BOSTON — Coming off one of the strongest men’s basketball seasons in conference history and looking to build on its rich women’s basketball history, the America East Conference announced its 2017-18 league schedules on Tuesday morning. The entire 144-game slate will air on ESPN networks for the first time in conference history.
The men’s and women’s seasons will be made up of 72 regular-season contests each with all games taking place over an eight-week stretch in January and February as teams vie for positioning ahead of the conference tournaments. For the 13th season in a row, each team will play a 16-game, double round-robin schedule, which prioritizes television opportunities, competitive equity and reduction of missed class time for student-athletes.
Schedule Highlights
- Playoff seeding is again critical on the men’s side as the higher seed hosts each round of the America East Playoffs for the fourth-straight year. Home teams are 18-3 in this format over the past three seasons and the regular-season champion has won each of the last three conference titles resulting in the best three-year seeding stretch in the NCAA tournament for the league in 20 years.
- Positioning is just as important on the women’s side as the league champion has been seeded first or second each of the last six years and won the title on its home floor.
- The schedule begins on January 3 with seven contents (four women, three men).
- Championship game rematches highlight the schedules with Albany, winners of a conference-record six-straight women’s titles, hosting Maine on Jan. 13 and the Black Bears hosting the Great Danes to close out the regular season on Feb. 25.
- On the men’s side, Vermont, which went unbeaten against conference foes last year en route to winning its sixth America East title, hosts Albany, winner of five league crowns since 2006, on Jan. 24. The Catamounts, who beat the Great Danes, 56-53, in last year’s championship game, will visit SEFCU Arena on Feb. 8.
- One of the four men’s matchups on Feb. 8 (Maine at New Hampshire, UMBC at Binghamton, UMass Lowell at Stony Brook, Vermont at Albany) will be selected for a national television broadcast on ESPNU.
- The women’s regular season concludes on Feb. 25 while the men’s ends on Feb. 27.
The regular-season slates will decide the seeding and matchups for the America East Championships. After posting strong attendance numbers amongst peer conferences again last year, the America East Men’s Basketball Playoffs will be played at campus sites throughout for the fourth-straight year. The top eight teams in the regular-season standings will qualify and play quarterfinal contests on March 3. The semifinals will take place on March 6 with the championship game on March 10 at 11 a.m. on ESPN2.
All nine women’s programs will qualify for the 2018 America East Women’s Basketball Championship. The first-round game will be played Feb. 28 on the campus of the No. 8 seed. The winner of that game will join the other seven teams in Portland for the second-straight year, where the quarterfinals and semifinals will be played at the Cross Insurance Arena March 3-4. The women’s championship game takes place on March 9 at the highest remaining seed at 4 p.m. on ESPNU.
America East is coming off a season in which nearly half the conference’s eligible teams reached the postseason, including both of Albany’s and UMBC’s programs. On the men’s side, the league posted its best conference RPI in eight seasons, had its most non-conference wins in over a decade, had five programs win as many as 18 games and four play in the postseason, including UMBC, which reached the semifinals of the CIT. The women sent three teams to the postseason and have won four NCAA contests since 2006.
About America East: The America East provides its member schools and their athletic programs a platform upon which student-athletes can achieve both collegiate and life success through the promotion and nurturing of athletic excellence, academic achievement and leadership, on and off the field.
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