Big South Announces 2018-19 Men’s Basketball Schedule

Photo credit to Edgar Gomez

College Basketball

Big South Announces 2018-19 Men’s Basketball Schedule

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – The Big South Conference revealed its 2018-19 men’s basketball composite league schedule Wednesday morning.  The 88-game slate over an eight-week span begins on Saturday, Jan. 5 and each member will play a 16-game unbalanced schedule.

The 11 members will play six teams twice and four teams once to determine the 2018-19 regular-season champion.  League play will feature one three-game week (Jan. 21-26), each team will have two byes during the conference season, and two new national television appearances comprise the slate.  In additional, four Thursday dates — Jan. 10, Jan. 24, Feb. 7 and Feb. 21 — will be ESPNU Wildcard selections 21 days in advance.

Big South Welcomes New Coaches and Members

The Jan. 5 Big South openers feature High Point and new head coach Tubby Smith at Charleston Southern, Longwood and new head coach Griff Aldrich at Radford, UNC Asheville and new head coach Mike Morrell hosting Winthrop, and new member USC Upstate playing its first conference game under new head coach Dave Dickerson at Presbyterian.  The final Jan. 5 opener is Gardner-Webb at Campbell.

New member Hampton opens its Big South era at home on Thursday, Jan. 10 against Charleston Southern, while the Pirates and Upstate will meet twice on the hardwood — Thursday, Jan. 24 and Saturday, March 2.  Defending Big South champion Radford opens against Longwood and concludes the year at Campbell.  A total of 17 games featuring head coaches new to the Big South are on the schedule, with the first being Jan. 10 (UNC Asheville at Longwood).  Additional schedule highlights include three games on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day(Monday, Jan. 14).

As part of the Big South’s new seven-year ESPN agreement, the conference will have two additional nationally-televised regular-season games this season. Those will be on either ESPNews or ESPNU — Gardner-Webb at Radford on Thursday, Jan. 17 at 9:00 pm, and Winthrop at Hampton on Thursday, Feb. 28 at 7:00pm.

Big South Tournament

The 2019 Big South Men’s Basketball Championship will again be a home-site/earned seed format that returned in 2017.  First round games at the No. 6, 7 and 8 seeds open the Championship on Tuesday, March 5.  The quarterfinals and semifinals will be played at the No. 1 seed on Thursday-Friday, March 7-8. The highest remaining seed will host the championship game on Sunday, March 10 at 1:00 pm on ESPN.