Ken McDonald announced the WKU men’s basketball schedule this morning. The schedule was highlighted by a visit from 2011 Final Four participant VCU to Diddle Arena on November 23. WKU will also travel to Charleston, South Carolina for the Charleston Classic November 17-20. The teams in the tournament include LSU, Seton Hall, Georgia Tech, Northwestern, Tulsa, St. Joe’s, and VCU. The non-conference schedule also includes home games against St. Joe’s (Season Opener), Tennessee State, Southeastern Louisiana, Murray State, Bowling Green State, and of course Furman. The only difference in the conference portion is no New Orleans since they left the Sun Belt for Division 3 and no home matchup against North Texas. Other than that almost every other major Sun Belt team will play in Diddle Arena this year.
I can’t help but feel a little disappointed about the year’s schedule. The past 4 or 5 years WKU has brought a team from the SEC or another big conference to Diddle, but not this year. VCU certainly is respectable but they had one run and aren’t expected to be a nationally prominent team this year. It’s going to be tough to get the fans/students pumped up for a game against a team that no one had heard of until this year. The VCU game will also take place the first day of Thanksgiving Break. Last year WKU hosted South Carolina on Thanksgiving break and Louisville on Christmas break. The South Carolina game was sparsely attended and the Louisville game had plenty of people, but many students had tickets they didn’t use due to them being gone. Now that I’m done with my nitpicking, the schedule isn’t the toughest but may be just what the team needs as it will seriously lack experience. Teams like Tennessee State and Southeastern Louisiana (which I’m pretty sure is the fictional school Bobby Boucher attended in the Waterboy) are good tune-up games for experience. The team does not lack talent and I fully expect the team to have a season with a winning record and single digit losses.
#WESTERN KENTUCKY DAWG
VCU highlights from the Final Four run
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