Colorado University Athletics
2009-10 Basketball Schedules Announced
July 22, 2009 | Men's Basketball, Women's Basketball
BOULDER - The University of Colorado men's and women's basketball teams have announced their schedules for the 2009-10 season.
Jeff Bzdelik's third season includes 16 home games at the Coors Events Center, eight in the nonconference portion of the slate.
Kathy McConnell-Miller's fifth season features 18 home contests and her Buffs will potentially play 16 games - or 55 percent of the schedule - against teams that advanced to either the 2009 NCAA or WNIT postseason tournaments.
 Senior Guard Dwight Thorne II |
The Buffaloes will be making their first-ever appearance at the EA Sports Maui Invitational (Nov. 23-25) in Hawai'i. Former national champions Arizona, Louisville, Maryland, and Wisconsin along with Gonzaga, Vanderbilt and host Chaminade University of Honolulu are scheduled to compete in the 26th edition of the nation's premier early-season college basketball tournament.
Match ups and times of the invitational will be released in the coming weeks. It will be the second straight year CU will be playing on the Hawaiian Islands after participating at the Rainbow Classic last December.
The Buffs return to the mainland for six games during December with home dates against San Francisco (Dec. 1), Colorado Christian (Dec. 7), Cal State Northridge (Dec. 22), and Yale University (Dec. 29).
CU's first true road game of the season is Dec. 4 against Oregon State, a match up pitting the two conferences in the Big 12/Pac-10 Harwood Series.
Oregon State won the College Basketball Invitational (CBI) championship series a year ago, while Cal State Northridge made the NCAA Tournament.
Before the Big 12 Conference officially begins in January, the Buffs will close out the nonconference portion of the schedule at Tulsa (Jan. 2) and with a home game against Miami (Ohio) on Jan. 5. The Golden Hurricane earned an NIT berth last season.
In Big 12 play, the Buffs will be featured on the Big 12 Network eight times, ESPNU twice and on ESPN2 once.
Of the three nationally televised contests the Buffs will play on the Big 12 schedule, CU will travel to Oklahoma State (Jan. 20) on ESPNU; host Kansas (Feb. 3) on ESPN2; and host Oklahoma (Feb. 17) on ESPNU.
The conference season will begin on the road for the third consecutive season beginning at Texas (Jan. 9).
CU's home conference games are against Baylor (Jan. 12), Kansas State (Jan. 16), Nebraska (Jan. 27), KU (Feb. 3), Missouri (Feb. 6), OU (Feb. 17), Iowa State (Feb. 27), and Texas Tech (Mar. 6).
Conference road games are OSU (Jan. 20), Texas A&M (Jan. 23), Iowa State (Jan. 30), Kansas State (Feb. 13), KU (Feb. 20), Missouri (Feb. 24), and Nebraska (Mar. 2).
The CU women will open the season at home for the second straight year by hosting UC-Irvine (Nov. 15) out of the Big West Conference. The Buffaloes will then participate in two preseason tournaments in the span of one week.
 Senior Guard Bianca Smith |
The Coors Classic begins a stretch in which the Buffaloes will play 10 of 11 games at the Coors Events Center. Following the Classic, CU will host Denver (Dec. 2) in the first matchup between the two metro area rivals since 1999. The Buffaloes will then play Seton Hall (Dec. 6) out of the Big East Conference in a rematch of last year's game in New Jersey.
CU will play its lone road game of this stretch one hour north as the Buffs renew their annual rivalry with Colorado State (Dec. 11) at Moby Gym in Fort Collins. The Buffs round out the month of December with home games against Southern Utah (Dec. 19), San Jose State (Dec. 22) and Grambling State (Dec. 30).
The Buffaloes will ring in 2010 by closing out their nonconference schedule with home games against Virginia (Jan. 2) and a first-ever meeting with Yale (Jan. 4). McConnell-Miller welcomes in her alma mater, Virginia, and her former coach Debbie Ryan who led the Cavaliers to a 24-10 mark in 2009 and the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
Colorado opens the Big 12 portion of its schedule by hosting Missouri on Saturday, Jan. 9. In a Big 12 scheduling first, the Buffaloes will not play a back-to-back home or road stretch for their first 11 league contests. In 12 of the Big 12's 13 seasons CU has had at least one back-to back home or road series within the first five league contests. In 2002, the first back-to-back games came in games 6 & 7.
Near the end of the season, Colorado will finally play back-to-back road games at Nebraska (Feb. 20) and Missouri (Feb. 23) before coming home and facing 2009 NCAA participants Texas A&M (Feb. 27) and Kansas State (Mar. 3) in consecutive contests at the CECC. The Buffaloes complete the regular season on the road against Iowa State (Mar. 6).
In contrast to last season, when the Buffaloes opened with five of its first six games - including the first four - against Big 12 Southern Division teams, CU will face rivals from the Northern Division in five of the first seven contests. After traveling to Texas Tech (Jan. 12) for their first road test, the Buffaloes will host Iowa State (Jan. 16), travel to Kansas State (Jan. 20), host Oklahoma State (Jan. 23) travel to 2009 WNIT runner up Kansas (Jan. 27) and host Nebraska (Jan. 30).
CU will have its normal home-and-home series with Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri and Nebraska. The Buffaloes bring in Oklahoma State, Texas (Feb. 10) and Texas A&M from the Southern Division while traveling to Texas Tech, 2009 Big 12 postseason champion Baylor (Feb. 6) and 2009 league champion and NCAA Women's Final Four participant Oklahoma (Feb. 13).
The Big 12's Fox Sports Net women's basketball national television package, along with FSN Rocky Mountain's package with both CU's men's and women's teams, will be announced at a later date.
All Colorado basketball dates are subject to change.
