest game of non-conference short of an SEC or BIG 10 team popping up as well. They have a chance to be pretty good this year. Looking at Louisville's schedule (which features 7 P4 teams, wow) and where this game could fit in, it looks to me like it's gonna be the first or second week of the season as they're pretty booked up after that. They're probably pretty close to announcing their schedule as it looks like they only have 2 more holes left to fill. I'll be on the lookout for that and the exact date.

And for you Lady Griz fans, Haslam mentioned that they will be playing road games at Utah and BYU. He said Harris is very aggressive and wants to play a tough non-conference schedule, and that's evident so far with the South Dakota State neutral site game as well. So be on the lookout for some more potentially tough games for the Lady Griz.

That's all I got for now. Thanks to Kent Haslam for peeling the curtain back a bit and giving some updates. it's greatly appreciated!

Here's what we know:
11/14 vs. Northern Iowa
12/3 vs. North Dakota State
12/6 @ North Dakota
TBD vs. Cal Poly
TBD @ Stanford
TBD @ Louisville
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https://twitter.com/x/status/1951084980723130393
Well this seems to contradict what I posted above. I went back and re-listened to Haslam’s interview on the GFP and he did say we are hosting Cal Poly but they aren’t part of the MTE. That’s my bad. I thought initially he said they were but I misheard him. Apologies for that. So we’re back to the drawing board figuring out what the MTE opponents are.

As for when the Cal Poly game might be, I’m thinking mid November, maybe before they head down to NAU so perhaps around the 12th-20th range would be my guess.

Been hard to come by news this year but if I hear anything, I’ll let you know.
 
Update 8/4
The conference schedule is out: See below
1/1 vs. Northern Arizona
1/3 vs. Northern Colorado
1/8 @ Idaho
1/10 @ Eastern Washington
1/17 @ Montana State
1/19 @ Northern Arizona
1/22 vs. Weber State
1/24 vs. Idaho State
1/29 @ Portland State
1/31 @ Sacramento State
2/5 vs. Eastern Washington
2/7 vs. Idaho
2/14 vs. Montana State
2/19 @ Idaho State
2/21 @ Weber State
2/26 vs. Sacramento State
2/28 vs. Portland State
3/2 @ Northern Colorado

A few takeaways:
-It's a road heavy first half of conference play which includes 4 games on the road between 1/8-1/19.
-This season the NAU-UNC road trip is split. This is traditionally the toughest road trip travel wise in the conference. Not a huge fan of hustling down to NAU the Monday after the Brawl in Bozeman. That's tough travel on short notice and could potentially be a trap game. Luckily I think NAU is gonna really struggle this year. At UNC to close the regular season would've been one hell of a game last year. We'll see about this year.
-The second half of the league slate is much more home friendly. Between 2/1-2/14 The Griz will not play a road game and will get 2 weeks at home which will be really nice.
-It appears that both of the Brawl games are one week earlier this year than they were last year. Typically the games have been the last weeks of January and February. The first game will be in Bozeman on 1/17 and the second will be in Missoula on Valentines Day 2/14. These should be really good games on both the men's and women's side.

Overall I don't have too many gripes about the schedule. It seems reasonably fair. Should be an interesting conference race!

A reminder of non-conference too!
11/14 vs. Northern Iowa
12/3 vs. North Dakota State
12/6 @ North Dakota
TBD @ Stanford
TBD @ Louisville
TBD vs. Cal Poly
 
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