Arizona Basketball: 2018-2019 full schedule published
The 2018-2019 Arizona Basketball schedule has been published!
The Arizona Basketball team starts practice this Sunday, September 30, 2018. Pac-12 Media Day will take place on October 11, 2018. The First-Watch Red and Blue Game, no longer the MacDonald’s Red and Blue game, will take place on Sunday, October 14th. Basketball season is around the corner.
The NCAA Division I Council changed the rules on how early basketball games can be scheduled, so the Pac-12 is starting three days early tipping off on Tuesday, Nov. 6, airing seven games. There will be 48 games airing on the ESPN Networks (ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU), 20 games on FS1, FOX and CBS broadcast networks will air two games nationally, and finally the Pac-12 will air whopping 149 games.
Interesting enough, the Pac-12 is still planning to send another team to China. Huh? The Pac-12 China Game pits Cal against Yale and will air on ESPNU. Hopefully, the players stay with the coaches at all times, or at least Cal’s program has learned from the Bruins trip last season.
Arizona’s first two exhibition games will be at home against Western New Mexico, then Chaminade. Both will be played at home. Non-Conference play starts Nov. 7 against Houston Baptist, then Cal Poly on Nov. 11th, followed by UTEP on Nov. 14th all on the Pac-12 Channel.
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We all hope these games will be a cake walk, but will they prepare the team for what’s to come next? The big Kahuna of tournaments, The Maui Jim Maui Invitational Tournament. Arizona starts the tourney playing Iowa State on November 19th, followed by Gonzaga/Illinois on November 20th, followed by either Auburn, Xavier, Duke or San Diego State. The Maui Invitational website states that this slate of schools is the “Strongest slate in history.”
Note: The Maui Invitational ends on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving weekend, which may mean the players can go home for a day or two or be in Tucson for Thanksgiving. They also don’t have a game scheduled between December 23rd and January 3rd during the holidays.
Some key matchups for the Wildcats before Pac-12 Conference play include Alabama, UConn, and Baylor.
The Cats kick off conference play on Thursday, January 3rd against Colorado at McKale Center followed by Utah, Stanford, Cal, the Oregon schools and then the So Cal teams UCLA and USC. The Cats only play the So Cal teams once this season, so UCLA won’t have the opportunity to beat Arizona at home.
The first game the Wildcats play against their rival Sun Devils is in Tempe on January 31st. Arizona also ends their regular schedule with a second game against the Sun Devils, this time at McKale on March 9th.
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The Pac-12 Tournaments begins on March 13th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, NV. See you there!