We are counting down the days to the start of the college basketball season.
If you’re reading this on the day it was published, we have 47 days to the official start of College Basketball, and 36 days until we can see the team in action against K-State (presuming it’s televised).
The Full Non-Conference Schedule:
- October 23rd — at Kansas State (exhibition)
- October 29th — at UNLV (exhibition)
- November 3rd — vs Cleveland State
- November 6th — vs Saint Louis (in St. Louis)
- November 9th — vs SIU-Edwardsville
- November 15th — vs Marquette (in Chicago)
- November 18th — vs Alcorn State
- November 20th — vs Le Moyne
- November 24th — vs Evansville
- November 27th — vs Arkansas Pine Bluff
- December 1st — vs Pittsburgh (ACC-SEC Challenge)
- December 6th — vs Kansas (in Kansas City)
- December 12th — vs Nebraska (in Kansas City)
- December 18th — at Indiana
- December 20th — vs Illinois (in St. Louis)
- December 22nd — vs Chicago State
After the last few years of a poor lineup of Q4 games in the non-conference schedule, Missouri pulled a 180 and have schedule as well as anyone in the country. On top of playing Illinois and Kansas as previously scheduled, the Tigers are playing neutral court matchups against SLU, Marquette, Nebraska, and a road game at Indiana. There’s no question Dennis Gates stepped it up.
Let’s Meet: the Arkansas Pine Bluff Golden Lions
The second oldest university in Arkansas, Branch Normal College, opened in 1875 during the time of reconstruction in the country. In 1927 its name changed to Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical, and Normal College, and again to Arkansas Pine Bluff in 1972. A cool fact in 1958, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave the commencement speech at AAM&N, and it pissed a lot of people off. So much so the Arkansas legislature cut a significant portion of their function the next year.
By 1972 the school rejoined the Arkansas system and renamed itself to Arkansas Pine Bluff.
The athletics history is a little all over the map, as they were independent from 1923 to 1935, then they joined the SWAC in the early years. They stuck it out in the SWAC until 1969, then tried Division II, and some NAIA, but eventually found themselves back in the warm embrace of the SWAC in 1998, when they transitioned fully to Division I.
Football still plays in the FCS, and basketball is searching for its second trip to the NCAA Tournament in school history.
George Ivory took the Golden Lions to the tournament in 2010. But winning seasons are few and far between, with 2010 and 2013 as the only years the school finished above .500. Both of those records are held by Ivory, who was let go after 13 seasons, and back to back 4 win campaigns.
Head Coach | Solomon Bozeman | 6th Season 49-107
Enter Solomon Bozeman. I’ve mentioned this before but I’m a fan of Bozeman. He’s a good coach and his teams are organized; he’s just in a really tough place to win basketball games. Bozeman is an Arkansas native who played College ball at South Florida and Arkansas Little Rock. He played some G-League ball and overseas before making his way to the bench at Abilene Christian in 2014. Joe Golding was in the early stages of building up that program, and Bozeman left to work with Wes Flanagan at Little Rock. Flanagan’s time there didn’t last long so Bozeman hopped over to work with Paul Mills at Oral Roberts.
Bozeman was a bit of a bold hire, as he was only 33 when he was hired for the head job. And it’s been rough at times. But that’s the job.
UAPB is going to play at least five high major teams a year, sometimes six. They’re almost always playing on the road for the non-conference. Last season they had their best year under Bozeman and they started 0-8 with losses to Vanderbilt, Washington, Oklahoma, SMU, and others before hitting conference play. There, the Golden Lions went 10-8, and looked like a team who could challenge for the conference tournament championship. But they lost to Southern, a team they’d beaten earlier in the year.
Still, I think Bozeman’s done a good job there.
Series History | Mizzou leads 7-0
After taking a few years off, Dennis Gates has put UAPB back on the non-con list after back-to-back wins in 2023 and 2024. Perhaps you remember those games. In 2023 Mizzou blew out UAPB, but let them crawl back into the game a bit late. The Tigers weren’t deep, but they still won by 22 and scored 101 points. Then the next season there was no playing around. 13 Tigers scored in what is still one of the largest margins of victories in Mizzou history, they won 112-63.
Oddly enough, it wasn’t the biggest win over UAPB in Mizzou history despite the 49-point spread. That honor goes to the 1998-99 team when they won 89-33. Then the 2008-09 team won 95-41. And the 2015-16 team beat UAPB 78-25.
In its history Mizzou has won 17 games by 49 points or more, and UAPB is on the list four times. There’s only one other team who is on the list more than once and that’s who we preview next. Chicago State.
The narrowest margin came in 2009, when Mizzou won 88-70. That UAPB team started 0-11 (Mizzou was their ninth loss in a row) but finished 231 in KenPom and made the NCAA Tournament. It’s their best season since they joined Division 1.
What about the team now?
The key to putting together a good SWAC team is finding the right mix of undiscovered JUCO players along with a few guys trying to transfer down to gain a larger role. Eight of the top 12 from last year’s roster were seniors and aren’t, as of my research in early September, planning to come back.
Who do we know is on the roster?
A contender to be a starting guard is Independence CC transfer Cedric Dixon. He averaged around 10 points a game and started 22 games. They also got a commitment from Elijah Hernandez, a 6’6 wing last seen playing Division 2 ball. There’s also CJ Smith, a 6’7 wing forward who was lightly used for Joe Golding’s UTEP Miners last season.
Back is Jahmari Hamilton-Brown, who didn’t play last season after transferring in from JUCO, Harrison Pickett, a freshman out of Benton High School in Arkansas, and Jai’Chaunn Hayes, a sophomore out of Hot Springs. Neither player played a very large role last season.
Early BartTorvik.com projections has the Golden Lions 360th out of 365 teams. I don’t expect this game to be very entertaining.