Arizona has added Cal Poly, Montana and UC Davis to its home nonconference schedule next season.
The Wildcats still have four games to fill and they most likely will all be home games, according to UA basketball operations director Ryan Reynolds.
One of the four home games will be the “free” one assigned by the Maui Invitational, since multi-team events can include up to four games yet only count as three against the NCAA scheduling maximum.
You may recall UMBC was technically sent to McKale Center last season as a “Battle 4 Atlantis” add-on game (and, who knows, maybe UMBC's strong effort at McKale Center helped it develop into the first No. 16 seed to win an NCAA Tournament game...)
Typically, the low- or mid-majors who agree to those games get a chance to also play a total of four games that only count as three, so it works out for them even though they don’t get to play in the big-boy bracket.
Reynolds said UA would likely hold two home exhibition games, one of which will be against Chaminade on Nov. 11 (FWIW, Chaminade no longer serves as host team for the Maui Invitational.)
The Pac-12 weekend pairs won’t be released until later this spring and the exact dates for Pac-12 games won’t be announced until late summer. The Pac-12 schedule “skips” will be the opposite of last season: UA won’t make the trip to Washington and WSU and won’t host UCLA or USC.
Here’s the 2018-19 schedule as of now:
- Nov. 4 Chaminade (exhibition)
- Nov. 11 Cal Poly
- Nov. 19-21 Maui Invitational (Bracket TBA. Participants: Arizona, Auburn, Duke, Gonzaga, Illinois, Iowa State, San Diego State and Xavier)
- Dec 2 at UConn (at Hartford)
- Dec. 9 at Alabama
- Dec. 15 Baylor
- Dec. 19 Montana
- Dec. 22 UC Davis
The Wildcats opened the 2013-14 season with a 73-62 win over Cal Poly (San Luis Obispo — not to be confused with Division II Cal Poly Pomona, which UA beat the following season in an exhibition game).
The Mustangs were 9-22 last season.
Montana was 26-8 and reached the NCAA Tournament, losing to Michigan in the first round.
UC Davis was 22-11, including a win at Washington State, and reached the NIT before losing to Utah.
Kadeem Allen took advantage of an emergency start for the Celtics.
The Washington Post looked into the case of former travel-team director Brad Augustine, who told federal investigators he never planned to give Nassir Little any money.
Oregon State is adding a video board in its latest wave of renovations to Gill Coliseum.
Catalina Foothills guard Sam Beskind will walk-on at Stanford.
UCLA's Kris Wilkes will test the NBA Draft but won't sign with an agent.
Tempe's Casey Benson says he's grateful to the Oregon and GCU staffs he played for.
The contract amendment proposal for Sean Miller, which adds the threat of a $1 million penalty and Title IX language, is attached as a PDF.
