The beefed-up schedule Lobo basketball fans — and critics — have long asked for is finally out.
And it’s worthy of at least a little golf clap.
The University of New Mexico officially unveiled its 11-game nonconference slate on Tuesday, a slate that features as many as four dates with Power Five programs, exciting road games and neutral-site trips and a challenging set of visitors to The Pit.
“It’s not easy building a schedule in college basketball,” UNM coach Richard Pitino said during a practice earlier this summer. “I know fans, they want the big names and the teams everyone knows, but it’s not that simple.”
The Lobos will play 31 regular season games next season; 32 if one includes an Oct. 28 exhibition game against UTEP in The Pit. It’s the first time since 2017 that UNM will face a Division I opponent in an exhibition. The Lobos lost to BYU back in 2017.
The highlights start in the first week of the season when the Lobos play their second game with a Nov. 8 date against UCLA in Las Vegas, Nev. A venue and television package have not been finalized, but a chance to take on a blue-blood program with a national brand is set in stone.
The Bruins are entering their first year in the expanded Big Ten and are already ranked in the Top 25 by USA Today and ESPN. It will be just the fifth meeting between the programs, and the first since 1997. They’ve split the previous four contests.
UNM’s season opener will be at home Nov. 4 against Nicholls. Eight days later the Lobos will host Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
From there it’s a trip to the heart of Manhattan and a much-anticipated Nov. 17 showdown against St. John’s and legendary coach Rick Pitino at Madison Square Garden. It amounts to Round 2 of the father/son war since Richard took over at UNM four years ago.
The pair met two years ago when Rick was still coaching at Iona. He took over at St. John’s last season, but not before one of his top players at Iona, center Nelly Junior Joseph, transferred to New Mexico. Nelly is expected to be UNM’s starting center once again this coming season.
Home dates with Grambling State and Texas Southern precede a trip to Palm Springs, Calif., for Thanksgiving. The Acrisure Classic will be Nov. 28-29 and have the Lobos facing Arizona State of the Big 12 on Thanksgiving night, then either the Big Ten’s USC or perennial West Coast power Saint Mary’s the following night. Both games will be nationally televised on TruTV.
The remaining three nonconference games will all be a home. UNM will play just once during a two-week stretch in early December to give the players enough time to deal with final exams. That game is a big one, however, as New Mexico State comes to The Pit for the only meeting between the teams this coming season.
The schools canceled their traditional home-and-home rivalry after last season, opting to play just once and have the home sites alternate from year to year. When one school hosts the annual football game, the other gets basketball.
UNM will get a visit from Western New Mexico on Dec. 14, their only non-Division I game of the entire season. Virginia Commonwealth arrives on Dec. 18, marking the stiffest test of the early part of the season.
VCU won 24 games last season, its first under coach Ryan Odom. Odom coached at Utah State immediately before that and his roster includes a number of former Aggies who made the move east with him. Among them is forward Sean Bairstow, the younger brother of former Lobos star Cameron Bairstow.
The Mountain West Conference schedule has not been released, but it is expected to start around the holidays and prior to New Year’s Day. The league has expanded to a 20-game schedule, meaning each team will play all other schools in the league home and away. Those two additional games cut into the nonconference schedule and were a big reason the Lobos and NMSU decided to play just once.
All told, it’s a significant upgrade over last season’s slate. UNM’s nonconference schedule ranked No. 210 out of 362 Division I teams a year ago. The total strength got a huge boost during a rugged MWC season that produced six teams who landed berths in the NCAA Tournament, but a constant knock on UNM’s résumé was its soft schedule before league play.
The Lobos have won 25 of their 26 regular-season nonconference games in the last two years. The lone loss was on the road at nationally ranked Saint Mary’s.