WSU releases its 2014-15 men's basketball schedule

If your thirst for the new era of Cougar Basketball has not been satiated by Ernie Kent's twitter feed, rest assured:  You now know how far ahead to set your countdown clock.  128 days from now, your defending 11th Place Champion Washington State Cougars will be travelling to scenic El Paso, TX to take on the fighting Tim Floyd Miners to open up ErnieBall.

Looking at the schedule WSU released today, there's some to like and some to loathe.  First of all, we here at Cougcenter have been very outspoken about the absurdity of giving Gonzaga a home game in the Spokane Arena when it was WSU's turn to host as noted here and here and here.  And it appears the Cougs will have precisely three non-conference home games when the students are in town.   It also appears we will have to put our home winning streak against UCLA (!!!) on hold for a year, as the Bruins and Trojans avoid coming to Pullman this season.   Some positives I see are three straight road games to start the conference season, meaning we've probably avoided playing conference games in Spokane this year.  And as Nuss wrote yesterday, it's good to see a return of the Cougar Hardwood Classic, and you could do worse than Hawaii as an opponent.  It's also good to see we've brought back the idea of a basketball game the night before a football home game, as Idaho State comes into Beasley the night before Apple Cup. I don't own a calendar.  Seriously, how flipping hard is it to schedule a home game during a football weekend?

What do you think of the schedule?  Let us know below.