The UA will host a mid-or-low-major opponent assigned by the Maui Invitational, similar to when the Cats hosted UMBC last season.
ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ still isn’t sure who will be playing in them, but the Wildcats have filled all but four games for next season’s schedule.
The Wildcats, who still have seven open roster spots, have added one-time home games against Cal Poly (Nov. 11), Montana (Dec. 19) and UC Davis (Dec. 22) to a 2018-19 schedule that already included a home game against Baylor on Dec. 15, road games at UConn (Dec. 2) and Alabama (Dec. 9), plus an appearance in the Maui Invitational from Nov. 19-21.
Ryan Reynolds, who handles scheduling as UA’s director of basketball operations, said the final four games will likely be all at home, and probably as one-time games, since the Wildcats are already traveling three times in November and December.
One of the four final home games will be a mid-or-low-major opponent assigned by the Maui Invitational, so that UA can have four games in total as part of that event. Multi-team events such as the Maui Invitational can include up to four games that count as three games toward the NCAA scheduling maximum.
Similarly, UA hosted UMBC early last season as part of the Battle 4 Atlantis, which holds a three-day bracket in the Bahamas. UMBC, which went on to become the first-ever No. 16 seed to win an NCAA Tournament game when it beat Virginia, played ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ closely before the Wildcats broke loose late for a 103-76 win.
Reynolds said UA would probably also host two exhibition games, including one on Nov. 4 against Division II Chaminade.
The Pac-12 weekend pairings won’t be released until later this spring, and the dates for Pac-12 games won’t be announced until late summer. The Pac-12 schedule “skips†will be the opposite of last season: UA won’t make the trip to Washington and WSU and won’t host UCLA or USC.
