Believe it or not, college basketball season is just around the corner. Across the country, men’s and women’s teams alike are preparing for the 2023-24 campaign. While UConn and LSU are searching for repeat titles on the men’s and women’s side, respectively, the Samford Bulldogs are hoping to return to March Madness.
The men’s basketball season kicks off with two road tests. Rather than easing into the season, Samford starts off facing Purdue, the No. 3 ranked team in the country, in West Lafayette. Purdue returns Zach Edey, the consensus National Player of the Year, along with most of their core team. They’ll be prepared for the Bulldogs and hungry to prove doubters wrong after Fairleigh-Dickinson defeated them in the first round of the NCAA Tournament last season.
After Purdue, the Bulldogs will face VCU, a team also coming off of a March Madness first-round exit. The Rams are the reigning Atlantic 10 regular season and conference champions but face plenty of turnover, as it will be Head Coach Ryan Odom’s first season in Richmond.
After these games, the schedule gets a bit lighter for the Bulldogs, with nine straight home games against Mississippi College, South Carolina State, Alabama State, Merrimack, North Carolina A&T, Louisiana, LaGrange, Alabama A&M and Belmont. This gives the revered Samford student section plenty of chances to pack out the Pete Hanna Center and support their teams.
Road trips to Valparaiso and Texas Southern round out the nonconference schedule before the SoCon slate begins at home against Chattanooga, the team that eliminated Samford in the SoCon Tournament last season.
Samford Women’s Basketball begins with two home games against Auburn Montgomery and Central Arkansas. A home matchup against Alabama State follows a road trip to Troy. The Lady Bulldogs will then participate in the Lady Eagle Thanksgiving Classic, a tournament where they will face North Texas and Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg.
Next up are games against USC Upstate and Jacksonville State at home, followed by a road trip to Tuscaloosa to face Alabama. LaGrange College at home, Arkansas on the road, North Alabama at home, and two straight road games in the Bluegrass State against Eastern Kentucky and Kentucky round out the nonconference slate.
Overall, the nonconference schedules for the men’s and women’s teams provide plenty of opportunities to establish Samford as SoCon contenders and possibly national players at the mid-major level. If Bucky McMillan and Carley Kuhns maximize their talent, we could see both teams in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in years.
Sports Editor
