UVM men’s hoops unveils nonconference schedule

BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) - The UVM men’s basketball team finally has revealed its nonconference schedule.

The Cats will open with a pair of exhibition games against John Becker’s alma mater Catholic (October 28th) and local rival St. Mike’s (November 1st). The regular season opener is at home against Merrimack on November 6th.

Vermont has six home games on the noncon slate including a pair against D3 competition (Plattsburgh St. and VTSU-Johnson). They’ll host Yale and Dartmouth as part of long-running annual series, and continue a recent series with Colgate.

UVM will play six road games, but only three of the six are solo contests and two of those are in New England. Vermont will visit Bradley in a “buy game” (meaning UVM will be paid out for the game with no return leg scheduled) on November 25th. They’ll play three games on one trip, first to Virginia Tech on December 16th followed by two contests in Ohio (at Toledo and Miami (OH)).

UVM wraps the noncon slate January 2nd at Brown before America East play starts January 6th at home vs Maine.

“Well we wanted to have another competitive nonconference schedule,” Becker said. “But coming off last year and all the travel and only three home games in the nonconference, you know I worked closely with Jeff Schulman to come up with a better schedule where we had more home games, less travel. And I think we did a pretty good job of accomplishing that. We’ll have nine (away from home) games, but two trips will knock off six of those games. Three down in Myrtle Beach and three right before the holidays. So much more manageable. But yeah, it’s always fun to go to new gyms, places you haven’t played at before and they’ll certainly be good teams and big challenges.”

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