2024 Schedule Detective

 We are on the eve of the upcoming athletic season, which means the summer dropoff in athletic competition is nearing its end. To fill the void until late, late August, let's dip into this year's edition of schedule detective.

For the new-comers, much of my information comes from Rocco Miller on X. He's a great follow for college basketball. While not all the information comes from him, he gets a lot of scoops and information in regards to the non-conference scheduling contract. Instead of having to look through his thousands of tweets, I'll compile it here, though some games do come from other sources.

Going in this season, we knew there'd be a return game from last season in Oral Roberts. There's a high chance, but not a guaranteed one, in North Texas and Texas State reappearing on the schedule. There's usually a guarantee game, or usually many, as a (usual) Power 5 school pays a non-P5 school for a one-off game, a non-DI, or many, and a multi-team event, or MTE, on the final schedule release. Additionally, the Western Athletic Conference has released the conference schedule, so more than three quarters of this coming season is known. 

Here's what I can report so far:

Nov. 9 Louisiana Tech, first game of the WAC/CUSA scheduling agreement, likely homecoming as well.

Nov. 19 at Missouri State, first game of a home-and-home series.

Dec. 2 at Louisiana-Monroe, first game of a H&H.

Dec. 12 at Arkansas State, this is a guarantee game somehow.

Dec. 14 Louisiana-Monroe, second game of the H&H.

Dec. 16 at Liberty, second game of the WAC/CUSA agreement.

Dec. 18 Evansville, also the first game of a home and home series.

Jan. 4 at Tarleton St

Jan. 9 at Utah Tech

Jan. 11 at Southern Utah

Jan 16 Utah Valley

Jan. 23 Seattle

Jan. 25 at Abilene Christian

Jan 30 Southern Utah

Feb. 1 Utah Tech

Feb. 6 at Utah Valley

Feb. 8 at Seattle

Feb. 13 California Baptist

Feb. 15 Grand Canyon

Feb. 22 Tarleton St

Feb. 27 at Grand Canyon

March 1 Abilene Christian

March 8 at California Baptist

The NCAA allows 28 regular season games and another three for participating in an MTE. 23 games are listed, so at a minimum, we should expect five more. There's a lot of space in November and some spots in late December.

Obviously, there's the game at Oral Roberts left, that leaves five road games to two home contests in non-conference. If Texas State is renewed, it'd be the start of a new contract, so where that would be played is just a guess to me now, though they played in Arlington last year. North Texas would be home if they followed the same pattern, but I haven't heard either way if the contract was renewed and it would be subject to the same stipulations as a new series with Texas State.

Every year I hear how hard it is to schedule and it seems like it is getting worse. The Power 5 schools are scheduling boat-loads of guarantee games and it is severely restricting the market as everyone else is looking for home games. 

If the non-P5 schools stopped scheduling them, and went with home-and-home contracts, I think the sport would be better all around, but that's probably a topic for a separate post.

Like in most years, the women have some releases, but not as many have been publicly available like on the men's side. The WAC also made the scheduling a bit easier as, like last year, the men and women play the same opponent, just in opposite courts

Nov. 9 at Louisiana Tech, first game of the WAC/CUSA scheduling agreement.

Nov. 24 at Purdue, a guarantee game where Coach Shereka Wright travels to her alma mater.

Dec. 16 Florida International, second game between WAC/CUSA.

Jan. 4 Tarleton St

Jan. 9 Utah Tech

Jan. 11 Southern Utah

Jan 16 at Utah Valley

Jan. 23 at Seattle

Jan. 25 Abilene Christian

Jan 30 at Southern Utah

Feb. 1 at Utah Tech

Feb. 6 Utah Valley

Feb. 8 Seattle

Feb. 13 at California Baptist

Feb. 15 at Grand Canyon

Feb. 22 at Tarleton St

Feb. 27 Grand Canyon

March 1 at Abilene Christian

March 8 California Baptist

There is a road game at UT San Antonio likely coming. The Mavs played Sam at College Park Center in 2021/22 and were in Huntsville last year. Obviously they were conference mates in between, so I'd bet that was the conclusion to a H&H, but that's just a guess. Outside of that, I know of no open contracts.

And as usual, I'll update in the comments when new games are announced or when I learn of them.