MSU-Florida Basketball Moved to 2018-19

Per usual, Michigan State is set to play a grueling non-conference schedule this upcoming year. However, it will no longer include a trip to Gainesville, Florida.

Per MLive’s Brendan Quinn, MSU has pushed its trip to the University of Florida out until 2018-19.

Thanks to a really awesome and all-around great idea by Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delaney — a man who always puts the student-athletes first — the Big Ten Tournament is set to take place a week earlier than normal at Madison Square Garden in the notorious Big Ten hotbed of New York City (which surely has nothing to do with exposure in the larger east coast TV markets and everything to do with the integrity and importance of amateurism.)

In light of this great and totally normal decision to have the conference championship an average of around 700 miles away from every school in the conference, MSU is in a bit of a pinch. Luckily, Florida obliged and the game has been pushed out a year.

The game is the second part of a home and home series, the first of which took place in East Lansing during the 2015-16 season. MSU was ranked #1 at that time and took down Florida 58-52.

The Spartans may still face the Gators next year, though. Like MSU, UF is a part of the Phil Knight Invitational, a 16-team tournament celebrating Nike Founder Phil Knight’s 80th birthday that will be taking place in Portland, Oregon. As Quinn notes, MSU will avoid Duke and Ohio State in their bracket, but the Gators may now make their way in there.