The in-conference schedules for both the men’s and women’s basketball teams has been set for the 2019-2020 season. Both teams have a road-heavy out of conference schedule, with the most important games being the Horizon League face-offs that start in December.

Women’s Basketball

The Horizon League home opener takes place on Thursday, Jan. 9 for the Oakland women’s basketball team. After three road games in a row, their fourth conference match-up will be against the Green Bay Phoenix, who are perennial contenders for the best team in the conference. This kicks off a four game home stand for the Golden Grizzlies. In that 11-day span, the Milwaukee Panthers, Youngstown State University Penguins and Cleveland State University Vikings also come to the O’rena.

Last season, the Golden Grizzlies lost all eight match-ups against those four teams, but played Cleveland State and Youngstown State close. This season, the women’s basketball team will face the team they swept last year, the Detroit Mercy Titans, at home on Saturday, Feb. 1 at 3 p.m. in the Metro Series Rivalry, a game that is always hard fought.

To close out the season, the Golden Grizzlies get a two game home stand against the Wright State University Raiders and the Northern Kentucky University Norse. Last season against both of these teams, the women’s team went 0-5 including the tournament and played Wright State especially close in the first round of postseason play.

Men’s Basketball

The men’s basketball schedule opens up with a home game against rival Detroit Mercy and Horizon League First-Team point guard Antoine Davis on Saturday, Dec. 28. This game takes place on winter break, something that has seemingly been a staple of the Oakland/Detroit Mercy games for the past two seasons. After that, they host the reigning regular season and tournament champions in back-to-back games, with Wright State and Northern Kentucky coming to town.

Both the Wright State and Northern Kentucky games take place a few days before the winter semester starts, so not all students will be on campus for three of the most anticipated home games of the season, something that has been a key factor in lower crowd sizes for home games.

For the majority of January, the Golden Grizzlies will be on the road, but return for the end of the month with two games against up-and-coming Horizon League teams in University of Illinois-Chicago and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis on the second-to-last weekend of January. For most of February however, the men’s team will be at the O’rena.

In the middle of February, the Golden Grizzlies have four home games against Cleveland State, Youngstown State, Milwaukee and Green Bay. Outside of Cleveland State, most of these teams will be fighting with Oakland for spots in the Horizon League tournament in March. The home game on Sunday, Feb. 23 will be the last of the regular season, as before the tournament the men’s team will have two road games.

If the men’s or women’s team finish top four, they will host a home playoff game before the remaining rounds of the Horizon League tournament move to Indianapolis.