Signs of Life
It's almost July but finally their is a spark in teams releasing non conference schedules. Coming into this week there had been a stalemate with just two schedules this week but this week saw five new schedules released along with a lot of game reporting in the twitter-verse. Colorado, Purdue and Tennessee highlighted the releases complimented by Brown (it sure is nice to see an Ivy League team with games on the schedule again) and New Orleans.
Colorado's schedule didn't offer up much in terms of surprises, the biggest game to be revealed was with New Mexico. Aside from that every game was low-major and mid-major filler to compliment big games against Tennessee and Kansas.
Purdue's schedule hit in very much the same way, nothing headline-grabbing that wasn't already in the public domain. Although fans of the Sycamores will be salivating at the chance to get a win in Mackey Arena when Indiana State visits Purdue on the first Friday of the season.
Tennessee's schedule is no joke. The Vols released an 11-game non-conference schedule and Jon Rothstein reported a match-up later in the day with USC Upstate which has yet to have a date nailed down. Former assistant Desmond Oliver will bring East Tennessee State into Thompson-Boling Arena during the first weekend of the season. Aside from a handful of filler games, Tennessee is showing a lot of ambition with the likes of Texas Tech, Memphis, Villanova, Arizona and Texas all on their docket. Tennessee will also face one of Purdue or North Carolina in Connecticut during an MTE.
Brown has a schedule compiled of many games against their northeast contemporaries, complimented by buy games against North Carolina and Maryland. New Orleans released a schedule with few surprises, with The D1 Docket obtaining several contracts last week. The Privateers will hit the road for seven buy-games but also will host Central Arkansas, Presbyterian and VMI in an MTE.
Also revealed in New Orleans schedule is an ambitious move by the Southland to make-up for massive losses in the latest round of conference re-alignment. It would appear that all eight teams will meet-up in early January for a 12-game tournament. Details about seeding were not released, but one would assume that the Southland's best 2 teams would find their way to the finals creating a statistical feedback loop boosting both team's resumes for when it comes time to seed the NCAA Tournament.
June 25th Contract Duffle Bag
Cincinnati Bearcats
Aside from solidifying the November 13th date for their home tilt with Georgia and the Hall of Fame Classic much of what Cincinnati has in the books is their filler games. This program took quite a dip in the last couple of seasons so I would not expect a very ambitious schedule as new Coach Wes Miller and his staff get their feet under them after leaving UNC Greensboro.
North Dakota Fighting Hawks
North Dakota have 10 games in the books with 9 dates set. The Fighting Hawks will extend their trip in the Miami Area following their MTE at Florida Atlantic with a game at FIU. North Dakota will also collect checks for playing guarantee games at Kansas State and Cal Baptist. A home & home was scheduled to begin at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi last season, a game which ended up not happening due to impact of COVID on scheduling. The obtained documents do not include any amendments which specify ultimately where this series will begin.
Grambling Tigers
To no one's surprise at all Grambling has a slew of buy-games lined up already for the upcoming season. The biggest reveal from Grambling's contract is that the Tigers, along with Grand Canyon are two of the three participants in the MTE hosted by Texas Tech.
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