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MBBALL 25-26 Griz Basketball Schedule Tracker

Griz til I die said:
It’s gonna be a good thing when we go back to 20 conference games next year. One less non-conference game we’ll have to schedule. That can make all the difference in the world.
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I'd even like to go back to the days of 8 or 9 and 10 teams was a lot days for NCAA Conferences, but we won't go back there. It benefits the big boys too much, so they don't have to come to Missoula or schedule the Griz.
When I was a 'student' we seemed to play Simon Frazer and then a D-I schedule and it wasn't uncommon to see Washington, Oregon, St. Mary's and those kinds of games. It all turned into the day we went back to the 1900's and 1910's and those days where we played a schedule for a state championship like we are all in the NAIA. Ottawa is an NAIA, and I don't understand why we need to play that, but at least its not a Frontier team for the first time in god knows when.
 
I thought there used to be a rule on the number of non D1’s Big Sky teams could play, sheesh.

Incredibly top (and bottom) heavy schedule.

Awesome to be playing the P4 teams we have on the schedule + UNLV.

Wish we could get more teams like Nevada, San Fran, Seattle U, & Big West teams to come to Missoula.

Remember Bracket Busters bringing teams like Long Beach and Davidson to Missoula which was always cool.
 
I wonder what happened to the return trip from UNI.:unsure: I was looking forward to that game as they are typically a good mid-major team plus hopefully getting revenge for last season.

Overall, even with 4 non-DI's (non-counters), not a terrible schedule. But with those non-counters and being in the bsc, it puts the pressure on to almost HAVE TO sweep Cal Poly, Lamar, Oakland, North Dakota State, @North Dakota, as well as sweep conference just to hope for a possibility of getting better than a 14 seed again if the Griz were to make it back to March Madness.
 
DoubleNicks said:
I wonder what happened to the return trip from UNI.:unsure: I was looking forward to that game as they are typically a good mid-major team plus hopefully getting revenge for last season.

Overall, even with 4 non-DI's (non-counters), not a terrible schedule. But with those non-counters and being in the bsc, it puts the pressure on to almost HAVE TO sweep Cal Poly, Lamar, Oakland, North Dakota State, @North Dakota, as well as sweep conference just to hope for a possibility of getting better than a 14 seed again if the Griz were to make it back to March Madness.
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I heard this a couple weeks ago, and I didn’t wanna say anything at the time, but UNI bought out the return trip and instead opted to schedule some pathetic barely D1 team at home. That’s such a classless and pathetic move by UNI. Why’d you ever agree to a home and home if you didn’t wanna come here? They completely baited us into going to them, getting our teeth kicked in, but then when the tables turn and they have to come here and possibly lose, they say no thank you. Haslam should blacklist UNI from being scheduled by any team in the department in the future. I’m sorry but that’s such a dick move what they did. I think from now on if we schedule a home and home with a team, they should have to come here first. No more going to them first.

Because of the UNI cancellation, this left the Griz scrambling and not a lot of options remained to replace them with but another non D1. I’ve got a full breakdown coming on the schedule here in the next couple hours, but I do know that SKC was the final addition to the schedule to replace UNI and they had to move some dates of some other games.
 
Griz til I die said:
I heard this a couple weeks ago, and I didn’t wanna say anything at the time, but UNI bought out the return trip and instead opted to schedule some pathetic barely D1 team at home. That’s such a classless and pathetic move by UNI. Why’d you ever agree to a home and home if you didn’t wanna come here? They completely baited us into going to them, getting our teeth kicked in, but then when the tables turn and they have to come here and possibly lose, they say no thank you. Haslam should blacklist UNI from being scheduled by any team in the department in the future. I’m sorry but that’s such a dick move what they did. I think from now on if we schedule a home and home with a team, they should have to come here first. No more going to them first.
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Thanks for the info. Another option if we don't have the leverage to force teams to come here for home-and-homes first is to do some sort of a buyout clause that is high enough that teams won't consider not returning to Missoula. Or if they put up a fuss and balk about the buyout, it would at least show their cards in how serious they were going to be in upholding the return trip.
 
DoubleNicks said:
Thanks for the info. Another option if we don't have the leverage to force teams to come here for home-and-homes first is to do some sort of a buyout clause that is high enough that teams won't consider not returning to Missoula. Or if they put up a fuss and balk about the buyout, it would at least show their cards in how serious they were going to be in upholding the return trip.
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Like GTID said, you need to look at the classless idiots involved here and realize this is nothing new. Many of us remember about three playoff games where they came here and acted like sore losing thugs in each case. I expect very little out of them and the solution is that we just stop setting up any future events with any of their programs. When we did our last home and home with them in football, I was surprised they held up their end after we went there and won against a team that was supposed to challenge for the natty that ended up missing the playoffs all together.
 
Update 9/23
The non-conference schedule is now complete! Here is a breakdown of everything you need to know!

