Michigan Basketball non-conference schedule released

Submitted by Wolverine Devotee on

Per @UMichBBall

Date Opponent
11/3 vs Grand Valley State (ex)
11/11 vs North Florida
11/13 vs Central Michigan
11/16 Southern Mississippi
Maui Invitational  (Lahaina, HI)
11/20 TBA
11/21 TBD
11/22 TBD
 
11/26 vs UC Riverside
 
B1G/ACC Challenge
11/29 at North Carolina
 
12/9 vs UCLA
12/12 at Texas
12/16 at Detroit (Pizzarena)
12/21 vs Alabama A&M
12/30 vs Jacksonville

 

Keep in mind, B1G play will start in early December so expect the B1G opener to be tucked in somehwere during the 10 days layoff between the UNC and UCLA games.

ijohnb

July 17th, 2017 at 1:03 PM ^

glad that BTT is in Madison Square Garden a week before everybody else, said nobody, ever.

ckersh74

July 17th, 2017 at 1:16 PM ^

North Florida, UC Riverside, Alabama A&M, Jacksonville. I kinda get the North Florida game as an opener, but we could certainly stand to upgrade at least 2 of these 4 games in the future. Playing East Donkey State 4 times a year is going to get old.

NittanyFan

July 17th, 2017 at 1:57 PM ^

As regards schools that will take buy games, UNF is legit.  They'll give more of a challenge vs. a school like Alabama A&M, and they won't hurt the RPI overly much either.

Jacksonville's a little less good, but they're still at least mid-tier in a conference (Atlantic Sun) that tends to rank 20th overall among all conferences.

(I had NKU season tickets when the Norse were in the A-Sun, so I know way too much about Atlantic Sun basketball!)

goblue16

July 17th, 2017 at 1:52 PM ^

Why are people complaining about the non conference schedule so much. Beilein schedules at least 1 tough opponents each year besides a early season tourney and the big ten acc challenge. We got 13 non conference games u can't schedule Kansas 13 times. Every team schedules cupcakes that's how it is. I wish they would shorten the non conference schedule by 2 games and add 2 more big ten games but that's on the big ten not us

BursleysFinest

July 17th, 2017 at 2:02 PM ^

Because we get the softest, fluffiest cupcakes that ever cupcaked.  I don't know about these teams, but the no-name schoools we play are usually ranked in the 225+ range where if we played someone in the 100-150 range, we're still winning that game, but it helps our RPI more.  

Mr. Yost

July 17th, 2017 at 4:56 PM ^

Bingo...especially confusing when most of these same folks will still be 100% into football season anyway when we're playing these cupcake teams.

COLBlue

July 17th, 2017 at 3:17 PM ^

Based only on LAST YEAR's RPI's, and the new column criteria by the selection committee (see: http://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/ncaa-tournament-commit…), here is how Michigan's Non-Conference schedule shapes up:

Column 1 opponents: 2 (UCLA, NC)

Column 2 opponents: 0

Column 3 opponents: 1 (Texas)

Column 4 opponents: 7 (everyone else, other than MAUI invitational opponents)

TBD: Maui Invitational Opponents (Column 1 - Notre Dame, VCU; Wichita St.; Column 2 - Marquette, California; Column 3 - LSU; Non D-1 - Chaminade)

Of course, the Big Ten Schedule will help tilt that more toward the top.

 

 

COLBlue

July 17th, 2017 at 3:32 PM ^

Riverside being on the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend is interesting.  Michigan did go with the standard 13 game Non-Conf schedule (there was some speculation it might only be 12).

If my math is correct, even with the two B10 conference games in early December (i.e. on Dec 2nd and 6th), in order to play the other 16 conf. games before the early BTT tournament, Michigan will have *no* mini-bye's in their Jan-Feb schedule.  2 games per week over 8 weeks.  It will be interesting to see if they can avoid games with only a one day break (i.e. a Sun-Tue, or Thu-Sat pairing), as Michigan has avoided those well recently.