Minnesota Releases 2017-18 Schedule

Traditional power Minnesota has released its 2017-18 schedule.

Aug 18, 2017 by Kyle Bratke

Traditional power Minnesota has released its 2017-18 schedule, and like most years it will be one of the toughest in the nation. The Gophers' upcoming slate is particularly tough on the road, as Minnesota will travel to four of the top five finishers from the 2017 NCAA Championships.

Date	Opponent	Location
Nov. 5	Daktronics Open	Brookings, SD
Nov. 12	Air Force	Minneapolis, MN
Nov. 17	South Dakota State	Brookings, SD
Nov. 19	Oklahoma State	Stillwater, OK
Dec. 1-2	Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invite	Las Vegas, NV
Dec. 10	Fresno State	Minneapolis, MN
Dec. 29-30	South Beach Duals	Fort Lauderdale, FL
Jan. 7	Michigan State	Minneapolis, MN
Jan. 12	Ohio State	Columbus, Ohio
Jan. 14	Illinois	Minneapolis, MN
Jan. 21	Michigan	Minneapolis, MN
Jan. 26	Penn State	State College, PA
Jan. 28	Northwestern	Minneapolis, MN
Feb. 2	Iowa	Iowa City, Iowa
Feb. 9	Rutgers	Piscataway, NJ
Feb.11	Maryland	College Park, MD
Feb. 16	Rider	Lawrenceville, NJ
March 3-4	Big Ten Championships	East Lansing, MI
March 15-17	NCAA Tournament	Cleveland, Ohio
	*Home matches bolded*

As you can see, the Gophers will have their work cut off for them on the road. Minnesota will head to South Dakota State, Oklahoma State, Ohio State, Penn State, Iowa, and Rutgers. All of those teams finished in the top 20 at the NCAA Tournament, and all of them had multiple All-Americans.

While the Gophers do have a tough road schedule, they will also get Illinois, Michigan, and what should be a much-improved Northwestern squad at home.

Minnesota returns two All-Americans, NCAA finalist Ethan Lizak and eighth-place finisher Tommy Thorn, and seven other NCAA qualifiers to a team that finished seventh last year at the NCAA Tournament. Altogether, the Gophers return the seventh-most points from the NCAA Tournament.