- The Griz will play 4 money games on the road comprised of three power conference teams and one Mountain West team. Those teams include Stanford, UNLV, Texas A&M, and Louisville. The total payout to the Griz for these 4 games is a whopping $350,000! Now that's a hell of a pay day! As for the actual games on the court, I'd say the one that's most likely to be a win/competitive is Stanford. UNLV could also be interesting if they don't quite have all their bearings straight on the coaching regime. I expect Louisville to be the most lopsided of these four. Can't get destroyed in these games. No more 30 point losses like we took to Oregon and Tennessee last year. Keep it as close as possible.

- The Griz will play a total of 8 non-conference home games. The most of any team in the Big Sky. Of course this comes with the caveat that 4 of these are against non D1s but if you're looking for a silver lining, it's 8 home games. 4 of those will come against D1 teams that include Cal Poly (which I believe is the start of a home and home), Lamar (MTE), Oakland (MTE), and North Dakota State (Summit Challenge). All 4 of these teams are likely to finish in the top half of their leagues, and in the case of Lamar might very well be the favorites to win their league, so this will be a challenging home slate, and in all likelihood if we want a good seed, we're gonna have to win all 4 of these.

- In total there are 5 road games in the non-conference. That's the fewest road games I can remember us playing in quite some time. I think that's a good thing in terms of the wear and tear on the team having such few road trips and more time at home. Because of the limited road games and all the non-D1 home games, the road game at North Dakota suddenly becomes very important. We saw how our seed in the tourney was impacted by going 0-6 on the road in non-conf last year. With the other 4 road games being a long shot to win, the Griz have to get out of Grand Forks with a win. This might be the most important game on the schedule. If we lose it, it could end up being a Q4 loss and could greatly impact our seed if we make it to the tourney.

- As we've all seen by now, the schedule includes 4 non-D1 games. Certainly that's way more than I ever intended, but unfortunately that's the way it goes with the NET rankings and teams being afraid to schedule us because of that. Decuire alluded to that in the press release last night. Plus the UNI cancelation didn't help things either. NWIC and Tech are appearing in Missoula for the third straight year on our schedule. Kudos to those two for showing such a willingness to play us over the years. Ottawa is a new first time opponent who was nice enough to take a game against us while they're in the area for Tech's tournament in Butte. Looking forward to that game as I always enjoy seeing someone new. We'll take on another in state foe in SKC. I feel like I remember seeing them at some point in the past, but I don't remember when. This was the last addition to the schedule.

This tweet below from Rocco Miller sums up perfectly the purgatory like situation the Griz (and others) find themselves in when it comes to scheduling. Not a lot of upside, and way too much risk if you lose to us. It's a good problem to have but at the same time is very frustrating. All that being said I still think this is a good schedule that's challenging but not too challenging. We'll be well prepared for conference play and there's some opportunity for some big time wins as well. Appreciate everyone following along all offseason. Hopefully things go more smooth next offseason on the scheduling front lol. Can't wait for the season! Go Griz!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1970666572424581255

Conference Breakdown:
Non-D1: 4
ACC: 2
Summit: 2
Big West: 1
Horizon: 1
Mountain West: 1
SEC: 1
Southland: 1
 
Update 10/10

I know the schedule has been finalized for a couple weeks now, but we've got tip times and broadcast details for our 4 money games.

- Saturday November 8 @ Stanford 2pm MT on ACCNX. Little bit unfortunate with this one. Griz Football hosts Eastern at 1pm and Basketball plays one hour later. That's tough for those of us who want to see both games, especially Basketball as I like their chances at an upset. I'll be at the Football game but I suspect we're gonna destroy Eastern and have that game over quickly, so I do plan on pulling up the Basketball game on my phone and watching that in the stadium. If you have ESPN+ then you will be able to see this game. It's all the same stuff.

- Tuesday November 11 @ UNLV 8pm MT on MWN. Kinda thought this game had a decent chance to land on FS1 or CBSSN but unfortunately not. The Mountain West Network is free to stream online. You can just type it into your browser and it will pop up. It's basically like the old Big Sky TV from about a decade ago. It works great.

- Tuesday November 18 @ Texas A&M 6pm MT on SECN+. Just like the Stanford game, if you have ESPN+, then you will be able to see this game.

- Saturday December 20 @ Louisville 10am MT on ACCN. Perhaps the earliest tip time we've seen for the Griz in god only knows how long. The good news is this is the same day as the FCS semifinals so a 10am tip time is good for us as we will be able to see this game in it's entirety (likely) before hopefully turning our attention to Football afterwards. ACCN is available with most tv providers. I get it on Youtube TV and I've seen it available on most platforms. You can also watch it on the ESPN app, but you'll have to sign in with a tv provider in order to do so.

Also the road game @ North Dakota on Saturday December 6 is set for 6pm MT and you can watch it on Summit League Network, but you have to pay to use that and I'm not gonna do that. I'll just keep track of the score on my phone. All tip times are now set for the season, including all home non-conference and all conference games. Can't wait to get going!
 
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