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The Big East announced the schedule for the women's basketball conference season on Thursday afternoon. The big news is that Fox Sports is boosting their coverage of the league for this season, increasing from 15 regular season games on FS1 and FS2 a year ago up to 25 games this coming season. On top of that, any conference game not carried on FS1 or FS2 will be broadcast by the Big East Digital Network, which means every single Marquette game in conference play will be televised in one fashion or another.
Anyway, let's get to the important bit, namely the Marquette schedule for the upcoming season.
Date | Opponent | Time (CT) | TV |
Tues., Dec. 29 | at DePaul | 7pm | BEDN |
Sun., Jan. 3 | at Seton Hall | 1pm | BEDN |
Tue., Jan. 5 | at St. John's | 6pm | BEDN |
Fri., Jan. 8 | Villanova | 7pm | BEDN |
Sun., Jan. 10 | Georgetown | 12pm | FS2 |
Fri., Jan. 15 | at Xavier | 6pm | BEDN |
Sun. Jan. 17 | at Butler | 1pm | BEDN |
Fri., Jan. 22 | vs Providence | 7pm | FS1 |
Sun., Jan. 24 | vs Creighton | 2pm | BEDN |
Fri., Jan. 29 | vs St. John's | 7pm | BEDN |
Sun., Jan. 31 | vs Seton Hall | 2pm | BEDN |
Fri., Feb. 5 | at Georgetown | 6pm | BEDN |
Sun., Feb. 7 | at Villanova | 12pm | BEDN |
Fri., Feb. 12 | vs Butler | 7pm | BEDN |
Sun., Feb. 14 | vs Xavier | 1:30pm | FS2 |
Fri., Feb. 19 | at Creighton | 7:05pm | BEDN |
Sun., Feb. 21 | at Providence | 12pm | BEDN |
Sat., Feb. 27 | vs DePaul | 5pm | BEDN |
Somethings that jumped out at me right away:
- The Big East is mostly going with the Friday/Sunday travel partners schedule again this season. The first week of the schedule is a little tumbled around due to New Year's, but from there, it's all Fridays and Sundays all season.
- Well, almost. Marquette's in a unique situation where they're going to open and close with DePaul, their travel partner, and neither of those games will be on a Friday or a Sunday. MU gets the Blue Demons in Chicago on a Tuesday night to open the season, and then wraps things up on a Saturday evening, one day before the rest of the league closes up shop. I'd guess that it would have something to do with DePaul hosting the Big East tournament exclusively at Phillips-McGrath this season, except the season finale's in Milwaukee.
- Marquette opens with what might be the three toughest road games on the schedule: at DePaul, at Seton Hall, and at St. John's. That's the league's co-champs from a year ago in the first two, along with the Red Storm, who are always a stern test.
- As somewhat of a make up for that start, Marquette gets four straight home games in the middle of the season. For games 8-11 of the Big East slate, the Golden Eagles get Providence and Creighton followed by St. John's and Seton Hall the following weekend. The game against PC will be MU's only appearance on Fox Sports 1 during the conference schedule.
- Included in the conference schedule announcement was the note that Marquette's home game against Oregon State on December 3rd has been picked up by Fox Sports 1.