Four weekend home games at Bramlage Coliseum, the Paradise Jam Tournament in the U.S. Virgin Islands and the return of the Wildcat Classic at the Sprint Center, highlight the 2018-19 Kansas State men’s basketball non-conference schedule released by athletic department officials on Wednesday (June 20). This is according to a release from K-State Athletics.
The 116th season of K-State men’s basketball officially gets underway on Friday, November 9 when the Wildcats host Kennesaw State in the first of back-to-back regular-season home games at Bramlage Coliseum.
K-State previously announced several components of its non-conference schedule, including the Paradise Jam on Friday-Monday, November 16-19, a road date at Marquette on Saturday, December 1 in the start of a home-and-home series, the Wildcat Classic contest with Vanderbilt at the Sprint Center on Saturday, December 22 and a road tilt with Texas A&M in the sixth annual SEC/Big 12 Challenge on Saturday, January 26, 2019.
In all, the Wildcats will play at least 16 home games in 2018-19, including the nine-game Big 12 schedule with visits from NCAA Tournament teams Kansas, Oklahoma, TCU, Texas, Texas Tech and West Virginia as well as NIT participants Baylor and Oklahoma State. The complete Big 12 schedule will be released later.
K-State will play at least one exhibition prior to the start of the regular season before hosting Kennesaw State (Friday, November 9) and Denver (Monday, November 12) in back-to-back home games. Dates and opponents for those possible exhibitions will be released later in the summer.
The Wildcats will travel to the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Paradise Jam for the first time since 2002 where they will play three games, beginning with Eastern Kentucky on Friday, November 16. The team will play either Northern Iowa or Penn on Saturday, November 17 before wrapping up the tournament on Monday, November 19. Other possible matchups include former conference rival Missouri, Old Dominion or Oregon State. The 19th annual event will return to the UVI Sports and Fitness Center in St. Thomas after being relocated to Lynchburg, Virginia and Liberty University this past November due to hurricane damage.
The squad will return home to host first-time opponent Lehigh on Saturday, November 24 before consecutive road games at Marquette on Saturday, December 1 and at Tulsa on Saturday, December 8. It will be the first in a home-and-home series with the Golden Eagles and the second in a three-game series with Golden Hurricane. Both schools will visit Bramlage Coliseum during the 2019-20 season.
The Wildcats will play three of their next four games at Bramlage Coliseum with visits from reigning Sun Belt Conference Tournament champion Georgia State on Saturday, December 15, Conference USA’s Southern Miss on Wednesday, December 19 and the Atlantic 10’s George Mason on Saturday, December 29. All three schools won at least 16 games a season ago, including 24 wins by Georgia State.
K-State will host the Wildcat Classic at the Sprint Center for the eighth time and the first time since 2016 when the team play Vanderbilt on Saturday, December 22. It is the return of a two-game series between the schools, which began with the Wildcats’ 84-79 win over the Commodores in Nashville on December 3, 2017.
The non-conference schedule will conclude on Saturday, January 26, as the Wildcats travel to College Station, Texas to take on Texas A&M in the sixth annual SEC/Big 12 Challenge. The Aggies advanced to the Sweet 16 for the second time in three seasons a year ago before losing to eventual national runner-up Michigan. It will be the 27th all-time meeting between the schools and the first in the Challenge series.