MORAGA, Calif. — Saint Mary's men's basketball head coach Randy Bennett announced today his non-conference schedule which features a number of marquee matchups as part of a 14-game slate. The schedule will include nine home games, four neutral site contests, and one away game. Saint Mary's men's basketball head coachannounced today his non-conference schedule which features a number of marquee matchups as part of a 14-game slate. The schedule will include nine home games, four neutral site contests, and one away game.

Five of those 14 games will be against schools who finished in the top-75 of last year's NET rankings: Wisconsin, Utah State, Dayton, Arizona State and Nevada.

"This is one of Saint Mary's best non-conference schedules in recent years," said ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi. "This type of schedule is one that'll get you an at-large bid in March."

"We're very excited with this year's schedule," Bennett said. "We have a number of tough games planned that we think will prepare us for conference play. This is one of our most competitive schedules we have ever put together."

Saint Mary's season begins on the road as they play Wisconsin in Sioux Falls, South Dakota on Nov. 5 in a neutral site battle. The opener marks the first time in 15 years that the Gaels will begin their year outside of McKeon Pavilion; the last time it happened was against Belmont on Nov. 11 in Berkeley.

The Badgers finished last year ranked No. 20 in NET and are one of three Power-5 schools SMC will face during the regular season.

After returning from South Dakota, Saint Mary's will have a comfortable stretch where they will play seven of their next eight contests in Moraga. The team's home opener will be against Winthrop on Nov. 11 followed by games later in the week in McKeon against Long Beach State and Cal Poly.

The Gaels' second neutral site game comes against Fresno State and will be held at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento on Nov. 20. It will be the two teams' first meeting in over 10 years although the schools did play an exhibition contest prior to the 2017-18 season to fundraise for the North Bay fire relief.

Following that game, Bennett's squad will take on a talented group of programs at McKeon: Lehigh, Utah State, Omaha, and Northern Illinois. The three former teams all won 20 or more games last season with Utah State leading the pack at 28 wins, to say nothing of their appearance in the NCAA Tournament.

The Gaels will be looking to avenge their loss to Utah State last season as the teams met early in the year in Las Vegas. The Aggies were chosen to finish ninth in the Mountain West in their preseason coaches' poll but shocked their adversaries by winning the regular season title and conference championship under first year head coach Craig Smith.

After playing Northern Illinois on Dec. 5, the Gaels won't return to McKeon for over three weeks as they play four consecutive games away from home. Saint Mary's faces Dayton on Dec. 8 in Phoenix as part of the Jerry Colangelo Classic before returning to the Bay Area to take on California in Haas Pavilion on Dec. 14. SMC returns back to Phoenix for a neutral-site game against Arizona State on Dec. 18 and then will face Nevada just days later at the Chase Center on Dec. 21 in San Francisco.

Saint Mary's played and beat both Dayton and Nevada during the 2016-17 season and has taken down Cal each of the last two seasons. The Gaels have Sun Devils have met only once before in 1954 in Moraga and Saint Mary's came out on top, 87-82.

After Christmas, the Gaels will play their final non-conference contest as they host Seattle on Dec. 28 in their last game of the calendar year. West Coast Conference play begins the following week on Jan. 2 with an away game at San Francisco.

Saint Mary's is 50-16 in non-conference action over the past four seasons and 36-4 (.900) at McKeon Pavilion during that stretch.

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