ST. LOUIS – The Missouri Valley Conference announced Friday (Dec. 4) its revised men’s basketball conference schedules for the 2020-21 season.
The new scheduling format, which is being used for both men’s and women’s basketball conference games, significantly reduces travel and places an emphasis on the health and safety of student-athletes, coaches and staff. The 18-game format pits teams against one another in a two-game series on back-to-back days at the same site. Each institution will play four road series and four home series and will also face their designated ‘travel partner’ in a single-game, home-and-home series.
For the Bears, the MVC schedule kicks off Dec. 27 and 28 at Northern Iowa.
Home series for this season are: Indiana State (Jan. 2-3), Drake (Jan. 17-18), Southern Illinois (Jan. 21), Loyola (Jan. 30-31) and Bradley (Feb. 13-14).
After the road opener at UNI, coach Dana Ford’s squad has just one road series in January – at Valparaiso on Jan. 9 and 10 – before three road trips in February: at Illinois State (Feb. 6-7), at Southern Illinois (Feb. 17) and at Evansville (Feb. 26-27).
The State Farm MVC Tournament is still slated for March 4-7 at Enterprise Center in St. Louis.
Start times and TV designations will be announced at a later date.
Single-game tickets for MVC games are scheduled to go on sale Tuesday, Dec. 8 at 10 a.m. Tickets are available at //MissouriStateBears.com/tickets, or during regular ticket office hours at the Old Missouri Bank Box Office at JQH Arena, (417) 836-7678.
