MSU Basketball releases 2018-19 schedule

It may not feel like basketball season yet, but fans can start planning the rest of their year. The 2018-19 Michigan State Spartans basketball schedule has been released.

The schedule was made public via the program’s official Twitter account at 3:00 PM ET.

While the opponents had been set for some time, fans finally can see exactly what the season will look like. As always, the Spartans will have multiple stretches of games that already look difficult.

Michigan State’s first game of the season won’t be at home, but the team will be in familiar territory. The Spartans kick things off with the Champions Classic against Kansas on Tuesday, November 6.

After playing the first home games of the season against Florida Gulf Coast (Nov. 11), Louisiana-Monroe (Nov. 14) and Tennessee Tech (Nov. 18), the Spartans will participate in the Las Vegas Invitational. The first game in Vegas will be Thursday, November 22 against UCLA. With a win, MSU would play either North Carolina or Texas the following day.

This year’s ACC-Big Ten Challenge sees MSU hitting the road to play Louisville Tuesday, November 27.

The Big Ten schedule starts Friday, November 30 when the Spartans travel to Rutgers. MSU will play the first conference home game Monday, December 3 against Iowa.

After the Iowa game, MSU doesn’t play another conference game for nearly a full month. During this stretch, the team will hit the road to play in Gainesville, Florida to play the Gators Saturday, December 8. Then host three straight home games against Green Bay, Oakland and Northern Illinois.

January will almost certainly be the most taxing for the Spartans. The month features two seven-day stretches where Michigan State will play three games the first comes early in the month when the Spartans host Northwestern Wednesday, January 2, then go on the road to Ohio State on Saturday January 5, followed by a home game against Purdue Tuesday, January 8. Both the Buckeyes and Boilermakers lost a considerable amount of talent from last year’s teams, but both will also be expected to compete for the conference again this season.

The second stretch comes at the end of the month. Michigan State will host Maryland on Monday, January 21, then travel to Iowa for a game on Thursday, January 24. The stretch will again end with a game against Purdue, on Sunday, January 27.

MSU doesn’t play Michigan until Sunday, February 24 in Ann Arbor. The two rivals finish the series with the Spartans final regular season game on Saturday, March 9 in East Lansing.

This year’s Big Ten Tournament will be held in Chicago, finally returning to the midwest. Unfortunately, it is still being held a week before Selection Sunday.

Full 2018-19 Michigan State basketball schedule:

Via msuspartans.com