Kansas State nonconference basketball schedule soft at home, challenging elsewhere

Kansas State will play several challenging nonconference basketball games next season, but none of them will be played at Bramlage Coliseum.

The Wildcats announced the nonconference portion of their schedule Thursday. The highlights include road games against Saint Louis and Tennessee, as well as neutral-court games against Washington State and Colorado State. K-State will also take part in the Barclays Center Classic, a Thanksgiving week tournament in Brooklyn that also includes Maryland, Boston College and Richmond.

That gives Bruce Weber’s team six potentially taxing games before the start of Big 12 play.

K-State will play its other seven nonconference games at home against softer competition. The Wildcats’ first seven games at Bramlage Coliseum will come against Western Illinois, Omaha, Hampton, Robert Morris, Green Bay, Prairie View A&M and Gardner-Webb. K-State should be heavily favored to win each of those games, though Green Bay is coming off a NCAA Tournament appearance.

Its first true home test won’t come until conference play.

“We play in one of the most competitive leagues in the country, so we wanted to be deliberate in how we built the nonconference schedule with a mix of teams to challenge our players,” Weber said. “We have a blend of both experience and youth coming back and we feel this schedule has good balance and will provide a great test for us.”

K-State will open the season with four straight home games, starting on Nov. 11 against Western Illinois, Omaha, Hampton and Robert Morris. It will then depart for a pair of games at the Barclays Center Classic starting on Nov. 25. The tournament will announce its semifinal matchups at a later time.

Green Bay will then visit Bramlage Coliseum on Nov. 30 before K-State heads to Saint Louis for its first road game on Dec. 3. The game is the return of a home-and-home series between the two schools. It will give senior forward D.J. Johnson, a St. Louis native, the opportunity to play in front of family.

Up next is a home game against Prairie View A&M on Dec. 6. Then K-State plays Washington State at Kansas City’s Sprint Center on Dec. 10. That game is the beginning of a neutral-court series between the schools. K-State will play Washington State in Spokane, Wash. in 2017.

K-State will play its second neutral-court game of the season against Colorado State at Denver’s Pepsi Center on Dec. 17. The Wildcats defeated the Rams a year ago at Intrust Bank Arena.

The nonconference schedule comes to an end with a home game against Gardner-Webb on Dec. 21 and then a road game against Tennessee on Jan. 28 in the Big 12/SEC Challenge.

This story was originally published June 2, 2016 at 11:54 AM with the headline "Kansas State nonconference basketball schedule soft at home, challenging elsewhere."