Breaking Down UAB Basketball's Non-Conference Schedule
The Blazers' fall slate is starting to take shape with the additions of Vermont and High Point.
11/4/24 vs. Vermont - projected Q3 game
The Vermont Catamounts will face the Blazers in Birmingham on college basketball’s opening night, marking the programs’ first-ever meeting.
UAB hasn’t faced many challenging opening opponents over the last decade, having almost exclusively taken on teams sub-170th in KenPom. That trend has now been emphatically bucked, with mid-major powerhouses visiting Bartow in each of the last two seasons.
UVM, an America East juggernaut, has tallied 18 consecutive winning seasons and is coming off of a 28-win campaign that ended in an NCAA Tournament loss to Duke. The Catamounts return five of the top seven contributors from that team, including dominant rim defender Ileri Ayo-Faleye and all-conference guards Shamir Bogues and TJ Long. Vermont also added talented Howard transfer Shy Odom, making it exceedingly likely they’ll again be the class of the AE.
The Catamounts were KenPom’s 104th-ranked team last season, and early BartTorvik projections expect Vermont to repeat that performance. The revamped Blazer roster will be tested from the season’s opening whistle.
11/7/24 vs. Southern Miss - projected Q4 game
Three days later, UAB will host Southern Miss in a rematch of a 2023 game the Golden Eagles won in excruciating fashion.
BartTorvik pegs the Blazers as an early 15.5-point favorite and gives UAB a 91% chance to win.
Perhaps the country’s most mercurial program over the last three seasons, USM suffering through a 7-26 campaign in 2022, won the Sun Belt in 2023, and cratered to 243rd in KenPom last year. They return enigmatic guard Andre Curbelo, who missed much of 2023 with eligibility and injury issues, but otherwise lose nearly all of the best players from a team that was an also-ran in a weak Sun Belt. The Golden Eagles brought in a respectable transfer class, but should again hover around mediocrity.
Southern Miss handed UAB their sole non-conference Q4 loss last season and will be an equally dangerous landmine to dodge in 2024.
11/10/24 vs. SELA - projected Q4 game
UAB will face another Q4 opponent on Sunday, November 10th, hosting a buy game against Southeastern Louisiana.
BartTorvik pegs the Blazers as an early 17.7-point favorite and gives UAB a 94% chance to win.
SELA will likely be worse than Southern Miss — they finished 5th in a terrible Southland last season while recording a KenPom ranking of 306th. The Lions’ incoming transfer class is solid, but UAB must win this game.
11/15/24 at High Point - projected Q2 game
The recently-announced home-and-home between UAB and High Point will provide the Blazers another opportunity to go face-to-face with a conference champion.
Loaded with NIL money and talent, the Panthers are positioned to be the nation’s strongest low-major for the foreseeable future. They fielded one of the best teams in Big South history last season, putting three players on the all-conference first team and finishing in the KenPom top 115.
After falling to Longwood in the conference finals, High Point reloaded with a stellar transfer class that includes East Carolina’s Bobby Pettiford, formerly a high four-star recruit. The Panthers also brought back star guard Kezza Giffa, fringe NBA prospect Kimani Hamilton, and monstrous center Juslin Bodo Bodo.
The High Point game is currently the gem of the Blazers’ non-conference schedule: it’s a true road game, so it could become a Q1 matchup if the Panthers rise high enough in the NET.
11/22/24 through 11/25/24 at Paradise Jam
BartTorvik projects the Paradise Jam field as follows:
Kansas State - Q1
McNeese - Q2
George Washington - Q3
Liberty - Q3
Louisiana - Q3
Illinois State - Q3
Longwood - Q4
The Blazers open the MTE against Longwood, a team that made the NCAA Tournament last season but loses nearly all of their production. The Lancers brought in Tennessee transfer DJ Jefferson and Drake transfer Colby Garland, and it’s hard to predict whether they’ll be a Q3 opponent or a Q4 opponent.
Hypothetical late-round matchups against Kansas State and McNeese, almost guaranteed to be Q1 and Q2 games, respectively, would boost UAB’s resume greatly.
12/1/24 vs. MTSU - projected Q4 game
12/15/24 vs. Arkansas St. - projected Q3 game
?/?/24 at Drake - projected Q2 game
Upon returning from the Virgin Islands, UAB will play out the second legs of three home-and-home deals they signed last summer.
First up will be Middle Tennessee; unfortunately for the Blazers, the Blue Raiders are a much less appealing opponent than they were a year ago. After a fantastic 2022 and a solid 2023, MTSU was expected to assume the Conference USA throne after the departures of UAB and FAU, but Nick McDevitt’s group collapsed to a nightmarish 282nd-place KenPom finish last season.
There’s a modicum of hope in Murfreesboro, and the Blue Raiders will probably be better than Southern Miss and SELA — MTSU returns star guard Jestin Porter and brings in a big transfer class — but this will be a Q4 matchup barring a major surprise.
BartTorvik pegs the Blazers as an early 12.7-point favorite and gives UAB an 88% chance to win.
Arkansas State, who throttled UAB in Jonesboro last season, is a program on the opposite trajectory. The Red Wolves enjoyed one of their best campaigns of the century in 2023 and brought in several down transfers to bolster a roster that returns most of its best players. A-State will be one of the Blazers’ most difficult non-conference challenges and are projected by some computer systems to be just as good as Vermont.
UAB’s return game at Drake expected to be played this season, although no date is yet confirmed. The Bulldogs were decimated by the transfer portal and the departure of coach Darian DeVries over the offseason, but brought in the talented duo of Kael Combs and Cam Manyawu from Wyoming and imported several players from DII Northwest Missouri State, the former home of new coach Ben McCollum.
BartTorvik rates Drake highly and pegs the game as a complete tossup.
The Blazers have a maximum of three non-conference games left to announce. One of them will likely be filled by a team like Rhodes or Montevallo; UAB has played a non-Division 1 game in every season since 2012.