The 2016-17 Big East Women’s Basketball Schedule Is Out

With the Big East men’s basketball schedule announcement already in our rearview mirrors, the bigwigs at the league office could turn their attention to the women’s basketball schedule and television arrangements.

That work is done now, and on Tuesday, the Big East and its member schools announced the full women’s basketball schedule for the 2016-17 season.

It is, in a word, bananas.

Let’s lay out Marquette’s 18 game schedule for you before we get into why it’s bananas.

Check out the first eight games. They all come in a 19 day span from December 28th through January 15th. Marquette plays every single league opponent except for DePaul in a 19 day span during winter break, and then they’ll take the remaining 10 games across the next 36 days.

That’s nuts!

The good news for Marquette, I guess, is that they’ve brought every notable contributor back from last season, including 2016 Big East Freshman of the Year Allazia Blockton. They add in Chelsey Gibson, a JUCO transfer who suffered an injury early in preseason practice last year and missed the season, along with four freshmen who are all at least six feet tall. In other words: Marquette rolls out an experienced team that went 9-9 in league play a year ago and adds depth and size to a team that got outrebounded last year. Cramming games in quickly like that might work out okay for Marquette if the freshmen are at least able to contribute 5-10 minutes a game each.

Marquette will be on national television three times during the conference schedule. The home opener against Creighton will be on FS1, as will the final game of that eight game run to open the season, a home game against Butler. MU’s final scheduled national television appearance for the season will come in mid-February. They’ll open a three game homestand to end the regular season with a game against likely league favorites DePaul that will be carried on FS2.

The remaining 15 conference games will all be carried on the Big East Digital Network, which is available through Fox Sports Go without a cable or satellite subscription. The Big East tournament will be held at the Al McGuire Center this season, which probably tells you a thing or two about how the Big East office feels about Marquette’s chances to still be playing by the time the championship game rolls around on March 7th.

You can check out Marquette’s full schedule right here.