First-year Austin Peay head men’s basketball coach Matt Figger has put together a 2017-18 slate that will test his new-look Austin Peay State University men’s basketball team early and often. A quartet of high-major opponents, an appearance in the NIT Season Tip-Off and five participants in the 2017 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament dot the schedule—an ambitious 12-game non-conference slate ahead of the grueling, expanded 18-game gauntlet that is the Ohio Valley Conference schedule in 2017-18.
After an exhibition contest against Sewanee (Nov. 4), the Governors first four regular season contests will fall under the umbrella of the NIT Season Tip-Off—at Vanderbilt to open the regular season, Nov. 10, before visiting Virginia for the first meeting between the two programs. It will also mark the first time since the 2009-10 season the Govs will kick off a campaign against two schools that made the previous NCAA Tournament.
The latter half of the NIT Season Tip-Off finds the Governors at home against Oakland City (Nov. 16) and UNC-Asheville (Nov. 19)—the Governors first contest against the Bulldogs since 1979. Meetings with Bethel (Tenn.), Nov. 22, and Miami University, Nov. 26, close a four-game homestand for Austin Peay.
A meeting with Oklahoma State (Nov. 29) kicks off a post-Thanksgiving stretch that includes three of the next four contests away from the Dunn Center. Alabama A&M (Dec. 2) will visit Clarksville for the first meeting between the teams before the Govs close the non-conference road schedule with visits to Illinois (Dec. 6) and Evansville (Dec. 16), with the Governors seeking their first win against the Fighting Illini since scoring one college basketball’s most prodigious upsets in the 1987 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.
The final two non-conference contests will be at the Dunn Center—the second time in three seasons APSU has closed a non-conference slate with back-to-back home games. 2017 Sun Belt Tournament champion Troy pays Austin Peay a visit, Dec. 19, while Western Kentucky will make its first visit to the Dunn Center since 2004 in a Dec. 22 game to round out the pre-conference slate.
Austin Peay kicks off the conference schedule with a rarity—a four-game homestand, its first to open league play since the 2004-05 season which, including the final two non-conference games, provides Austin Peay its first six-game homestand since a seven-game stretch at the Dunn Center during that same 2004-05 campaign. The Governors will complete most of the first half of the OVC West schedule during this stretch against SIU Edwardsville (Dec. 28), Eastern Illinois (Dec. 30), UT Martin (Jan. 4) and Southeast Missouri (Jan. 6). It’s also the earliest conference opener since the league moved away from pre-Christmas break conference games following the 2010-11 season—the last time the league schedule was 18 games.
That will be followed by the first of two four-game OVC road trips, stretching Jan. 11-20 at Tennessee Tech (Jan. 11), Jacksonville State (Jan. 13), Belmont (Jan. 18) and Tennessee State (Jan. 20).
The Govs get a two-game respite from the road against Eastern Kentucky (Jan. 25) and Morehead State (Jan. 27) before becoming road warriors again from Feb. 1-10 at UT Martin (Feb. 1), Southeast Missouri (Feb. 3), Murray State (Feb. 8) and Eastern Illinois (Feb. 10).
Following that daunting stretch, the Govs close the regular season with three home games in their last four contests—against Tennessee Tech (Feb. 15), Jacksonville State (Feb. 17), followed by a trip to SIU Edwardsville (Feb. 22) rounding out the road schedule.
Austin Peay’s final home game, and the regular-season finale for 2017-18, will be against rival Murray State, Feb. 24—last season, the Governors toppled the Racers in a thrilling 84-81 win in the Dunn Center.
(Courtesy APSU Athletics)
