His first season at the helm of the Eastern Washington University men’s basketball team will be a challenging one — and road heavy — for new head coach Shantay Legans.
Three Pac-12 Conference opponents and a stretch of 10-straight games away from home are the task ahead for the Eagles as their 2017-18 schedule was announced on Aug. 25. The Eagles are coming off a third-straight appearance in a national postseason tournament, and were 22-12 overall a year ago.
Eastern will play eight opponents who played in postseason tournaments last season, including five in the non-conference portion of EWU’s schedule. Utah and South Dakota advanced to the National Invitation Tournament (NIT), Georgia State advanced to the College Insider Tournament (CIT) and San Francisco and Wyoming joined EWU in the College Basketball Invitational (CBI).
“Overall, we have a good mix of opponents,” Legans said.
The other three postseason opponents came from the Big Sky Conference – North Dakota in the NCAA Tournament and Idaho and Weber State in the CIT. In all, Eastern will play teams from 10 different conferences, with all but two of its games versus NCAA Division I opposition. Seven opponents won at least 20 games a year ago – Georgia State, Utah, San Francisco, South Dakota, Wyoming, North Dakota and Weber State.
The Pac-12 opponents are Washington, Stanford and Utah, and the Eagles also play Mountain West Conference foes Wyoming and UNLV. San Francisco and Seattle — with a familiar face on the sideline in former head coach Jim Hayford — are EWU’s two West Coast Conference foes.
“It is a great opportunity to get a chance to play three Pac-12 opponents and two Mountain West teams,” Legan said. “More importantly, these games will get us ready for Big Sky play.”
EWU men’s basketball home schedule
Friday, Nov. 10 Walla Walla University, 1:05 p.m.
Sunday, Dec. 17 California State, Northridge, 2:05 p.m.
Wednesday, Dec. 20 Univ. of Providence (Mont.), 6:05 p.m.
Thursday, Jan. 4 Portland State, 6:05 p.m. *
Saturday, Jan. 6 Sacramento State, 2:05 p.m. *
Friday, Jan. 12 Idaho, 7:30 p.m. *
Thursday, Jan. 25 University of North Dakota, 6:05 p.m.*
Saturday, Jan. 27 Northern Colorado, 2:05 p.m.*
Thursday, Feb. 15 Montana, 6:05 p.m.*
Saturday, Feb. 17 Montana State, 2:05 p.m.*
Thursday, March 1 Southern Utah, 6:05 p.m.*
Saturday, March 3 Northern Arizona, 2:05 p.m.*
* Big Sky Conference games
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