Week 1 Update + Morgan State & Radford 2021 Contract Unloads

West Virginia broke the seal on the release of 2021-22 non-conference schedules last week. It was no surprise that the Mountaineers were first, once again, as they have been consistently among those quick to finish and announce their scheduling business. At just 159 days prior to opening day this is the latest a non-conference schedule has been released since The Docket began tracking this information in 2014. With the obvious omission of 2020, an average north of 8 teams would be expected to have released their schedule at this point in any given offseason. Coaches are cautiously navigating the wake of the 2020 fiasco of rescheduled games, deflated guarantee market and the waning uncertainty as COVID case numbers continue their sharp decrease in the United States.

Early efforts to obtain contracts came up mostly dry but as the calendar has rolled over into June The Docket is back on the scent for freshly signed contracts. 

Two early responses are from Morgan State and Radford.

Morgan State had a strong season, finishing with a KenPom rank of 223, 2nd in the MEAC and falling 1 game short of an NCAA Tournament bid by losing to Norfolk State in the MEAC Championship Game.

Date	Opponent	Terms
Nov 14th	At George Mason	Up to $60,000 Guarantee
Nov 18th	At Seattle	$75,000 Guarantee
Nov 20th	At Portland	$65,000 Guarantee
Dec 29th	At Kansas State	$75,000 Guarantee

The Bears have four games on the books so far, including an early season trip to the west coast. Morgan State still has plenty of room to add games, including an exempt event, as the MEAC schedule will likely be whittled down to just 14 games following the departures of Bethune-Cookman, Florida A&M and North Carolina A&T.

Radford, on the other hand, has yet to make plans to stray to far from home in lining up seven non-conference games so far.

Date	Opponent	Terms
Nov 12th	At Virginia	Up to $80,000 Guarantee
Nov 15th	At Virginia Tech	$60,000 Guarantee
Nov 19th	At Furman	$10,000 Guarantee
Nov 20th	Vs. Navy (Greenville, SC)
Nov 28th	Eastern Kentucky	Return game at EKU, 2022-23
Dec 4th	At West Virginia	Up to $85,000 Guarantee
Dec 20th	At Akron	Up to $65,000

The Highlanders will collect checks from in-commonwealth ACC foes Virginia and Virginia Tech before playing in a two-game MTE hosted by Furman. The only home game so far is the opening of a home and home with Eastern Kentucky but expect some non-D1 games to fill in much of their remaining schedule. These seven games plus the 18-game Big South slate gives Radford up to five more games to schedule.

Very interesting that several contracts still include clauses which pro-rate the guarantee fee based on allowable attendance. While COVID-19 cases are on the decline there is still enough uncertainty that the programs writing the checks are still protecting themselves financially. 

Hopefully the 2nd week of June has some more activity, both in press releases and public record responses. Until next time, this is The D1 Docket signing off..