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The UCF men’s basketball program has given its non-conference schedule for the next two seasons a significant boost.
It was announced Thursday that the Knights will visit the Michigan Wolverines this season, with the teams completing their home-and-home series in Orlando in 2021. The specific dates for these games have not been set.
Michigan went 19-12 overall, 10-10 in the Big Ten last season under first-year head coach Juwan Howard. They should be a top-25 contender in the upcoming season.
Since the start of the 2012-13 campaign, the Wolverines have appeared in five Sweet Sixteens, three Elite Eights and two national championship games.
I would argue that this is the UCF Knights’ most attractive non-conference regular season matchup since they faced No. 3 Villanova in the championship game of the Charleston Classic on Nov. 20, 2016. Since then, UCF has squared off against a fair share of notable names — Miami, West Virginia, Missouri, Alabama, Oklahoma — but in Michigan, you’re talking about one of the 20 best men’s basketball programs of all time and one of the sport’s most important programs of the past 30-plus years.
With UCF carrying a pretty loaded 2020-21 roster featuring returnees such as Collin Smith, Darin Green Jr. and Dre Fuller Jr., Mr. Florida Basketball freshman Isaiah Adams, and five-star transfer C.J. Walker (assuming he’s eligible), this has all the makings of a very entertaining showdown between two teams that have never met each other on the court.
⚔️ VIDEO EXCLUSIVE! ⚔️
— Black & Gold Banneret (@UCF_Banneret) July 8, 2020
Mike O’Donnell (@mod4three) joins us to discuss C.J. Walker coming to #UCF and much more! https://t.co/uiHHHGsmMl
So, let’s hope it happens. Even as conferences such as the Ivy League, the Patriot League and the MEAC have chosen to cancel fall sports, no one has made a decision on what to do with winter sports such as basketball yet. That uncertainty is basically why this home-and-home series doesn’t have dates attached to it.
For now, besides the addition of Michigan, UCF’s 2020-21 non-conference slate consists of a home game versus Quinnipiac on Nov. 18 followed by two games in Connecticut as part of the Hall of Fame Tip-Off Tournament: Nov. 21 against Minnesota and Nov. 22 against either Marquette or Rhode Island.