Times and Dates Set for 2017-18 UW Men’s Basketball Season

The Huskies announced the TV times and dates for the 2017-18 Men’s Basketball season this morning. The pre-finalized non-conference times and dates had already been decided as well as the weeks of games for conference play but those plus the TV assignments have now been finalized. Several of the non-conference games did change time from what was previously announced so make sure to update your calendars.

Here is a look at the non-conference schedule:

Most of the schedule will be shown on Pac-12 Networks but in 3 of their 4 biggest games it will be on ESPN2 so there will be at least some opportunity for national exposure. I’m a little surprised that the UW-Gonzaga game didn’t get picked up by a national outlet but I’m guessing the non-competitive final scores of the last few meetings discouraged ESPN from picking it up.

Before now, we only knew what weekends the Huskies would be playing each team rather than specific dates and times. Here’s a look at the conference slate:

It’s pretty evident that the major outlets don’t expect Washington to be a very good team and it’s hard to blame them. The good news is that there is only one week when the Huskies won’t be operating on the traditional Thursday/Saturday schedule and that’s the very first week of conference play with the L.A road trip. The bad news is that if you don’t get Pac-12 Networks then you won’t be watching much Husky basketball.

Only 4 of the 18 conference games will be on one of the major networks and 2 of those games are on ESPNU which are only barely a step up. It’s curious that the lone game they show up on ESPN2 is against Oregon State since neither team will likely be picked to finish in the upper half of the conference. It certainly doesn’t help Coach Hopkins’ efforts to recruit from the Northeast when no one out there will be able to watch a game.

Whether or not the Huskies came out well on start times is in the eye of the beholder. The home weekday games start at: 8pm, 7pm, 8pm, 6pm, and 8pm. The later start times mean less likely for traffic to cause a late arriving crowd but it also means the game won’t finish in time for any young Dawg fans to make their bed time. We’re smack dab in the middle of football season but expect our basketball coverage to start ramping up in the next month now that we are less than two months away from the first tip-off.

EDIT: I initially stated that I was hoping that the 1:00 PM Thursday game against Cal was a typo and it looks like it was. In one place on the website they show 1pm and in another place they show 8pm. I’m assuming the 8pm time is correct because otherwise that’s insane.