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SALT LAKE CITY — The schedule is set and the 2021-22 men's basketball season is ready to go … in a couple months.
Wednesday morning, the Pac-12 released the full conference schedule for the upcoming season, in addition to the broadcast partners that will televise the games.
It's a schedule for the Runnin' Utes that features only 12 nonconference games — one short of the allotted amount available to teams — and the regular 20-game conference slate.
In total, there are 19 games featured on the Pac-12 Network, including the season opener against Abilene Christian on Nov. 9, three games on FS1 and three games on either ESPNU or ESPN2. An additional five games do not have a broadcast partner yet — four in the nonconference schedule and one during the conference play. One conference game also does not have a playing date yet.
The nonconference slate came together in the last minute with Smith being hired earlier in the year. Only one game was scheduled when he was hired. As a result, the out-of-conference schedule was the best the program could cobble together in the short time period, Smith said.
"Do I love our schedule? I can't sit there and say I absolutely love it," Smith said, speaking specifically about the nonconference schedule. "It's the first time in my career … first time as a head coach we will not be playing our full complement of games.
"When you have 11 nonconference games and it's your first year in a new program, it's hard to replicate those kind of experiences, so you want to play your full complement," he added. "You're missing 8% of your nonconference games or whatever it is — I'm not a math major — but I still think we have a good blend, we've got a lot of home games. I like our MTE in the Sunshine Slam. I think that'll be a good test."
Utah, which opened up training camp for the season on Tuesday, opens up the season at the Huntsman Center on Nov. 9 against a good Abilene Christian program that has Smith's full attention for his first game as Utah's head coach.
"The first game of the year against Abilene Christian, they won 20-something games last year. Got to the — beat Texas in the first round the NCAA tournament — and they are feisty and tenacious, and we're going to find out some things right away."
A full list of the 2021-22 schedule is below. If you can't see the schedule, click here.
