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FAYETTEVILLE — It took much longer than normal, but Arkansas finally has its men’s basketball schedule for the 2020-21 season.
The Razorbacks’ non-conference and conference games were announced on back-to-back days this week, completing the 27-game slate less than three weeks before their Nov. 25 opener.
Several matchups previously scheduled had to be scrapped when the season was pushed back a couple of weeks and shortened from a maximum of 31 to 27 regular-season games in response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
On top of that, finding nine non-conference games was even more difficult for Director of Operations - and scheduling ace - Anthony Ruta because of other things he, head coach Eric Musselman and Arkansas’ administration had to consider.
“I think the first thing since we met as a staff was how do we limit our travel, No. 1,” Musselman said. “How do we play home games with the pandemic and how do we avoid getting on planes as much as possible and limit our travel and so on and so forth.”
The result was scheduling all but two non-conference games to be played at Bud Walton Arena.