The 2019-2020 schedule for the men’s team has been released and features some interesting matchups.
The men’s team schedule, which was released by men’s head coach Anthony Stewart earlier in October, consists of 29 games, with seven of them against first-time opponents.
The Skyhawks will also play teams from 12 different conferences alongside of the usual slate of Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) teams to round out the regular season.
The men will kick off their season with an exhibition match against Earlham College on Oct. 31 in Martin. The first regular season game will be on Nov. 5 against a familiar opponent in St. Louis College of Pharmacy, who the Skyhawks clobbered 113-47 in 2018-2019.
The Skyhawks will finish their early three-game home-stand against in-state foe East Tennessee State University (ETSU) on Nov. 9, a team that finished with 24 wins last season.
Following the ETSU matchup, the Skyhawks will face a grueling stretch of games that won’t see the Skyhawks play at home from the Nov. 13 matchup against Western Illinois until Dec. 29 against Mount St. Joseph.
Interestingly, the Skyhawks will participate in the Cancun Challenge from Nov. 16-27. The first matchup will see the Skyhawks take on Wichita State, who won 22 games last season, followed by a Nov. 19 battle against Northern Iowa, who appeared in the Missouri Valley Conference Championship last season.
After those two initial matches, the Skyhawks will travel south-of-the-border to Playa Del Carmen, Mexico, for the last two games.
On Nov. 26, UTM will square-off against Gardner-Webb, who appeared in the NCAA tournament last season. On the following day, the Skyhawks will face either Boston University or Northern Colorado.
After returning to the U.S., matchups against Central Michigan, Dec. 6, and UNC Asheville, Dec. 14, await the basketball squad before participating in the inaugural Battleground 2k19 event in Houston, Texas, against Big 12 foe Baylor, who won 20 games last season and made an appearance in the NCAA tournament.
The Skyhawks will finally return to the nest on Dec. 29 to battle the aforementioned Mount St. Joseph to wrap up non-conference action.
From then on out, the Skyhawks will be playing OVC teams from Jan. 2-Feb. 29 before the start of the OVC Basketball Championship tournament, which the Skyhawks made last season, beating Eastern Illinois in round one but then falling to Jacksonville State in the quarterfinals.
