Oregon St. Announces Basketball Schedule

Oregon St.'s 2013-14 men's basketball schedule has been released. The 30 game slate starts with a visit from Coppin St. on Sunday, November 10, at 5 PM, and by the time the Pac-12 Tournament in Las Vegas rolls around, starting March 12, hoops season will last for more than 4 months.

The nearly complete Pac-12 television schedule, will only a handful of "To Be Determined" still sprinkled around, is also available.

The Beavers have 7 of their 12 non-conference games at home at Gill Coliseum, concluding with a late Sunday night game against Quinnipiac on Dec. 29 at 8 PM, as there are no non-conference games sprinkled into the conference season, or after New Year's.

The non-conference road games besides the Christmas trip to Hawaii for the Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic Dec. 22-25 are trips to Maryland, whom the Beavers have never played before, on Sunday, Nov. 17, and a trip to Chicago to play DePaul on Sunday, Dec. 1st. It's the first meeting with DePaul since 1945.

Tipoff times are yet to be set for those games, and the second and third round games in Hawaii, but Beaver fans can plan most of their schedule, as the only other tipoff time still to be set is on Sunday, Feb. 2, when UCLA will be at Gill.

This season's Civil War games are both on Sundays, with the Ducks in Corvallis on Jan. 19, at 5 PM, and the Beavers in Eugene on Feb. 16.

There are no home stands or road trips more than 3 games long this season.

The conference schedule starts with the 2 series that won't have return trips, as the mountain teams don't visit the state of Oregon this year, and the Beavers and Ducks won't be traveling to the Bay Area, in this year's conference rotation.

The Beavers visit Colorado the day after New Years, on Thursday Jan. 2, for a 7 PM start, and will stop off in Salt Lake City on their way back to play Utah on Sat. Jan. 4 at 1 PM.

The first conference home stand is against the Bay Area schools, with Stanford visiting Thursday, Jan. 9 at 7 PM, and California coming to town Saturday, for a 5 PM game.

Oregon St. will be on ESPNU 5 times besides the Hawaii games, including the Maryland game and 4 conference contests, and Fox Sports 1 for 5 Pac-12 games. TV hasn't been set for the DePaul game, and the rest of the games will be on the Pac-12 channel.

The schedule has 5 of the difficult late night, post 8 PM weeknight starts, though only 3 in Corvallis, 2 of which are especially disappointing in that they are non-conference games.

The home non-conference schedule is the most disappointing yet in a recent series of uninspiring slates, with only one regional opponent, Portland on Wednesday, November 13.

Its hard to see how recruiting, or anything else, gets any boost from a schedule of Coppin St., on a Sunday which many Beaver fans will still be returning from the football trip to Tempe the day before, SIU - Edwardsville at 8 PM on a week night, Arkansas-Pine Bluff on football championship Saturday (instead of, oh, say, the next day), Maryland Eastern Shore, Towson (again), and Quinnipiac, not only late on a Sunday night, but in conflict with travel should Oregon St. wind up in the Holiday, Alamo, or Sun Bowls.

This schedule has the chance to be the lowest attended non-conference slate in the modern era. Not a single Big Sky, Mt. West, WCC, or Big West team that might actually bring some fans with them, or be a program anyone has any idea what conference (or state) they are even from without doing a Google search.

The conference schedule is more appealing, with all the members of the Pac-10 era visiting Gill, but its hard to see how the non-conference slate will prepare the team for Pac-12 play. This problem became apparent last year, when a very uninspiring pre-season left the team struggling to finish games, losing time and again after leading with 5 minutes or less left.

In what's likely to be a critical campaigh in which Craig Robinson will need to turn around last year's losing season to avoid what could be un-survivable heat, a better conceived schedule would have been a big help.

Andy_Wooldridge@yahoo.com