ISU men’s hoops schedule includes 4 NCAA teams from last season

Posted on August 19, 2019

Illinois State men’s basketball coach Dan Muller and the Redbirds open the season Nov. 6 vs. Belmont at Redbird Arena. (WJBC file photo)

By Greg Halbleib

NORMAL – Illinois State men’s basketball’s non-conference schedule includes four NCAA tournament qualifiers from last season and another that played in the NIT.

The Redbirds announced the non-conference schedule Monday.

Illinois State coach Dan Muller says the non-conference slate will be good preparations for the Missouri Valley Conference season:

“We’ll be tested early, obviously, with some home games against very good teams and then we go to down to the (Virgin) Islands and play a good Cincinnati team,” Muller said. “We will as always learn a lot and see a lot of different styles. I’m excited to see how we do.”

Redbird coach Dan Muller says last week’s team trip to Italy was more about bonding as a team:

“We stayed at three different hotels, and (the players) had different roommates at each stop, and it was our first real team meals,” Muller said. “I’d say 70-75 percent is about the the team building. The other 25 percent is important for sure, what we learned on the court, but even on-the-court stuff is about coming closer together as a team.”

Redbird coach Dan Muller says the recent trip to Italy allowed his team to begin to adjust to the new longer college three-point line which moves this season to the international distance:

“We stepped out of bounds I would say an average of three times per game,” Muller said about the adjustment to the smaller space between the three-point line and the sideline with the new distance. “It’s just not a lot of space. But we shot about 40 percent as a team with a couple of guys shooting the heck out of the ball. It’s three games, and I don’t think that tells us what we’re going to do during the season, but we did shoot it well.”

The season opens at the newly-renovated Redbird Arena on November 6 against Belmont.

Illinois State men’s basketball non-conference schedule:

Nov. 6 vs. Belmont
Nov. 10 vs. Little Rock
Nov. 17 vs. UCF
Paradise Jam, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands:
–Nov. 22 vs. Cincinnati
–Nov. 23 vs. Bowling Green or Western Kentucky
–Nov. 25 TBD
Nov. 30 vs. Purdue-Northwest
Dec. 3 at TCU
Dec. 7 vs. Morehead State
Dec. 15 at Northern Kentucky
Dec. 18 vs. UIC
Dec. 21 at UTSA

Greg Halbleib can be reached at [email protected].

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