The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men’s basketball program released its entire 2026-27 schedule Wednesday.
Here are a few highlights from the 32-game slate.
1. Bigger, earlier league schedule: The addition of Tennessee Tech pushes the Southern Conference to 11 men’s basketball programs and the league schedule from 18 games to 20, with each team still playing a home-and-away series with every league member this season. UTC gets the Golden Eagles for the first time on Jan. 18 at McKenzie Arena and closes the regular season Feb. 27 against them in Cookeville.
League play also starts earlier. The Mocs host Mercer on Dec. 19 and Samford on Dec. 22, the first time UTC has played a conference game before Christmas since Dec. 1, 2012 — a 55-81 loss to Davidson, which has since left the league. There are 18 home games in all for UTC.
2. Two familiar buildings in the first week: The Mocs open Nov. 2 at Louisville, back inside the KFC Yum! Center where they beat the Cardinals 81-71 in 2023 behind 25 points from Honor Huff for the program’s first road win over an Atlantic Coast Conference team in 19 tries. Louisville fired coach Kenny Payne after that season and hired Pat Kelsey, so little carries over but the building. Three days later comes a trip to Big Ten member Penn State, where UTC coach Dan Earl played and where athletic director Mark Wharton worked before coming to Chattanooga in 2017.