Penn men's basketball releases 2018-2019 schedule

Basketball season is still a couple months away, but Penn fans finally know what they have to look forward to.

On Tuesday afternoon, Penn men’s basketball released its schedule for the 2018-2019 season, which is slated to start on Nov. 6 with a road contest at George Mason. The Quakers will return to the Palestra for the home-opener three days later against Rice.

The non-conference portion of the schedule also features match-ups with several marquee foes, beginning with a game against Northern Iowa in the 2018 Paradise Jam Tournament on Nov. 16. Over the Red and Blue’s four days in the Virgin Islands, high-major programs like Kansas State, Missouri, and Oregon State are all potential opponents.

The first power-conference team to visit Penn will be Miami on Dec. 4. The Quakers’ next game will be the team’s Big 5 opener at La Salle on Dec. 8, followed by a date at home with Villanova on Dec. 11. This will mark the second time in the last three years that the defending national champions visit the Palestra (Villanova also played at Penn the season after its 2015-2016 national championship).

It doesn’t get much easier after that for the Red and Blue. Following an 11-day break for finals, Penn will travel cross-country to play New Mexico at The Pit on Dec. 22, before finishing 2018 with games against Toledo and Monmouth.

Penn will then the start the new year with back-to-back away and home games against Princeton on Jan. 5 and Jan. 12 to open the Ivy season. 

After that, the Quakers will finish up non-conference and Big 5 play with match-ups against Temple and Saint Joseph’s on consecutive weekends before resuming Ivy play with two weekends of traveling. The game against Temple will mark the last time the Quakers play against former Penn coach and current Temple coach Fran Dunphy. Penn will then return to the Palestra for two straight Ivy weekends starting on Feb. 15.

In March, the Quakers will hit the road yet again for an Ivy weekend at Harvard and Dartmouth. Penn will then finish its regular season with home dates against Yale and Brown on March 8 and March 9. 

“With this year’s schedule we strived to provide our student-athletes with the greatest college basketball experience possible,” coach Steve Donahue said in a Penn Athletics press release. “Our philosophy with scheduling continues to be one where we want to challenge our program to be able to compete on the national level.”

Penn finished the 2017-2018 season 24-9 overall with a 12-2 record in Ivy play to share the regular season Ivy League Championship with Harvard. The Red and Blue then won the Ivy League Tournament at the Palestra to advance to the team’s first NCAA Tournament since the 2006-2007 season, where they lost to Kansas in the First Round.