SAN ANTONIO — UTSA head men’s basketball coach Brooks Thompson unveiled the remainder of his program’s 2015-16 schedule on Monday. The Roadrunners previously announced their Conference USA slate on July 20.
In all, the ledger will see UTSA with 16 home games, while the squad will have at least 10 contests against teams that appeared in the postseason a year ago, including College Basketball Invitational Champion Loyola-Chicago.
“Our coaches and student-athletes are excited for the upcoming season,” Thompson said. “Once again, the staff has put together a challenging schedule that will prepare us for conference play. We will have a chance to learn and grow as a team in some tough road environments where we’ll also have an opportunity to showcase UTSA basketball both regionally and nationally.”
UTSA will host Southeastern Oklahoma State on Nov. 5 in its lone exhibition contest before opening the regular season with eight of their first nine games away from the Convocation Center.
The road stretch begins on Nov. 13 when the Roadrunners tipoff their 35th season of play as they take on Loyola-Chicago. UTSA will then begin play in the Men Who Speak Up Main Event with contests at Clemson (Nov. 15) and Creighton (Nov. 17) before a return trip to Southern Utah (Nov. 21).
The Men Who Speak Up Main Event will conclude with games at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas starting with a Nov. 23 matchup with former Southland Conference foe Central Arkansas. UTSA will close play in the event against either Howard or Texas Southern on Nov. 25.
The Roadrunners will return home for a matchup against UT Permian Basin (Nov. 29) before ending their season-opening road stretch with contests at I-35 rival Texas State (Dec. 2) and Texas (Dec. 5).
UTSA will follow with six consecutive home tilts, which will take the team into C-USA play.
The Roadrunners will look make it five straight wins against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi when they host the Islanders on Dec. 12. The non-conference schedule concludes with home games against East Central Oklahoma (Dec. 16), Utah Valley (Dec. 19) and Cal Poly (Dec. 22) before the C-USA opener against North Texas on New Year’s Day.
The squad’s other home league tilts include Rice (Jan. 3), UTEP (Jan. 16), FIU (Jan. 21), Florida Atlantic (Jan. 23), WKU (Feb. 4), Marshall (Feb. 6), Louisiana Tech (Feb. 18) and Southern Miss (Feb. 20).
Meanwhile, UTSA will take to the road for games at UAB (Jan. 7), Middle Tennessee (Jan. 9), Louisiana Tech (Jan. 28), Southern Miss (Jan. 30), Florida Atlantic (Feb. 11), FIU (Feb. 13), Charlotte (Feb. 25), Old Dominion (Feb. 27) and UTEP (March 5).
All 14 teams will vie for an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament at the C-USA Tournament, which will be held March 9-12 in Birmingham, Ala.