Men's Basketball Schedule Released

The UT Arlington Athletic Department finally released the men's basketball schedule, the delay as school after school released theirs becoming more crushing by the day. Heck, even the Sun Belt Conference releasing the vast majority of conference play months ago added to the pressure. But worry no more.

I gotta say, I'm really impressed with this schedule, though not for the reason listed on UTAMavs.com. "Challenging schedule includes Ohio State, Texas and Memphis," reads the headline. Gotta say, don't really care about those teams. Will be highly proud if we pick off a win, but otherwise, they are just more name teams that come in a guarantee game to help raise funds for the team (I'm assuming Ohio State and Memphis, as part of the Basketball Hall of Fame Invitational, are games to be played for monetary value). I'm interested in two things, who is playing at College Park Center, and who are they playing in-state and near-state.

Those last two really have me buzzing.

History Lesson: Moving the Football Program Off Campus Proved Fatal.

Those who know me personally know I am a research nut, no matter the topic. Once I get an idea that I want to look into something or answer a question of some kind, I dig into the topic and won't leave it until I either tire out or feel I got everything I can.

That's how I came about gathering so much information on UTA football. Unlike the current sports UTA offers, I can't go and look at the latest media guide or fact book to answer some question. So I did the next best thing, crafted my own. I found a 1983 UTA football media guide online, which formed the backbone of what I did.

A lot of the meat of my research, though, came from information came in the online archives of the Dallas Morning News found on the website of the Dallas Public Library. I've had this information for a while and though it did provide a lot of insight, it didn't go in depth, as the Dallas Morning News covered UTA in a bare bones fashion. I thought about making the trek to Fort Worth to see if the Star Telegram had anything. However, I received a late Christmas present pertaining to that (I typed the majority of this piece in January, but decided to hold off on posting it until the offseason to give the individual sports competing in their respective seasons their deserved spotlight).

Sun Belt looking to 12 again?

Shortly after UT-Arlington joined the Sun Belt Conference (in the world of realignment, it seems so long ago), they were able to make some moves to get to twelve playing schools after losing some members to other conferences. Early in 2013, Georgia Southern and Appalachian State finally got the invite they craved to leave their long time homes in the Southern Conference to go to the SBC. To cover UTA and UALR in the football side, NMSU and Idaho football programs, left without a home after the WAC imploded (remember that one Maverick fans), were given a life raft by the SBC and all of a sudden, the Sun Belt had 12 all-sports and 12 football schools. Then Western Kentucky was offered an invite to Conference USA (I'll leave out my thoughts on that one) and the grand 12/12 with even divisions went with out the door with WKU.

Since that time rumors have floated that the SBC was going to add certain schools, with the list including, but not limited to, Liberty, James Madison, Missouri State, Eastern Kentucky, New Mexico State and Lamar. Nothing was ever concrete, and I never heard anything from an official source, either in person or in media productions.

Well, at least until now.