STARKVILLE — Seventeen games at Humphrey Coliseum and a road trip to defending national champion Texas A&M highlight the Mississippi State women”s basketball team”s schedule for the 2011-12 season, which was released Tuesday.
In addition to the matchup against Texas A&M, MSU”s slate will include a Feb. 16 home game against NCAA Elite Eight participant and defending Southeastern Conference champion University of Tennessee and five other squads that advanced to the NCAA tournament and four teams that played in last season”s WNIT.
Following a Nov. 6 exhibition game against Arkansas-Fort Smith, MSU will open the regular season Nov. 11 against Jacksonville State.
The game will be part of a three-game, season-opening homestand that includes a Nov. 14 game against Xavier, an NCAA second-round squad in 2011, and a Nov. 17 matchup against Alcorn State.
Coach Sharon Fanning-Otis” squad will head to College Station, Texas, on Nov. 20 for the 2011 Super Series Challenge before returning home to meet Mississippi Valley State on Nov. 23.
Following a trek to Savannah State on Nov. 26, the team wraps the opening month of the season with a 7 p.m. tipoff against South Alabama on Nov. 30.
MSU will open the month of December with three of four games against Louisiana-based schools. It will play host to Tulane, a WNIT participant a year ago, in a 2 p.m. contest on Dec. 4 before going to Louisiana Tech, a team that advanced to the NCAA tournament last season, a week later.
MSU will play host to Southern Mississippi (Dec. 16) and Louisiana-Lafayette (Dec. 19) before closing the non-conference slate at the University of Nevada Tournament Dec. 29-30. MSU will meet Oklahoma State in the opener and will face Long Island or the host Wolfpack the following day.
“Playing in the SEC is always a challenge, but we feel the non-conference schedule we have put together will help prepare us for league play,” Fanning-Otis said. “We have a great core of veterans returning along with several new faces, and hopefully this team can continue building on the experience gained last season and the way we finished.”
MSU will play host to LSU on Jan. 5 to open the 16-game conference slate. It then will hit the road for games against Kentucky (Jan. 8) and Alabama (Jan. 12).
MSU will return to The Hump on Jan. 15 for a SEC showdown against Georgia, a 2011 Sweet 16 participant, before heading to Oxford to meet Ole Miss on Jan. 19.
MSU will welcome Auburn and Arkansas on Jan. 22 and 26, respectively, before a Jan. 29 trek to South Carolina.
A Feb. 5 home date against Vanderbilt is sandwiched between return trips to Georgia (Feb. 2) and LSU (Feb. 9). Following the trek to Baton Rouge, MSU will return home to challenge Ole Miss on Feb. 12 before defending SEC champion Tennessee comes to Starkville on Feb. 16.
MSU will travels to Arkansas and Florida before wrapping the regular season Feb. 26 against Kentucky at The Hump.
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