HL Non-Con Schedules

All the Horizon non-conference games are out except 3 games from UIC, 1 from IUPUI (if they choose to schedule it), and a date for the Northern Kentucky-Cincinnati game. Although they're the one that is really incomplete, UIC looks to have probably the most attractive schedule, with home games against our old pals, in-city rival, and reigning Final Four participant Loyola and a couple of solid in-state MVC teams in Illinois State and Bradley, and convenient road games against a couple of beatable P6 teams, Notre Dame and in-city rival DePaul. But it's a tough schedule--they could easily lose all 5 of those games, plus they play solid St. Joe's and Duquesne teams on the road and William & Mary, one of the CAA favorites, at home. UIC can really help the Horizon with a good non-conference season, but it's not inconceivable they'll lose 7-8 games or more in non-conference (for the record, I think they'll do better than that, but it's a tough looking slate so far).

Northern Kentucky, OTOH, is taking an "easy does it" approach. They've got 8 home games, and nobody looks fierce except Cincinnati. As noted, there is no date for that game yet, but it looks like it will be late December. If that's the case, it's not inconceivable that NKU enters that game at 12-0, though more likely someone trips them up before then. I don't know how good NKU will be, but one can envision them as one of those mid-majors that racks up 28 or so wins, but gets slighted at selection time because they just haven't played anybody.

The third of the league's favorites, Wright State, has a nice schedule, too, with 7 home games and neutral court games against Penn State and either SMU or Bradley. Those last two are key games for the Raiders to have any at-large hopes or, perhaps more realistically, to get a good seed off an automatic bid or an at-large NIT bid. They also need to beat a good Toledo team (in Dayton) and have a big road game at Mississippi State.

YSU and Cleveland State both get cracks at Ohio State, and Oakland gets its annual shot at Michigan State in East Lansing. Detroit has games against its old rivals Xavier and Butler. The Titans first played Xavier back in 1929, and held a healthy all-time lead in that series until well into the 1980s. Even when both schools were independents, they often played home and home series each year. Wake up the echos!

Milwaukee gets a cool trip to Ireland to play MAC favorite Buffalo. IUPUI has a bunch of Indiana teams on its slate. Green Bay has some tough but not insurmountable guarantee or exempt games (Creighton, Iowa, Oregon), and highlights its home schedule with Indiana State and Belmont.

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