Arizona has issued an official release over its 2018-19 nonconference schedule, but the season opener is still missing.
The reason is that the game is an add-on to the Maui Invitational and the tournament has yet to announce what team it will assign to the spot. What is known is that the game will be UA's season opener and it will probably be played on Nov. 8 or 9 (though possibly on Nov. 7).
The opponent will be a low-major or mid-major program, somewhat like UMBC visited McKale last season in an add-on game to the Battle 4 Atlantis.
After the Pac-12 announced its weekend schedule pairs on Monday, the Wildcats' entire schedule was nearly finished. Here's how it looked as of Monday:
(Times for all games and exact dates for the Pac-12 games have yet to be announced. Home games in bold.)
Oct. 14: Red-Blue Game (scrimmage)
Oct. 30: Western New Mexico (exhibition)
Nov. 4: Chaminade (exhibition)
Nov. 7-9: Maui Invitational add-on game
Nov. 11: Cal Poly
Nov. 14: UTEP
Nov. 19-21: Maui Invitational
- Bracket TBA. Participants: Arizona, Auburn, Duke, Gonzaga, Illinois, Iowa State, San Diego State and Xavier
Nov. 28: Texas Southern
Dec 2: at UConn (Hartford)
Dec. 6: Utah Valley
Dec. 9: at Alabama
Dec. 15: Baylor
Dec. 19: Montana
Dec. 22: UC Davis
Jan. 2-6: Colorado, Utah
Jan. 9-13: at Stanford, at Cal
Jan. 16-20: Oregon, OSU
Jan. 23-27: at UCLA, at USC
Jan. 30-Feb. 3: at ASU
Feb. 6-10: WSU, Washington
Feb. 13-17: at Colorado, Utah
Feb. 20-24: Stanford, Cal
Feb. 27-March 3: at Oregon, at OSU
March 6-9: ASU
Pinnacle’s Nico Mannion kisses the trophy after beating Mountain Pointe in the 6A Boys State Basketball Championship game at Wells Fargo Arena in Tempe, on Feb. 28, 2018.
Nico Mannion remains scheduled to make what he called a "huge" announcement Friday at 9 a.m.
The star guard at Phoenix Pinnacle High School is expected to announce that he's reclassifying from the 2020 to 2019 class, instantly making him one of the top high school senior point guards — and top target of UA's 2019 efforts. Mannion has already listed 10 finalists and there has also been speculation he could soon narrow that number down soon.
Mannion visited UA for the Red-Blue Game before last season and took another unofficial visit in May. He listed his top 10 in June, including Arizona, Oregon, Utah, UCLA, USC, Duke, Kansas, Villanova, Marquette and Vanderbilt.
5⭐️ Nico Mannion is down to 🔟 schools! @niccolomannion pic.twitter.com/2LqPPaU7Ti
— TIPTON EDITS 🏀 (@TiptonEdits) June 4, 2018
Arizona will make a few of its returning players available for media interviews Friday afternoon, similar to how it did last summer before the team went to Spain. Follow The Wildcaster on Facebook and Twitter for live coverage.
