Well after months of anticipation the wait is finally over. The Big South announced on Wednesday the conference schedules for both Men's and Women's basketball for the upcoming season.
To no one's surprise, the format and scheduling is fairly unchanged from prior seasons with the overwhelming majority of games being played on Wednesdays and Saturdays starting the first week of January and concluding the first Saturday in March.
For High Point, the Men's and Women's team will alternate home/away on the same nights while still playing the same opponent. For example the regular season kicks off Thursday, January 2 with the men hosting the Radford Highlanders in the Qubein Center and the women taking the trip up I-77 to take on Radford in the Dedmon Center.
Of note this season is that High Point will have the final Saturday of the regular season, March 1, off as a bye date before the Big South tournament. Of course this is a necessary evil of an odd numbered league and could play to the advantage of the Panthers, giving them a couple days of rest before the road to the NCAA Tournament kicks off in Johnson City.
Multiple Men's home games in late February (Longwood, CSU, Upstate) could be optioned off of Wednesday night and onto Thursday night's ESPNU Wildcard Selection; an ESPNU programming special that highlights mid-major games of note across college basketball.
MEN'S SCHEDULE
My initial thoughts on the Men's conference slate is that it's a pretty par-for-the-course Big South schedule. Not a lot sticks out. There's good home/away balance for the most part and there is a fairly decent amount of competitive balance for the most part.
The Panthers open up the conference play with 5 games against teams picked right in the middle (#3 through #7) of the conference's preseason media poll. Back-to-back road trips to Asheville and Charleston will test this team on the road early. The next two games, Gardner-Webb and @Longwood, are always emotionally charged and competitive as well. We will know very early on just how well this High Point team measures up against their Big South foes.
Huss and Company will hopefully survive the early season tests and head into a late January matchup with Winthrop facing an opportunity to take an early lead in the conference standings. The Eagles were picked by media and coaches to finish second in the Big South, behind High Point, and are led by one of the most talented and seasoned players in the conference, Kelton Talford. This Saturday matchup is currently scheduled at 2pm and should be a great chance to watch two very talented groups compete.
Finally, the section that really sticks out to me as the toughest is the early February run of @Radford, UNCA, Longwood and @Winthrop. That's a gauntlet stretch right in the dog days of college basketball that will ultimately decide where the Panthers fall in the regular season standings. However, the Panthers do get four of their last 6 games at home and having two of the most often anticipated games (UNCA and Longwood) in the Qubein Center back-to-back will have the place absolutely rocking.
Overall the perception of the league is still improving nationally and the expectation is that the league, as a whole, may take a small step back this year. But I'm not buying it. The coaches in the Big South are a mix of well established stalwarts and up-and-coming stars that have their teams ready to play every night. There's talent on every Big South roster that could make any game, on any night, competitive. There will be nowhere to hide for the Panthers in this schedule, which makes for good basketball and hopefully great times in the Qubein Center.
Game I'm most looking forward to: Jan 25 - Winthrop
Trap Game: Jan 8 - @ Charleston Southern
WOMEN'S SCHEDULE
On the women's side my initial thoughts are very similar. There has been a tremendous amount of transfer activity, both in and out, of the Big South this offseason so it's hard to necessarily gauge the difficulty of some these stretches. Also for the third straight season the conference tournament champion, this time Presbyterian, is dealing with a coaching change following their March success. Overall I think, like the men, the women will mostly find themselves competing every night in a league that is challenging night in, and night out.
Opening at Radford, to me, will be a tremendous test for the Panthers early. Coach McGuire always has a competitive team and with a bevy of transfers he will have a lot of options to replace all-conference selection Ashlyn Traylor. Then I look at the game 9 days later, at Gardner Webb, as another tough test. The good news is it's an opportunity early for HPU to get some big road wins and set the tone that the regular season title, once again, will roll through the Qubein Center.
Home games I'm looking forward to? All of them, quite frankly. I think this women Panthers team is going to be fun to watch. But yes the previously mentioned Radford and Gardner Webb squads (senior day for the Panthers) as well as home visits by Longwood and Winthrop probably top my list. The Winthrop Eagles are coached by Semeka Randall Lay, one of my favorite coaches to watch coach in the Big South, who played under Pat Summit at Tennessee.
Game I'm most looking forward to: Feb 5 - Radford
Trap Game: Feb 8 - @ UNC Asheville
Comments