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The 2015-16 Mississippi College men’s basketball schedule is highlighted by 14 home games to be played at the friendly confines of A.E. Wood Coliseum.
The Choctaws get the year started with an exhibition game at Louisiana-Lafayette on November 9th and will follow that up with another exhibition contest at Southeastern Louisiana on November 18th.
“We like to play the early-season games against Division I schools,” said head coach Don Lofton. “It’s a great experience for our guys, and it gives us a challenge early on. We’ll find out quickly how good we are and how good we can be.”
Sandwiched in between the two exhibition games are the home opener against Belhaven (Nov. 13) and a road game against Spring Hill (Nov. 17). The Choctaws picked up wins against both teams last season to open the season.
“It’s going to be a big road challenge for us when we go to Spring Hill,” Lofton went on. “We scheduled that game to get us ready for the start of the Gulf South Conference schedule that has us at West Alabama.”
The Choctaws will play two more non-conference games at home when they host North American University (Nov. 21) and College of Faith (Nov. 28) before opening league play.
West Alabama (Dec. 3) and West Georgia (Dec. 5) get the Choctaws going in conference play. The Choctaws will travel to play games against two of the three GSC regular season co-champions from a season ago.
The Choctaws will then come back to A.E. Wood Coliseum to host Union (Dec. 10) and Christian Brothers (Dec. 12), two schools that qualified for the GSC Tournament a season ago.
“We’re obviously hoping to get off to a better start in the league this season,” said Lofton. “I think the non-conference schedule gives us more opportunities to get ready for one off the toughest leagues in the country. Last year we didn’t think we had enough chances to get better before the GSC games. We’ve addressed that issue with the schedule this season.
The Choctaws opened the 2014-15 season with four straight conference losses to the same teams they open with this season. They would follow that up with four straight wins to even their conference mark by the first week in January.
The Choctaws will hit the road for a couple of league contests against West Florida (Dec. 17) and Valdosta State (Dec. 19) to close out 2015. They will open 2016 with home games against Alabama Huntsville (Jan. 2) and North Alabama (Jan. 4).
The first round of Gulf South Conference games closes out with three straight road contests against Shorter (Jan. 9), Lee (Jan. 11) and Delta State (Jan. 16).
The schedule flips in the seconod half of league competition as the Choctaws play seven of the last 11 games at A.E. Wood Coliseum.
The season finishes with Magnolia State rival Delta State coming to Clinton on February 25th.
The Choctaws open practice on Thursday, October 15th in A.E. Wood Coliseum.
